Resounds

Anne Holub’s debut chapbook, 27 Threats to Everyday Life, explores fears—the big and the small—that pose a threat to our survival. In her collection of poems, Holub takes a poet’s microscope to experiences that humanity could add to its list of reasons not to get out of bed in the morning, while also providing inspiration on the other side to still wake up, grab a cup of coffee, and carry on.

28-year-old Meg Gildehaus was born in Red Lodge, Montana. Meg’s family moved to Idaho when she was six years old but returned after one year and has lived in Red Lodge ever since. She was awarded the prestigious Cook Scholarship, which each year sends one Montana high school student to St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire.

Parker Brown is multi-instrumentalist and songwriter specializing in double bass, electric bass, and guitar. He’s a touring musician who maintains a private studio in Billings.

Cara Chamberlain is a conservationist and advocate of animals of all kinds. In 2023, her latest collection of poems, To Gaze Upon Their Loveliness, was released by Finishing Line Press in Kentucky. The collection is full of poetic love letters, not to the natural world, but from the natural world. Chamberlain has long written about her love of animals and the natural world in her poetry, and she is also the author of Hidden Things, The Divine Botany, and Lament of the Antichrist in a Secular World and Other Poems.

Originally from Billings, Montana, Giano Cromley is the author of the young adult novels The Prince of Infinite Space and The Last Good Halloween, as well as the short story collection What We Build Upon the Ruins.

Filmmaker and documentarian Kirk LeClaire grew up in Billings at a pivotal time for music. In 2022, he released two albums contrasting very different musical scenes in Montana: bar bands of the 1970s and early punk, post punk, new wave and hardcore bands.

In a world filled with data and discard, Jane Waggoner Deschner has built a shrine to humanity. The Billings-based artist is a collector of moments, and she shares those experiences through discarded family photographs and phrases from obituaries. "They are about the life that someone lived,” she said during a discussion in early December with YPR at the Yellowstone Art Museum, where Deschner’s immersive solo exhibition, Remember Me, is on display.

John Zirkle is the Executive Director and Artistic Director of The Warren Miller Performing Arts Center (WMPAC) in Big Sky, Montana. The Center opened its doors in March 2013 through a collaborative effort of the Big Sky Community, Friends of Big Sky Education, and the Big Sky School District.

Ten years in the making, On a Benediction of Wind is a sparse yet lyrical work, in which poems and images become reflections of one another. With its emphasis on birds, the innate holiness of nature, and experiences shared by an unnamed couple, the book is an invitation to leave the distractions of the modern world behind—and listen once again to "the confessions of snow" and "the breathing of stones.”

Jamie Ford is the great-grandson of Nevada mining pioneer, Min Chung, who emigrated from Hoiping, China to San Francisco in 1865, where he adopted the western name “Ford,” consequently confusing countless generations.