S. M. Hulse received her MFA from the University of Oregon and was a fiction fellow at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her stories have appeared in Willow Springs, Witness, and Salamander. A horsewoman and fiddler, she has spent time in Washington, Montana, Idaho, and Oregon.Hulse's new novel is Black River:
From a Q & A at her website:
Where did you get the idea for Black River?The Page 69 Test: Black River.
While I was living in Montana, I read about a riot that had taken place at the state prison in the 1950s. While that riot bears little resemblance to the one that shapes so much of Black River, I found myself wondering how a single event like that might reverberate through time and space, affecting not only an individual like Wes Carver, but also his relationships with his family, friends, community, and even God. It really took off from there.
Why did you choose to set Black River in a fictional town?
The town of Black River is inspired in part by several real places, but it isn’t simply a real town with a different name, and you won’t find anywhere exactly like it in Montana. Creating a fictional community left me free to shape the town and its history in whatever ways would best help me tell the story of Wes Carver and the other characters in Black River. For example, there is a real Old Montana Prison, and the prison in Black River has a few things in common with it; however, the real riot that took place there in the 1950s shares only one or two details with the fictional 1992 riot that appears in the novel. As a writer, I found it...[read on]
Writers Read: S. M. Hulse.
My Book, The Movie: Black River.
--Marshal Zeringue