Jana Richman Utah Writer

News and Reviews

Upcoming Events:

Writing! Writing! Writing!

Recent Past Events:

  • Writing Residency: Playa, Summer Lake, Oregon, September 15 through October 24, 2014
  • Insights to Conservation Book Club, May 2014
  • Utah Lit Book Launch with book discussion of The Ordinary Truth, February 2014
  • Utah Humanities Book Festival Panel: Quiet Voices: Literature and Landscape, September 28, 2:30 p.m. Salt Lake City downtown library conference rooms A & B.Workshop: Grand Teton National Park Writers in the Park, September 14, Jackson Hole
  • Book groups in Salt Lake City, May 14 and May 16. (To have Jana visit your book group, go to “contact” link.)
  • Women Write the West tour: March 4-7, Maria’s Bookshop, Townie Books, Between the Covers Bookstore, Paonia Library
  • Sam Weller Book Works, writer’s panel, January 2
  • Dolly’s Bookstore book signing, January 2
  • Park City Radio interview, January 31
  • Three nights of book discussion with Roz Reads, Salt Lake City, January 28, 29, 30.
  • Book Celebration: December 15, Escalante Outfitters, Escalante, Utah
  • The Ordinary Truth book launch! Reading and signing at The King’s English, Salt Lake City, November 14, 7 p.m.
  • Writers of the Purple Sage, Kanab, Utah, October 19 and 20
  • Book Signing: Mountain and Plains Independent Booksellers Association Trade Show, September 20 and 21.

Salt Lake City Weekly Artys Reader’s Choice Awards:

Best Fiction Book
Jana Richman, The Ordinary Truth

In her 2008 debut novel, The Last Cowgirl, Jana Richman drew from her history as a daughter of the West for a complex portrait of people pulled between the city and the country, and between their relationships and their psychological baggage. She followed it up with another terrific story, The Ordinary Truth, this one following the interactions between a grandmother and granddaughter freighted by years of family estrangement. And once again, she struck a beautiful balance between developing rich, prickly characters and exploring the landscape and the backgrounds that shape them into who they are.

 

Tom Williams and Jana talk about the true story behind “The Ordinary Truth” on Utah Public Radio’s Access Utah.

Read an interview with Jana about the writing process on WritingStrides.

The Ordinary Truth receives starred review from Booklist

Booklist reviewer, Donna Seaman, awarded The Ordinary Truth a starred review and called it a “riveting, wise, and compassionate twenty-first-century western. Read the review click here.

High Country News review of The Ordinary Truth:

“. . . this tale of estrangement encapsulates the discordant New West. The writing, refreshingly, subverts some clichés; Kate scoffs at herself for envisioning her late father as a weathered cowboy riding off into the sunset. Though the setting is modern, the subject is timeless: loyalty to family and to the land — according to Nell, the only two things that really matter in the world. And in Nell’s assessment of this ordinary truth: ‘A person ought never to have to choose between those two things.'”

The Little House We Dance In review of The Ordinary Truth.

The story behind The Ordinary Truth: A conversation with Jana Richman click here.

The Last Cowgirl wins the 2009 Willa Award for Contemporary Fiction!

Jana Richman’s novel, The Last Cowgirl, was awarded the 2009 Willa Award named in honor of Pulitzer Prize winner Willa Cather. The Willa Award is given annually for outstanding literature featuring women’s stories set in the West. The winner is chosen by a distinguished panel of twenty-one professional librarians.

Read interviews with Jana Richman:

Read reviews of The Last Cowgirl:

Read reviews of Riding in the Shadows of Saints: