Chat with Ana Maria at her signing 3-5, or enjoy her reading and presentation at Leavenworth Library at 6:30 PM Oct 9.

The award-winning author of five books, twice a finalist for the Washington State Book Award, Ana Maria Spagna lives in Stehekin, WA. Her latest book, Reclaimers, is an empowering tale of ordinary people doing extraordinary work.

“These stories restore our faith in sacred land, and in ourselves,” says Kim Stafford.

For most of the past century, Humbug Valley, a forest-hemmed meadow sacred to the Mountain Maidu tribe, was in the grip of a utility company. Washington’s White Salmon River was saddled with a fish-obstructing, inefficient dam, and the Timbisha Shoshone Homeland was unacknowledged within the boundaries of Death Valley National Park.

Until people decided to reclaim them.

In Reclaimers, Ana Maria Spagna drives an aging Buick up and down the long strip of West Coast mountain ranges-the Panamints, the Sierras, the Cascades-and alongside rivers to meet the people, many of them wise women, who persevered for decades with little hope of success to make changes happen. In uncovering their heroic stories, Spagna seeks a way for herself, and for all of us, to take back and to make right in a time of unsettling ecological change.

“the urge for reclamation is a deep human need…This big idea is told in a humble way, through the stories of ordinary people who are doing extraordinary work, with an especially important focus on the work of indigenous peoples” -- Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass

If you live in the west, you will want to read this book. Bring a spare fan belt."
-Kathleen Alcalá , author of The Desert Remembers My Name