Writers on the Range is a book by seventeen westerners about the American West. It is a story of place, mostly good but sometimes bad, a celebration of community, or at least its potential, and a tribute to the men and women, neither saints nor devils, who are the heart and soul of this land of desert, prairie, and forested mountain. Yet it is also much more. It is the melding of diverse western minds, backgrounds and beliefsranchers and one-time ranchwives, poets and policy tinkerers, essayists and hunters, journalists and political theorists, and community organizers and urban refugees - into a fierce resolve to stake claim and take a stand for a land that is loved in common.