William Kittredge


William Kittredge is an American writer from Oregon, United States, who has then been mostly living in Missoula, Montana.

Biography

He was born in 1932 in Portland, Oregon, and grew up on a ranch in Southeastern Oregon's Warner Valley in Lake County where he attended school in Adel, Oregon, and later would attend high school in California and Oregon. He earned his undergraduate degree in agriculture from Oregon State University. At age 35, he retired from ranching and enrolled at the Iowa Writers' Workshop of the University of Iowa, where he completed his M.F.A.
Kittredge's father Oscar was friends with leadership in the Republican Party in Oregon. Oscar was to be picked up by Oregon Governor Earl Snell for a hunting trip in October 1947 when the plane Snell and Oregon Secretary of State Robert Farrell, among others, crashed en route, killing all four on board.
He became a major voice with his 1987 collection of essays, Owning It All, about the modern West. He followed with . His book The Nature of Generosity holds forth on the value of what he terms extreme long loop altruism, elaborating with refreshing insights and wisdom on sustainability, civilization, and its relationship to culture, history, and human nature. He was also co-producer of the movie, A River Runs Through It.
He has received numerous awards including a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford and Writing Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. With Annick Smith, he edited The Last Best Place: A Montana Anthology.
William Kittredge also published essays and articles in many magazines, including Atlantic, Harper's, Esquire, Time, Newsweek, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, mostly about the West.
He taught creative writing at University of Montana in Missoula, MT. for 30 years, and received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Montana Book Festival in September 2017.

Works authored