Ivan Doig
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Ivan Doig (born on June 27, 1939) is a US-American novelist.
He was born in White Sulphur Springs, Montana to a family of homesteaders and ranch hands. After the death of his mother on his sixth birthday, he was raised by his father Charles "Charlie" Doig and his grandmother Elizabeth "Bessie" Ringer. After several stints on ranches, they moved to Dupuyer, Pondera County, Montana in the north to heard sheep close to the Rocky Mountain front.
After his graduation from Valier high school, he attended Northwestern University, where he received a Bachelor's and a Master's degree in journalism. He later earned a Ph.D. in American history at the University of Washington, writing his dissertation about John J. McGilvra (1827-1903). He now lives with his wife Carol Muller, a university professor of English, in Seattle, Washington.
Before Ivan Doig became a novelist, he worked as a free-lancer writing for newspapers, magazines and institutions like the United States Forest Service.
Much of his fiction is set in the Montana country of his youth. As the western landscape and people play an important role in his fiction, he has been hailed as the new dean of western literature, a worthy successor to Wallace Stegner.
His work includes the following historical novels and autobiographical books:
- 1979 - This House of Sky: Landscapes of a Western Mind (National Book Award nominee)
- 1980 - Winter Brothers: A Season at the Edge of America
- 1982 - The Sea Runners
- 1984 - English Creek +
- 1987 - Dancing at the Rascal Fair +
- 1990 - Ride With Me, Mariah Montana +
- 1993 - Heart Earth
- 1996 - Bucking the Sun: A Novel
- 1999 - Mountain Time: A Novel
- 2003 - Prairie Nocturne: A Novel
- 2006 - The Whistling Season: A Novel
+ These three novels form the so-called Montana trilogy, covering the first centennial of Montana's statehood from 1889 to 1989.
