This literary history focuses on five women writers of the American Southwest-Mary Austin, Willa Cather, Laura Adams Armer, Peggy Pond Church and Alice Marriott-whose prose and verse appeared from around 1900 through the 1980s. All of them came from or lived and worked in, California, Arizona, New Mexico and Oklahoma. Together, they present a portrait of writing women and their responses to the Southwest. The book situates them in their time and place and examines their interactions with landscapes, people, art and history as they knew and depicted them. Their interest in fine arts and native arts and crafts is stressed, as well as their concern for the environment.