This book contains over 200 writings about Nevada with selections from Native American tales to contemporary writings on urban experience and environmental concerns.Nevada is a state of paradox and contradiction - home to one of the fastest-growing cities in the nation and to isolated ranches scattered across a sparsely populated backcountry, a place where the lust for sudden wealth has prompted both riotous mining booms and glittering casinos, and where forbidding atomic test sites coexist with alluring tourist meccas. There is remarkable natural diversity here as well, from snow-covered mountains to parched deserts, and an equally diverse population. Nevada's variety and distinctiveness have inspired writers from the beginning of Euro-American contact with the region, and its literary wealth includes the rich oral traditions of its Native American peoples.Literary Nevada is the first comprehensive literary anthology of Nevada. It contains over 200 selections ranging from traditional Native American tales, to explorer and emigrant accounts, to writings from the Comstock Lode and other mining boomtowns, all the way up to the present. There is work by well-known Nevada writers like Mark Twain and Robert Laxalt, by established and emerging writers from all parts of the state, and by some nonresident authors whose work illuminates important facets of the Nevada experience.The book includes sections on cowboy poetry, wild Nevada, travel writing, and nuclear Nevada; narratives about rural life and life in Las Vegas and Reno; poetry and fiction from the state's best contemporary writers; and accounts of the special beauty of Nevada's mountains and deserts. Editor Cheryll Glotfelty provides informative and insightful introductions to each section and author.The selections in Literary Nevada will engage and delight readers while revealing the complex and exciting diversity of the state's history, people, and life.