Gretel Ehrlich
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Campbell County High School, Gillette, Wyoming
I. Personal and Professional Life
Gretel Ehrlich was born in California. She went to Bennington College, UCLA Film School, and the New School for Social Research. She has sharp eyes and sense of humor. Ehrlich moved to Wyoming as a documentary filmmaker. She started writing full time in 1979. Ehrlich lives with her husband on a ranch in Shell, Wyoming, which is in north central Wyoming.
In August 1991 on her ranch in Wyoming, Ehrlich went for a walk with her dog. She had a vision. When she woke up, she was lying at a weird angle in a pool of blood. Her heart kept beating faster and faster. She couldn't talk and move her legs and right arm. She had been struck by lightning. She felt like the ground was rolling underneath her, but she got to her house in one piece. She had to pick up her legs with her good arm to move. Ehrlich picked up the phone and dialed 911, and screamed once, then passed out. After her experience, Ehrlich wrote a book called A Match to the Heart.
Gretel Ehrlich's pieces have appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic Harper's, and the New Age Journal. She also has poetry and a story collection, City Tales and Wyoming Stories. Ehrlich has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Wyoming Council for the Arts. People's thoughts about her writings:
"In her writings you can tell that her world is a isolation and wonder, of pain and grace. That gives her a vivid imagination." (quote from a critic).
Some of her stories are about cowboys, hermits, ranchers, changing seasons, and customs. In other books of hers it talks about how western grazing land is a metaphor for the cleansing and healing qualities of space. She also puts harmony into what she writes.
II. Literary Works
To Touch the Water
Islands, The Universe, Home
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
A Match To the Heart
Heart Mountain
The Solace of Open Spaces
Wyoming Stories
City Tales
III. Works Cited
Brown, Rosellen. A Bolt from the Blue, Volume XII, Women's Review of Books, 1 Nov. 1994, pp7-8
Ehrlich, Gretel. Islands, The Universe, Home
Ehrlich, Gretel. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Ehrlich, Gretel. Wyoming Stories
Johnston, Tracy. Struck by Lightning (near-death experiences), Harper's Bazaar, 1 Jun 1994, pp 146(4).
This essay was submitted by a student of Nathel Coca, a teacher at Campbell County High School in Gillette, Wyoming.