Ann Weisgarber lives in Sugar Land, Texas, and is a graduate of Wright State University and the University of Houston. While on a camping vacation at the Badlands National Park in South Dakota, Ann visited a sod dugout. The floors were dirt, and in the kitchen a path had been worn around the cookstove. Someone, Ann realized, had worked at the cookstove day after day. On that same vacation, she stopped at a small museum and saw a photograph of an unnamed woman sitting in front of her dugout. The woman was alone, and she was an African-American. Inspired by this woman and by the dirt path around the cookstove, Ann began to write The Personal History of Rachel DuPree.
Granted a writing residency by the National Park Service, Ann spent four weeks living in a ranger's cabin at the Badlands National Park. She visited Pine Ridge Reservation, Ft. Robinson in Nebraska, the Homestake Mine in Lead, and the towns of Interior and Scenic, all locations that make appearances in the story. The Personal History of Rachel DuPree was nominated for both the Orange Prize and the Orange Award for New Writers in England. In the U.S. it won the Steven Turner Award for Best Work of First Fiction and the Langum Prize for American Historical Fiction.
Visit Ann's website at www.annweisgarber.com.
