“This is one of those special novels—a piece of working magic, warm, funny, and sane.”—Thomas Pynchon The whooping crane rustlers are girls. Young girls. Cowgirls, as a matter of fact, all “bursting with dimples and hormones”—and the FBI has never seen anything quite like them. Yet their rebellion at the Rubber Rose Ranch is almost overshadowed by the arrival of the legendary Sissy Hankshaw, a white-trash goddess literally born to hitchhike, and the freest female of them all. Freedom, its prizes and its prices, is a major theme of Tom Robbins’s classic tale of eccentric adventure. As his robust characters attempt to turn the tables on fate, the reader is drawn along on a tragicomic joyride across the badlands of sexuality, wild rivers of language, and the frontiers of the mind.

American lore has slighted the cowgirl, although at least one can still be found in nearly every ranching community. Like her male counterpart, she rides and ropes, understands land and stock, and confronts the elements. The writer and photographer Teresa Jordan traveled sixty thousand miles in the American West, talking with more than a hundred authentic cowgirls running ranches and performing in rodeos. The result is a fascinating book that also situates the cowgirl in history and literature. A new preface and updated bibliography have been added to this Bison Book edition.

Stoeckleins inspiring photographs reveal the beauty and confidence the American cowgirl This book is a tribute to the women of the West a celebration of their spirit and a testimonial to the boundless freedom in which they live their lives

$7.95 gatefold paper * 1-58685-264-7 * January 7 x 7 in, 32 pp, 28 Color Photographs, Rights: W, Western "My heroes have always been cowgirls." -Willy Nelson "This stuff is bodacious, righteous, enduring art." -Linda Ellerbee This timeless collection of hand-tinted art by internationally recognized painter and sculptor Bob Wade showcases the amazing women who performed dangerous feats in rodeos, Wild West shows, and Hollywood movies and TV, stunning audiences all over the world. The faces of the women in this collection poignantly convey the freedom, equality, and sheer joy they experienced long before the modern women's movement came along. Bob Wade's Cowgirls entertains and informs, revealing the truth about the real cowgirls who ran wild and free in the Old West. Bob Wade's art has been commissioned for public and private collections around the world. For more than twenty five years, Wade has experimented with large-scale photography and color enhancement of black-and-white vintage photos. His work is part of the permanent collection of the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame. Wade is a staff artist for Cowboys and Indians magazine, and lives in Austin, Texas.

In Every Cowgirl Needs a Horse, Nellie Sue does everything with a western flair. Whether it is cleaning up the animal sty (picking up her stuffed animals) or rounding up cattle (getting the neighborhood kids together for her birthday party), she does it like a true cowgirl. All she really needs is a horse. So when Dad announces at her birthday party, “I got a horse right here for you,” Nellie Sue is excited. But when her horse turns out to be her first bicycle, it will take an imagination as big as Texas to help save the day. Activities for Every Cowgirl Needs a Horse by Rebecca Janni

In this first substantial study of rodeo women, Mary Lou Lecompte surveys the early rodeo cowgirls' achievements as professional athletes, the near demise of women's rodeo events during World War II, and the phenomenal success of the Women's Professional Rodeo Association in regaining lost ground for rodeo cowgirls. Recalling an extraordinary chapter in women's history as well as the history of American sport, Cowgirls of the Rodeo contributes to a deeper understanding of the challenges facing women in the American West and in American sport.

Updated and revised (first edition, 1977) history of the women of the West, telling of their contributions and describing how they broke convention by ranching, trail-driving, and rodeoing. Extensive bibliography. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR