CMarie Fuhrman (credit: Dean Davis)

CMarie Fuhrman was raised in Loveland, Colorado, has lived throughout the Mountain West, and now lives in an A-frame cabin in McCall, ID. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from The University of Idaho, Boise (2019). From 2021-2023 she was the Idaho Writer in Residence.  She has published a chapbook of poems, Camped Beneath the Dam; and co-edited notable anthologies Cascadia Field Guide: Art, Ecology, Poetry (2023) and Native Voices: Indigenous Poetry, Craft, and Conversations (2019). Fuhrman is the Associate Director of the MFA Creative Writing Program at Western Colorado University. Her memoir Salmon Weather: Essays from a Land of No Return debuts from Columbus State University Press on March 15.

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Shelli Rottschafer: CMarie, thank you for this interview and your gathering of ideas on the page. In Salmon Weather, you mention your childhood in Loveland, Colorado. You explain how you would venture out in the dark—when you were supposed to be in your bed—to sleep under the stars. Often your dad would join you, to tell stories as you looked into the night sky. Is this what grounded you in your connection to the earth and your love of storytelling? 

Fuhrman at the Fort Collins Festival of Books, Feb. 14, 2025 (credit: Daniel Combs)

 CMarie Fuhrman: Thank you for this question, Shelli. I can’t say that there was any one moment or even series of moments that grounded me or brought the storyteller out in me. I could not have known then (and perhaps I don’t even know now) what was inspiring what. Maybe there are notions we are born with. There was never a before nature nor a moment when I chose to tell story. Both remain as authentic and close to me as my hazel eyes or dark brown hair. Maybe it’s just in the marrow? 

 SR: You have said that you always were a writer, but you did not turn to that professionally until later in life. For those of us who also aspire to be writers, what was that leap into the literary world?

CMF: I still stumble when I think of writing as a profession. It’s my art. And I have always practiced it. What I wanted was to learn how to make art for others in a way that I was doing on a small scale my whole life, but wanted to do more intentionally. The leap was applying for the MFA at the University of Idaho. My teachers there, particularly Kim Barnes, taught me the craft I was missing. They introduced me to the writer’s life. They gave me the confidence to share my work with a larger audience. I try to pay that gift forward in academia and the other places I teach, but also in giving my readers and listeners well-crafted art that I hope enriches their experience of living. 

Co-edited by CMarie Fuhrman

SR:  Your writing often strings together beautiful phrases. One in particular that strikes me is “Of Buckskin and Blue.” What inspires you to gather words in this way? 

CMF: My first discipline is poetry. It was the first in my MFA (prior to adding nonfiction) and it is my first practice in the morning. Poetry, for me, is what brings language to life.  

SR:  Do you consider Colorado “home?”  How do you define home or do people have a variety of homes? 

CMF: I think that I carry home within myself. I am home where I grew on Lela Lane with my mom and sister. I am home when I drive the steep incline to where I live in Idaho. I am home on the ground near Phoebe Creek. I am home leaning against the warm, red rock in southwestern Utah. I am home in the company of certain friends. In the back of the animal shelter thrift store where I volunteer. Home in my body. In my memories. And no matter the location, when I am surrounded by my animal family and friends and loves, I am home.  

SR: Your writing has addressed MMIWG: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, and how women often feel trapped. For those who may not know about this crisis, can you explain? 

Co-edited by CMarie Fuhrman

CMF: My essay, “Coyote Story,” speaks to my experience of this. So does my poem, “Land Acknowledgement,” and there are countless others writing and postings about it, and [filmmakers] making movies about the crisis effecting Indigenous women and girls. I would point readers to those resources.

SR: Your literary life has an exploratory path. You teach writing workshops such as the Fishtrap Outpost upon the Zumwalt Prairie in Oregon. You are Director of the Elk River Writing Retreat in Pray, Montana. You have co-led a Writing X Writers retreat with Pam Houston in Stowe, Vermont at the Von Trapp Family Lodge. How do these short-term but long lasting workshops inspire creatives? 

CMF: Sometimes we need a nudge. Sometimes a community. Sometimes a reminder or permission or time and space. All of these opportunities offer this to writers. To expand ourselves and our knowing is part of the writer’s life by introducing us to other possibilities or reintroducing us to ourselves. They give advice and tools and offer community. 

SR: What are you currently working on and how might you incorporate that into a writing workshop or classroom?

CMF: Anything I may have been working on before January 20 is not what I’m currently working on. What is happening now is not a sustainable practice for our land, our natural world, nor ourselves. If your call is to write, then “get off the pot.” Be brave with your pen. Say what needs to be said NOW. Tell the truth and tell it quickly.

SR: Is there another Western-living woman author to whom you would like to give a shout out? 

CMF: I will always encourage those everywhere to seek out the work of Linda Hogan. She is one of my greatest influences, followed very closely by Camille Dungy. Both women use their voices and live their lives in a way that I aspire to. 

SR: To close, what would you like Rocky Mountain Readers to know? 

CMF: I think that our readers should remember that they matter. That their voices matter. That there is room at the table for anyone who wants to write and there is a writer for every reader. Mostly they should know that it is ok to be exactly who they are … and where they are. Thank you for offering these wonderful questions. I always enjoy thinking about my “why of writing,” even as it might change as I grow and change.