Contest open to area high schools

The Mary Austin Annual Prize for Writing is organized by Altrusa International of the Eastern Sierra.

Each year high school sophomores through seniors in Inyo and Mono counties are invited to submit an essay of at least 500 words.

The contest encourages students to write essays about an experience in nature. Throughout the years, the judges have stayed anonymous. When the essays are read, the name of the student and school affiliation are removed.

The prizes are donated by a generous anonymous donor.

Mary Hunter Austin wrote her most famous book “The Land of Little Rain” while living in Independence.

The author was born in September of 1868.

Mary Austin’s home in Independence still stands, though it is a private residence and not open to the public.

After publication of “The Land of Little Rain” in 1903, Austin went on to become a popular and prolific author, whose 30 books and other works of fiction, plays, essays and non-fiction depicted the unique desert environment of the West, and more specifically, the Mojave Desert and the Eastern Sierra.

Critics note that Austin was a “prominent voice in early 20th Century American literature.”

The universal themes she pursued in her writing resonate today, with many of her books still in print.

Her work remains some of the most enjoyable and educational writing about man’s impact on a unique desert environment. Austin combined a botanist’s eye for detail with a poetic style that placed her prominently in realm of early “nature writing,” along with John Muir and Aldo Leopold.

Regarding “Land of Little Rain,” professor and poet Robert Hass wrote, “it has become a small classic of American literature. It is a book writers love and environmentalists and students of environmental history have come to value more and more.”

Austin also incorporated a strong female voice in her work, as well as portrayals of miners, ranchers and Paiute and

Shoshone peoples in her work. Thus, Austin has been called “a mystic, a folklorist, a social commentator and chronicler of regional American culture.”

The Eastern California Museum Bookstore carries about a dozen of her titles.

Photo courtesy Eastern California Museum Mary Austin was a prolific writer who lived in Independence at the turn of the last century.

The home in which Austin wrote “Land of Little Rain” is in Independence, though it is a private residence and not open to the public.