ROCK SPRINGS — Wyoming writer Marcia Hensley will read from her new book, “Away from it All: A Wyoming Love Story,” Friday, Oct. 13 at 7 p.m. in the Grace Gasson Room at White Mountain Library.

Locals may remember Marcia as a long-time English instructor at WWCC, and a former resident of Rock Springs and Farson.

Marcia’s book combines the story of her personal journey of self-discovery with depictions of small-town and rural life in Wyoming from the early 1980s to the early 2000s. In her first book, “Staking Her Claim: Women Homesteading the West,” Marcia introduced readers to stories of pioneering women who came west on their own. In this memoir, she shares her own story.

Like the stories of pioneers who fascinated her since childhood, Marcia’s story was a westward journey.  As a 21-year-old working in Yellowstone National Park in the summer of 1963 she fell in love with Wyoming, igniting a longing for the West that smoldered for 20 years until a chance encounter opened the door for her return – a job offer teaching at Western Wyoming Community College. There she meets Mike Hensley, a respected faculty member, charismatic teacher, photographer, actor, and outdoorsman. The book follows their courtship and mutual love of the Wyoming landscape, history, and lifestyle as their lives unfold. Readers will recognize the book’s setting in southwest Wyoming, Rock Springs, Farson, and the Wind River Mountains.

Marcia is the recipient of the Wyoming Arts Council’s Neltje Blanchan award for writing inspired by nature. Her essays have been published in several anthologies as well as in High Country News, Wyofile.com, and the syndicated column Writers on the Range. In 2009, her non-fiction book, “Staking Her Claim, Women Homesteading the West” won awards from the Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association as well as from Women Writing the West, Wyoming Writers, Wyoming Historical Society, and ForeWord Magazine.

The reading and book signing is sponsored by Sweetwater BOCES for its Speaking of the West series. The event is free and open to the public.  She will also be a guest in the WWCC memoir writing class offered this fall by former colleague Barbara Smith at the Young at Heart Senior Center.

“We are really looking forward to Marcia’s visit in which she will tell us her story of how she put together this memoir set in our own part of the world,” Smith said.