You are probably wondering, how could someone alive today have been raised by a Civil War widow? And how did the niece of Robert Ball Anderson, a Union Soldier and Nebraska pioneer, wind up in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, with the likes of Dustin Hoffman and Julie Harris, skiing, hunting and learning ballet at Perry-Mansfield Arts Camp?

To find those answers, you'll have to check out my book, If the Creek Don't Rise: My Life Out West With the Last Black Widow of the Civil War.

Originally published in May of 2006, this memoir begins when I was four and ends around my 18th birthday. I am proud to say it comes highly recommended by Oprah Winfrey herself in O Magazine, and by the University of Colorado's Director of the Center of the American West.

- Rita Williams

For book clubs, we've put together a set of study questions. Download PDF now...

Literary Wannabes
Fake memoir -- Real Consequences
By Rita Williams
LA Times

If the Creek Don't Rise in Colorado's

NewWest Books & Writers....

Rita Authors@Google available on YouTube

Listen to Rita's interview on 1590AM Ventura/Santa Barbara

Paperback hits the shelves
5/1/2007. Look or ask for it at a store near you!

If the Creek Don't Rise
My Life Out West with the Last Black Widow of the Civil War
Hardcover Edition

"In her astonishing memoir If The Creek Don't Rise, Rita Williams descends into the caverns of her past and returns with a tale no less dramatic than the rugged mountains where it takes place. A remarkable book by a remarkable writer."
-Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander

Purchase from Barnes & Noble.