Grace Stone Coates published two books of poetry and the acclaimed novel, Black Cherries, but it is in her letters where the real story of Coates is found. She had a long, very personal correspondence with William Saroyan (The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze), and she regularly exchanged letters with Montana literary lion H.G. Merriam, Native American writer Frank Bird Linderman, Charles M. Russell art historian James Rankin, and others. It is a very engaging adventure to find the brilliant, passionate woman behind the demure housewife who wrote the local news for the county newspapers.