Lesley Poling-Kempes

Selected Works

Ladies of the Canyons: A League of Extraordinary Women and Their Adventures in the American Southwest

The true story of remarkable women who left the security and comforts of genteel Victorian society and journeyed into the rugged outback of the American Southwest in search of a wider view of themselves and their world.

Fiction

Bone Horses

“In the exquisite novel BONE HORSES Lesley Poling-Kempes grandly creates the landscape of New Mexico as a living character – vital, enduring and full of magic. As the geography of the American Southwest comes alive on the pages, the geography of the heart is revealed to be far more than muscle and bone. This is a story of what truly knits us together – family, history, enduring friendships - served up in luminous language and unforgettable story-telling.” Mary E. Mitchell PEN Award-winning author

Canyon of Remembering

"Canyon of Remembering is a memorable and exceptionally well crafted novel." -- The Midwest Book Review

History

Valley of Shining Stone: The Story of Abiquiu

“A writer’s acute, compelling history of one of America’s more endangered landscapes. Digging deeply into the history of a place, Poling-Kempes mines a rich vein of lore and myth.”
Kirkus Reviews

Nonfiction

The Harvey Girls: Women Who Opened the West

The definitive work about the Harvey Girls, Harvey Houses, and the Santa Fe Railway. Recently optioned by Atalaya Productions for a television series.

Ghost Ranch

“Poling-Kempes is a skillful writer, smoothly dovetailing the human stories that make up the narrative of this pristine, peaceful, and appealing place. The author flat out knows how to tell a good story.” Richard Etulain

Co-author

Georgia O'Keeffe & New Mexico: A Sense of Place

"In her meticulous account, Lesley Poling-Kempes discusses the geophysical origins of this land of 'extremes and contrast,' analyzing the layered stone formations and matching them up with O'Keeffe's keen observations of red shales, sandshales and silt stones created 200 million years ago. . ." – Dore Ashton, Times Literary Supplement

Georgia O'Keeffe & New Mexico: A Sense of Place

Winner, 2005 Independent Publisher Book Awards, Fine Art Category

Princeton University Press

When Georgia O’Keeffe first visited New Mexico in 1917, she was instantly drawn to the stark beauty of its unusual architectural and landscape forms. In 1929, she began spending part of almost every year painting there, first in Taos, and subsequently in and around Alcalde, Abiquiu, and Ghost Ranch, with occasional excursions to remote sites she found particularly compelling. Georgia O’Keeffe & New Mexico is the first book to analyze the artist’s famous depictions of these Southwestern landscapes.

The book examines the magnificence of O’Keeffe’s work through essays by three noted authors: Barbara Buhler Lynes, Lesley Poling-Kempes, and Frederick Turner.

Lesley Poling-Kempes furnishes a fascinating chronicle of O’Keeffe’s years in the region as well as a useful explanation of the geological forces that produced the intense colors and dramatic shapes of the landscapes O’Keeffe painted.

"The illustrations are beautifully reproduced, and the book's three essays are intelligent, carefully researched, and elegantly presented." – Roxana Robinson, The Wilson Quarterly

"In her meticulous account, Lesley Poling-Kempes discusses the geophysical origins of this land of 'extremes and contrast,' analyzing the layered stone formations and matching them up with O'Keeffe's keen observations of red shales, sandshales and silt stones created 200 million years ago. . ." – Dore Ashton, Times Literary Supplement