Featured Article
billings public library
March 31, 2025
Step back into Montana’s past with Agatha Award-winning author Leslie Budewitz, who will be appearing at Billings Public Library to talk about her collection, All God’s Sparrows, as well as Montana history and her inspiration, the real-life Mary Fields. This program will begin at 1:00 pm on Saturday, April 26 th, in the BPL Community Room.
Books may be purchased at the event, courtesy of This House of Books, which is also celebrating Independent Bookseller Day on this date!
Born into slavery in Tennessee, the remarkable “Stagecoach Mary” Fields was a larger-than-life
figure who cherished her independence and is believed to have been the first Black woman in
the country to drive a U.S. Postal Star Route, the source of her nickname. All God’s Sparrows
and Other Stories brings together three short stories, each originally published in the Alfred
Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, imagining the life of Stagecoach Mary in her first year in Montana,
along with a novella exploring her later life.
Leslie Budewitz blends her passion for food, great mysteries, and the Northwest in two cozy
mystery series, the Spice Shop mysteries set in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, and the Food
Lovers’ Village mysteries, set in NW Montana. As Alicia Beckman, she writes moody, stand-
alone suspense. In addition to three Agatha awards, she has been a nominee for the Anthony,
Derringer, Macavity and Spur awards, and is a past president of Sisters in Crime and former
board member of Mystery Writers of America. She lives in NW Montana.
For more information,
please call Billings Public Library at 406-657-8290.