In The Open Road, two young men head west for adventure and to see the unspoiled wilderness. Along the way, they meet a horsewoman with plans to own a ranch, and an Arapaho determined to live on his own terms off the reservation. Their paths and purposes converge, and the bonds of friendship tie their fates together as they witness the frontier close and a way of life disappear. A Minnesota native, M. M. Holaday took a trip West with her parents at the age of 10, fell in love with cross-country travel, and aspired to be part of the production crew for the “On the Road with Charles Kuralt” segments she watched on the CBS Evening News. The pipe dream lingered into young adulthood as she crisscrossed the US from the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness area in Idaho to Padre Island in Texas, and from Sabino Canyon in Arizona to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Road trips are still her favorite way to travel. M. M. Holaday is a graduate of St. Olaf College and the University of Minnesota Graduate School of Library Science and has worked as a reference and rare book librarian. In more recent years, however, she and her husband have managed acreage of tall grass prairie on their Missouri farm, encouraging the warm season grasses made up of species like big bluestem, indiangrass, switchgrass, and little bluestem to grow. When she isn’t writing, you’ll find her chopping back the thorn-covered honey locust trees which aggressively encroach upon their prairie.