Book Signing with Mike Riley

The Bat House, A Montana Memoir, centers on Riley’s renovation of a 1917 farmhouse which he discovered was the maternal roosting space for little brown bats. Fifteen miles from where Riley was raised along the Yellowstone River in Montana, the two-story brick house is an icon in the county. Built by oil drillers where only a buffalo hunter’s cabin had been, it stood as a mansion close to the Milwaukee Railroad and a few hundred yards from the river. The memoir charts its changing environment as well as the author’s journey from loathing bats, fearing them, and wanting to eradicate them, to accepting and honoring them.

About the Author:

Mike Riley grew up along the Yellowstone River in eastern Montana. He taught English and Journalism at Montana State Prison, Cody High School, the Texas School for the Deaf, Blackfeet Community College, on Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands, the University of Montana, and Northwest College, and received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Journalism Education Association before retiring in Cody, Wyoming. He has an MFA in fiction writing from the University of Montana where he won the TransAtlantic Henfield Award for short fiction and fellowships from the Montana Arts Council and the Wyoming Arts Council, serving as writer in residence for both. He is at work on collections of essays and poetry, as well as a historical novel set in first century Rome.

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