Annie Proulx: From Gardening Manuals to a Watershed Moment in Queer Cinema

Art · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Before becoming a celebrated novelist, Annie Proulx wrote how-to guides on cider making and salad gardening. Her literary career, defined by darkly comic and sad fiction, eventually produced the short story Brokeback Mountain, a piece that transformed from a magazine publication into a landmark, Academy Award-winning film about a tragic love.

Born in 1935, Annie Proulx began her writing life as a journalist and author of practical manuals on topics like fencing and gardening. Her transition to fiction was marked by a distinct, vicarious style that earned her significant acclaim. She was the first woman to win the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for her 1992 novel Postcards, and her subsequent novel, The Shipping News, secured both the Pulitzer Prize and the U.S. National Book Award.

Her most culturally resonant work, the short story Brokeback Mountain, was published in The New Yorker in 1997. The narrative follows two cowboys, Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist, whose secret, two-decade relationship unfolds against the backdrop of Wyoming’s mountains. The story’s adaptation into a 2005 film was initially considered high-risk by producers, with some even labeling it a laughing stock. However, under the direction of Ang Lee, the film became a critical and commercial success, grossing $178 million globally and serving as a watershed moment for queer cinema.

Proulx’s career has been characterized by a complex relationship with fame. She has described the experience of being a prize-winning author as a meat-rack sensation, where institutions treat writers as trophy objects rather than individuals with something to say. Despite this, she has continued to expand her creative output, even writing the libretto for an opera adaptation of Brokeback Mountain that premiered in Madrid in 2014. Her work remains deeply rooted in the American landscape, from the ranches of Wyoming to the coves of Newfoundland.

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