Richard Manning received the first Richard J. Margolis Award for a lyrical account of his experience building a log cabin with his wife in the Montana wilderness, work that later appeared in his second book, A Good House (Grove Press). He has continued to write regularly about the social, political and environmental threats to America's West, winning numerous awards along the way, including the Montana Audubon Society Award for environmental reporting, the John S. Knight Fellowship from Stanford University and the C.B. Blethen Award (3 times) for investigative journalism.

"Winning the Margolis Award came at a time when I was living on magazine work and credit cards," Manning said recently. "It meant a great deal to me because it was the first national award that I'd gotten and it kind of signaled that I was going in the right direction."

Since winning the Margolis Award, Manning has continued to write books about enviromental issues in the west, including the following:

Rewilding the West: Restoration in a Prairie Landscape (2009)

Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization (2005)

Food's Frontier: The Next Green Revolution (2001)

Inside Passage: A Journey Beyond Borders (2000)

One Round River: The Curse of Gold and the Fight for the Big Blackfoot (1998)

Grassland: The History, Biology, Politics and Promise of the American Prairie (1997)

A Good House: Building a Life on the Land (1994)

Last Stand (1992)