Drinking Dry Clouds is Gretel Ehrlich's storytelling in full swing. This inspired collection opens during World War II with the stories of cowboys, waitresses, and bartenders along with Japanese Americans interned at Wyoming's Heart Mountain. Many of these characters were introduced in Ehrlich's novel Heart Mountain. As she explains, "When I returned to my characters, five years after their initial appearance in my life, they seemed to want to report to me, so I let them speak in the first person."