Move over, Martha: Native Utahn may be next domestic maven - with a rural twist
By Nicholas K. Geranios
Associated Press
MOSCOW, Idaho  Rural living is a little different on Mary Jane Butters' farm.
Hens lay eggs. Workers fill bags of dried soup. Editors prepare the next edition of her magazine. Television producers call.
Mary Jane Butters sits in old truck on her farm outside Moscow, Idaho. She just inked $1.3 million book deal.
Rajah Bose, Associated Press
Butters presides over the bustle, positioning herself to become the new Martha Stewart while the original maven of gracious living prepares for a January securities-fraud trial.
Clarkson Potter, a Random House branch that also publishes Stewart's books, will pay Butters $1.3 million for two books that highlight the rural skills and do-it-yourself philosophy she has developed on her organic farm.
The first book, "Mary Jane's Gathering Place," is scheduled to be published in spring 2005. The second is tentatively due out in 2006.
The book deal has started a stampede in all things Mary Jane. A newspaper column, which had been appearing in three free weeklies in the Northwest, is being shopped to nationwide syndicators.
Television producers are calling about doing a show.
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