Feb 22, 2022 | Author Houses, Indiana, Literary Landscapes, Novelists, Volume 7
Jean Shepherd 2907 Cleveland Street Hammond, Indiana By Samuel Love “Ours was not a genteel neighborhood,” Jean Shepherd wrote of Hohman, his fictional Northwest Indiana hometown. The opening story from his 1971 book Wanda Hickey’s Night Of Golden Memories and Other...
Oct 17, 2021 | Author Houses, Literary Landscapes, Nature, Nonfiction, Volume 6, Wisconsin
Aldo Leopold The Leopold ShackBaraboo, Wisconsin By Marc Seals I am not a Midwestern native — I was raised in the woods and swamps of north Florida, far from the Driftless Region of Wisconsin (where I now live). As a result, I was not familiar with Aldo Leopold or his...
Oct 6, 2021 | Author Houses, Illinois, Literary Landscapes, Novelists, Volume 5, Writers of Color
SANDRA CISNEROS 1525 N. Campbell Ave.Chicago, Illinois By Olga L. Herrera I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s in the Little Village neighborhood on the southwest side of Chicago. At the time, the area was in transition between Eastern Europeans leaving for the suburbs...
Oct 5, 2021 | Author Houses, Literary Landscapes, Nebraska, Novelists, Volume 4
WILLA CATHER Pavelka FarmsteadRed Cloud, Nebraska By Christine Pivovar Willa Cather’s My Ántonia (1918) contains the first written use of the word “kolaches” in English, according to the OED. It comes in at the end of the novel, when the narrator, Jim,...
Oct 5, 2021 | Author Houses, Literary Landscapes, Novelists, Oklahoma, Volume 3, Writers of Color
JOHN JOSEPH MATHEWS Tallgrass Prairie PreserveOsage County, Oklahoma By Mason Whitehorn Powell “Three ridges roughly boat-shaped push their prows south into the sea of prairie.” The opening lines of Talking to the Moon by Osage author John Joseph...
Sep 17, 2021 | Author Houses, Literary Landscapes, Missouri, Novelists, Personal Essay, Volume 2
Kate Chopin 4232 McPherson AvenueSt. Louis, Missouri By Michaella A. Thornton The Central West End neighborhood where Kate Chopin spent her final year boasts some of the loveliest homes in St. Louis, Missouri. Dormers and cornices and stained glass, lush gardens...
