Oct 5, 2021 | Indiana, Literary Landscapes, Novelists, Volume 3
KURT VONNEGUT The Kurt Vonnegut Museum & LibraryIndianapolis, IN By Laura Beadling Like many, I found and loved Kurt Vonnegut somewhere in my miserable teenage years. Slaughterhouse-Five is now one of my favorite novels to teach, whether in Great American Books or...
Oct 5, 2021 | Literary Landscapes, Nature, Nebraska, Poets, Volume 3
TED KOOSER Gravel RoadsSeward County, Nebraska By Matt Miller For all his stature as former U.S. Poet Laureate, Ted Kooser remains a poet of Nebraska, and so he is a poet of gravel roads. Consider “So This Is Nebraska,” his best-known poem about his home...
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...
Oct 5, 2021 | Literary Landscapes, Michigan, Poets, Volume 3, Writers of Color
ROBERT HAYDEN Paradise ValleyDetroit, Michigan By Ayesha K. Hardison Robert Hayden’s poems are artifacts from a long-gone yet storied neighborhood in Detroit. He grew up in Paradise Valley, the near east side commercial district adjacent to the more residential...
Sep 17, 2021 | Literary Landscapes, Missouri, Nonfiction, Novelists, Personal Essay, Volume 2, Writers of Color
William Least Heat-Moon River-Horse PavilionColumbia, Missouri By Kit Salter In March 1995, my wife Cathy and I went to wish Godspeed to Columbia, Missouri, resident William Lewis Trogdon as he was leaving for New York City to begin a 103-day nautical journey, which...
Sep 17, 2021 | Kansas, Literary Landscapes, Nature, Poets, Volume 2, Writers of Color
Langston Hughes Woodland ParkLawrence, Kansas By John Edgar Tidwell In the weeks leading up to August 19, 1910, all the children in Lawrence, Kansas, were aglow with excitement and energy. To honor the birthday of Editor J. Leeford Brady, the Lawrence Daily Journal...
