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 11, 2021 | Literary Landscapes, Missouri, Novelists, Volume 3
Henry Bellamann Brick District PlayhouseFulton, Missouri By Alex Dzurick The 1940 novel Kings Row once so offended residents of Fulton, Missouri, that you couldn’t find a copy on the shelves of the local library. You could, however, in the very same town, find a copy...
