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The #Midwessay: Kyle Francois, Midwessays
What is the #Midwessay? What is the Midwest? What are the characteristics, if any, of the #Midwessay (the Midwest essay)? What gathers us together? What pulls us apart? Springing from a twitter...
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The #Midwessay: Pamela Dawes Tambornino, From a Cherokee Herbalist
From a Cherokee HerbalistPamela Dawes Tambornino*Kansas in the spring and summer are a time of renewal and provide gifts from nature that I use year round. The sweet grass I pick and dry will become...
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The #Midwessay: Suzanne Guess, In the Land of Ope and Plenty
What is the #Midwessay? What is the Midwest? What are the characteristics, if any, of the #Midwessay (the Midwest essay)? What gathers us together? What pulls us apart? Springing from a twitter...
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The #Midwessay: Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter, State Lines
What is the #Midwessay? What is the Midwest? What are the characteristics, if any, of the #Midwessay (the Midwest essay)? What gathers us together? What pulls us apart? Springing from a twitter...
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The #Midwessay: Lisa Allen, It's Complicated: a Midwestern Triptych
It's Complicated: a Midwestern TriptychLisa Allen1.My dad wrote me letters when I left for college, his handwriting open and plump, the royal blue of his ballpoint almost carved into the postcards and...
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The #Midwessay: Nancy McCabe, Tearing Down the House
Tearing Down the HouseNancy McCabe*Last month, I had my childhood home in Kansas demolished. Afterward, I Face Timed with my cousin who lives near Wichita from my current home in Pennsylvania. She...
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The #Midwessay: Elizabeth Dodd, The Kansas Essay
The Kansas EssayElizabeth Dodd*In the last millennium, the essayist Scott Russell Sanders sent me an email, asking me to go ask my students whether they felt Kansas was in the Midwest. This was in...
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The #Midwessay: Kathryn Jankus Day, Becoming Midwestern
Becoming MidwesternKathryn Jankus Day*When I was a child living in Pennsylvania, my grandfather would talk about his childhood in the middle of the country. In those days, there were still cowboys and...
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The #Midwessay: Aislin Neufeldt, A Place That Is Another Place
A Place That Is Another PlaceAislin Neufeldt*Oz park is about two miles south of me. I know this because when I run there and back it’s four miles. There and back is a tracing, an act of going and...
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The #Midwessay: Pamela Dawes Tambornino, From a Cherokee Herbalist
From a Cherokee HerbalistPamela Dawes Tambornino*Kansas in the spring and summer are a time of renewal and provide gifts from nature that I use year round. The sweet grass I pick and dry will...
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The #Midwessay: Denise Low, Not Missing Kansas
Not Missing KansasDenise Low*After decades in Kansas I moved away, but it was too late. My bone and teeth structures are made of Kansas plants and animals, leeched from my digestive system. Folk...
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The #Midwessay: Randy Osborne, Proof of Survival
Proof of SurvivalRandy Osborne*“Oh McKay, did you see that write-up, ‘The Babysitter and the Slasher’?” From her tone, my grandmother Mad might have been asking if I noticed a newspaper item about the...
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The #Midwessay: Julia Kamysz Lane, Mall Baby
Mall BabyJulia Kamysz Lane*In the right light, the black asphalt parking lot is a shimmering wide moat surrounding the island that is Woodfield Mall, once the largest shopping mall in the world but...
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The #Midwessay: Grace Roberson on Ohio
On OhioGrace Roberson*Ohio is the quintessential setting in any fictional landscape: it establishes enough humility for a protagonist to excuse any forthcoming pretentiousness. It’s where main...
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The #Midwessay: Elizabeth J. Wenger, The Great American Desert
The Great American DesertElizabeth J. Wenger*I find that I can tell people anything about where I’m from. Lies land easily when your home state makes up a big, blank space in the rest of the country’s...
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The #Midwessay: Gary Reddin, Fish Heads on a Fence Post
Fish Heads on a Fence Post Gary Reddin*Drive too far into the country here in Oklahoma and you might come across a fence full of decaying fish heads. They might be hanging from barbed wire, nailed to a...
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The #Midwessay: Stephen J. West, Transitive, NY
In my book This Is One Way to Dance, there is an essay called "Six Hours from Anywhere You Want to Be." It's about where I grew up: Rochester, in Western New York. It wasn't until after I left my...
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The #Midwessay: Pilar Christiana Graham, First Watch
First WatchPilar Christiana Graham*“Sugar Loaf," photograph by Kelli BirkThe midwestern landscape is abstract, and our response to the geology of the region might be similar to our response to the...
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The #Midwessay: Ron Burch, I Am John Hawk
I Am John HawkRon Burch*In the cool basement of the brick house we played. I could hear the rain drumming on the roof of my grandparents' house. The basement was the largest room. It’s still rough....
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The #Midwessay: Sejal Shah, Missing the Boat
Missing the BoatSejal Shah*I keep thinking about docksiders and L.L. Bean and J. Crew. These nautical themed catalogs and clothing and gear. When I was in high school, I didn't get it. I just knew...
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