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The Braided Prairie: Six Nebraskan Literary Voices on Land, Life, and Legacy

The American Great Plains have produced a literary tradition as vast and complex as the landscape itself. Nebraska, with its braided rivers and endless horizons, stands at the heart of this tradition, having shaped some of the nation’s most distinctive literary voices. From the rolling Sandhills to the fossil-rich badlands, from pioneer settlements to Native American territories, the state’s diverse geography has inspired equally diverse literary responses. This study examines six Nebraska authors who transformed their regional experiences into enduring art: Willa Cather, Mari Sandoz, John G. Neihardt, Loren Eiseley, Wright Morris, and Bess Streeter Aldrich. Each brought a unique perspective to bear on the Nebraska experience, from Cather’s lyrical immigrant sagas to Sandoz’s unflinching historical accounts, from Neihardt’s spiritual epics to Eiseley’s paleontological meditations, from Morris’s photographic existentialism to Aldrich’s domestic chronicles.

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2024 Return to Happy Jack Mountain

Janna and I made a pilgrimage to Happy Jack Mountain near North Loup and Scotia, Nebraska this summer. Okay, maybe Happy Jack is more hill than a mountain, but because Nebraska (Otoe for “Flat Water”) is pretty dang flat, any rolling hill easily becomes a mountainous monument in memory. Happy Jack sits over the chalk mines below, and we’ll get to that wonder of the valley in a future article. The goal of us trekking up Happy Jack — me, for the second time, and for Janna, first — was to land in front of a giant, wooden cross atop the mountain. Easter services are held under the cross every year, but my question, now as an aged, and somewhat wizened 59-year-old man-child was, and still is, this: WHO IS CLIMBING HAPPY JACK MOUNTAIN ON EASTER MORNING? (the threat of dying is palpably real!)

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The White Man Indian Giver

There is nothing worse in the world than preciousness in transient self-congratulatory public notices that claim to do one good while punishing another.  I’ll give you an example in the guise of: The White Man Indian Giver.

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Blood of the Land in Biometric Tech

Jamie Grace wrote this article.

It be should acknowledged that the concept of property, and the related concept of ownership, is central to Western society.  Property is always a common denominator of value – and as such our legal system is devoted to protecting property ownership – both of objects and of land. Land then, is to be fought over – even in the courts.  The aim of this article is to refute the notion that a DNA- or biometric-driven land registry system is desirable for reasons of not practicality but of justice, and the avoidance of harm.

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Plowing Hollow Lives in Fallow Land

As an author, you must focus your life on writing good stuff.

Many authors are more obsessed with achieving fame instead of creating greatness in their words.

When fame is the locus of your life — instead of good writing — your perspective is skewed to serving the middling taste of mainstream success.

When you instead concentrate on construction and on craft — you are concerned about the story and the showing of the drama in the lives you hope to perpetuate — and that means you feed the world instead of starving it with selfishness.

If your writing is good, fame will follow.

Fame without good writing plows hollow lives in fallow land.