The View from Highway 81

January 16, 2012 -- The view from U.S. Route 81 and the road to the Ingalls Homestead, a particularly storied quarter-section, like the one pictured above, outside De Smet, South Dakota.

Still Feeling Festive?

Join RBM and friends for a reading on February 29 at the Festival of Language, an off-site event of the 2012 Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference in Chicago. Also on the roster: Janée J. Baugher, Jamison Christopher Lee, Ewa Chrusciel, Jordan Cox, Ricardo Cortez Cruz, Ryan Clark, Pankaj Challa, Michelle Weber Cusack, David Stevenson, Marilyn Carr, Leslie Raine Carman, Jane L Carman, Kirstin Hotelling Zona, Evan Nave, Meg Tuite, Janice Lee, Debra Di Blasi, Dan Libman, Yuriy Tarnawsky, Kirk Nesset, Cortez Cruz, John Domini, Alan Lin, Lance Olsen, Dina Elenbogen, David Hamilton, Holms Troelstrup, Kass Fleisher, Daniel Nester, Anna March, Lasantha Rodrigo, Kate Dusenbery, Robert Vaughan, Cris Mazza, Andy Farnsworth, David Hamilton, Jeff Grieneisen, Steve Halle, Elizabeth Hatmaker, Davis Schneiderman, Quintus Havis, Gabriel Gudding, Deborah Henry, Erika Wurth, Anna Joy Springer, Michael Mejia, Steve Tomasula, Tom C. Hunley and Lidia Yuknavitch. There's more information at AWPWriter.org and RockBottom.com.

The View from Ape Cave

December 28, 2011 -- The view from Washington's Ape Cave, a 2.4-mile basalt labyrinth tunneled by molten lava, which also helped to form nearby Mount St. Helens.

Photo of the Day

November 27, 2011 -- The light changes on Highway 81 outside South Branch, Nebraska.

Photo of the Day

November, 23, 2011 -- The light changes on the 1600 block of Wazee Street in Denver.

The View from Danforth Chapel

October 29, 2011 -- The University of South Dakota's biennial John R. Milton Writers' Conference has just concluded with a generous reading from Mark Spragg (above, in a coat), whose work as a ranch hand in Wyoming began at age 11 and paid $30 a month, plus three squares a day. That boyhood, and an education from the likes of Robert Roripaugh (in denim), now a professor emeritus and a former Wyoming poet laureate, has inspired three novels, a memoir, and a feature film.

Earlier conference highlights included readings from David Marshall Chan (in black) and six other featured authors. RBM moderated two panels and on Friday read from a manuscript, Zen and the Art of Conquest, at USD's Danforth Chapel (also pictured above).

The View from Dakota Hall

September 30, 2011 -- RBM (reluctantly!) leaves one journal's nonfiction staff for another as a double issue of South Dakota Review departs the Great Plains for a mailbox near you. On the front cover: Sacro Wi (Sundancer, 1967) by Oscar Howe, whose artwork is on display at SouthDakotaReview.com and in a permanent collection of the University of South Dakota. On the back cover: 30 poets, 7 authors of fiction, and 2 essayists, Dionisia Morales ("Blue Means Water") and Yelizaveta Renfro ("Song of the Redwood Tree").