Bioregional Literature I

To classify a literary work as "regional" may at first glance seem to limit its scope and appeal. Some essays, novels or poetry are initially slow to generate interest beyond their "land of origin." However, readers today increasingly seek out literature that provides an experience that they would never otherwise find. Fascinating and worthy writers who record native, immigrant, minority and exile experiences increasingly capture contemporary readers' imagination.

Many readers and critics favor one or another specific "lenses" through which to interpret what they read (gender, politics and linguistics are just a few). One such lens, a personal favorite of mine, is to explore the particular nuances that resonate from a literary sense of place.

My first exposure to this particular literary lens came while I was an English student at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, SD. Dr. Arthur Huseboe, who established the Center for Western Studies there, dedicated much of his scholarship to the culture and literature of the Great Plains and the West, with special scholarly attention to authors Frederick Manfred and Herbert Krause.

I learned more about Great Plains and Western regionalism while attending a Western Literature Association conference in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, in October of 1989. By that time, I had lived across a broad swath of the region mockingly dubbed "The Great American Desert"--from Texas to Minnesota, and Colorado to Iowa. The idea of the American Plains and West as fertile ground for literature led me to focus on it, as well as creative writing, in my Master's degree studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. As a reader, the "meanings" of this particular region still fascinate me. The romance of literary participation in this regional tradition fires my own fiction writing.