Great Plains and Western literature (and I) lost a wonderful friend last March. Dr. Arthur Huseboe contributed to so much in the lives of so many that I can't begin to detail his life. I came to know him while I was a student at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, SD, in the early 1980s, where he was my literature and creative writing professor. Dr. Huseboe was the first person to open my eyes to regional literature, specifically literature of the West and Great Plains of America, through his work as my teacher and through the Center for Western Studies at Augustana. He's the one who taught me about the significance of place in a writer's voice and work. Because of Dr. H, I think of myself as a regional writer.
Dr. Huseboe also took me seriously as a novelist, God bless him. He spent countless hours reading my first attempts at poetry, short stories and novels and encouraged me to keep trying. He introduced me to the Western Literature Association, whose members surely feel the great loss of their former President. He helped me to write my first scholarly paper on a South Dakota author, Herbert Krause, and encouraged me to present it at a WLA conference in Idaho. Dr. H also provided one of my favorite quotes about mentoring. "No one was ever corrected into perfection."
Fortunately, after some years away, I reconnected with him a few months before he died. His last words to me were of affection and encouragement and I will always thank him for that. So there it is. When I sit down to write, I often think of him. When I reflect on the Great Plains and the West as my home, I realize that he is the one who gave this vagabond a sense of regional belonging.
Thanks to my dear mentor, Dr. Arthur Huseboe, whom I deeply miss, for teaching me that I'm in a good place, writing it down, right here.
