Photo of the Day

January 18, 2012 -- A farewell message from a suburb outside Pierre, South Dakota, which is still recovering from its worst Missouri River flooding since 1952. Down the block, Lewis and Clark first came upon the Sioux Nation in 1804. Temperatures in the state capital are dipping below 0°F tonight.

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.

The View from Ape Cave

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

Photo of the Day

December 26, 2011 -- The view from Portland Japanese Garden's karesansui (literally, "dry landscape").

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").

Speaking of the Bigger Stuff

via "Remembering Osh"

RBM's essay "I'd Like to Talk About the Bigger Stuff," which won Phoebe's inaugural nonfiction contest and appeared in print earlier this year, is now available online. Another excerpt:

To the west, through the helicopter’s tea-colored portals, I can see Uzbekistan; the cotton fields and cherry trees of the Fergana Valley; and a long, maniacal border severing one village from the next. I imagine, for a moment, an engorged Stalin, dragging a fountain pen down a wide gray map. Skirting his line, as though his hand ignored the topography, march row after row of mountaintops. They look cold and lifeless from on high. They divide Bishkek from the farmlands and become impassable in winter. Reminding the Russified Kyrgyz, who prefer white rice, of those hotheaded Uzbeks, who prefer red. But that’s enough imperial history.

To read this and more from Phoebe 40.2, as well as other debut nonfiction, visit PhoebeJournal.com.