Volume V, Issue 1

Fall 2018

This issue was the first to appear on our static platform.

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  • publisher's note
It Takes a Village to Build an Issue 

by Jon Andelson

What does “community” mean on the prairie? In this issue, we offer a mosaic of answers gleaned from the residents of one small town.
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  • editor's note
8 Million Stories 

by Mark Baechtel

In a community writing workshop, Rootstalk’s Editor discovered a small town’s true diversity.
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  • memoir
A Place to Call Home 

by Bridget Brandt

A “rubber band community” is one that, no matter how far away you go, you always want to come back. This retired teacher explains.
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  • memoir
The Hottest Car in Town 

by Allan Moyer

There was a time for this retired farmer when Saturday night in his small prairie town was a hot car and someone to race.
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  • memoir
Pony Rides, Vice-Presidents and Weddings in the Rain 
Welcoming the World to Our Farm

by Shirley Moyer

A farm is many things: a business, a home, a way of life. For this farmer, it was a thing to share with the whole town.
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  • memoir
A Child’s First Taste of Freedom 

by Sam Cox

A costume, a pillow case, a couple of friends, and a whole town to roam in: that was Halloween for this coffee shop owner.
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  • memoir
Healing the Smallest Casualty 

by Randall Hotchkin

It’s a long way from Iraq’s battlefields to running a small town barbershop. But because of a little boy’s smile, maybe not so fa…
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  • essay
What Do You Think Community Is? 

by Kaitie Hess

What’s the best way to find out how “community” is defined where you live? Ask the local kids to make a mural.
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  • essay
On the Changing Nature of the Obituary 

by Mary Kay Shanley

Want to know how prairie culture has changed? Consult the obituaries in your local paper.
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  • essay
Worthless Rocks 

by John C. Whittaker

On any given outing on the prairie, you might just turn over an artifact from the country’s indigenous past. Or maybe not…
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  • feature
  • multimedia
Mammals of the Prairie 

by Bruce Leventhal and Ken Saunders II

In this issue we’re publishing a variation on our “Birds of the Prairie” feature. This time, it’s “Mammals of the Prairie.”
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  • podcast
  • interview
Roots Talk! Podcast Episode 5 
University of Iowa Professor Brandi Janssen Talks About What Local Food Really Costs

Brandi Janssen

In Rootstalk’s fifth podcast, our audio producers talk with Prof. Brandi Janssen about the complexities of sustainable agriculture.
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  • essay
Community, Commons, and Ecological Restoration at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage 

by Joshua Lockyer

How do we reverse the degradation of our prairie home by industrial ag? The residents of Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage think they know.
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  • interview
Jumping Into the Void 
Creating a Community Art Center in Oskaloosa Iowa

by Sarah Kargol, Matt Kargol

What does an artist do in a prairie town that doesn’t have an arts community? Matt and Sarah Kargol’s answer: make one.
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  • memoir
My Integrated Life, Part I 
Part 1

by Dartanyan Brown

Musician, journalist, educator with a 40-year career in the arts–our contributor has folded together multiple extraordinary lives.
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  • poetry
Two Poems 

by John Grey

The poet–an Australian transplant–takes on the autumn’s changeable weather and its effect on we who move through it.
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  • essay
Cheyenne Bottoms 
The Indespensible American Wetland You Never Knew About

by Alicia DeHaan

During the yearly migration, an astonishing forty-five percent of all North American shorebirds pass through this Kansas marsh.
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  • essay
Little Prairie On The Freeway 

by Cindy Crosby

Blake said we can see the universe in a grain of sand; can we see the prairie expanses of the past in a remnant on an Illinois hi…
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  • poetry
Two Poems 

by Richard Luftig

Richard Luftig’s second appearance on our pages features an imagined road trip, and the solace of endurance in winter.
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  • closeup
Closeup: Regan Golden 

by Regan Golden

To depict ecological change in the American landscape, this artist brings together paints, drawing materials and altered photogra…
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  • review
Robert Wolf’s “Building The Agricultural City: A Handbook for Rural Renewal” 

by Fred Kirschenmann

This contributor, a soil scientist, environmental activist and farmer, reviews a new book offering a vision of rural prairie revi…
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  • poetry
Two Poems 

by Rodney Nelson

In this poet’s work the prairie’s weathers have an intimate connection to the landscape’s history.
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  • essay
Extraction, Roots, Energy, and The Plains 

by Sebastian Braun

This scholar of Native American culture meditates on the meaning of roots, and the challenge to them represented by energy extrac…