Welcome to Inkwell, Hearth, and Plow!

It’s time to launch my new writing and outreach project, Inkwell, Hearth, and Plow. 

Considering that blogs started about 20 years ago, that means I’m coming up to speed on the latest tech trends much faster than usual. It’s like riding a bike, I’m told. Of course, I picked up that skill much later than anybody I ever knew, too. Thanks for reading even this far.

Inkwell, Hearth, and Plow is about joining and participating in the reborn Midwestern literary and historical movement. It has already started!!

First reading assignmentJon Lauck, From Warm Center to Ragged Edge, The Erosion of Midwestern Literary and Historical Regionalism, 1920-1965. University of Iowa Press, 2017. Lauck packed his book with explanations and examples of the decline of Midwestern literary and historical writing. I had dozens of aha! moments reading it. It will give us many discussion topics in the years ahead. I recommend that everyone interested in regional identity read it.

Here are some of the topics I will visit in the time ahead.

Midwestern writers and their books:
Think Tarkington, Masters, Fitzgerald, Anderson, Dreiser, Lewis, Cather, and many, many others.

Things to savor:
Think tea, comfort food, gardens, new mown hay.

Things I’ve written
Think The War Comes to Plum Street.

Things we all need to work on
Think cursive writing, vocabulary, writing letters, reducing the time we spend on electronic devices.

Things I like 
Think history, architecture, cemeteries, gardening, livestock, butterflies, woodworking,
tending a fire staring into a fire on the hearth.

Things I think about  
Think reminding people that things have not always been the way they are
today, being a kid, finding my way, cataloging friends, identifying adversaries.

Things I miss
Think the 1950s, attics, barns, cumulus skies in March, people I knew.

People I admire
Think of people from the hardware store, relatives, colleagues, therapists.

There are many more topics, but I have a deadline so please be sure to subscribe to get the latest updates and keep checking in for more from Inkwell, Hearth and Plow.

Let's enrich each other with the things we understand and aid each other as we seek the explanations we have not completed.  Let's share the joy of all we have today, all of those around us, and those who have gone before us.