No place like home [electronic resource] : notes from a Western life / Linda M. Hasselstrom.

ISBN:

9780874178050

Title:

Author:

Hasselstrom, Linda M.

Personal Author:

Hasselstrom, Linda M.

Edition:

1st ed.

Publication Information:

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 211 pages)

Contents:

Title Page; Copyright Page; Dedication; Contents; Acknowledgments; Prologue: A ′54 Chevy Named Beulah; Selling the Ranch; Dear John: How to Move to the Country; The School Bus Driver Waved; Laughter in the Alley; Tomato Cages Are Metaphors; A Rocket Launcher in the Closet; The Beauty of Responsibility; Watching for Grizzlies Anyway; He Pinched the Burning End; Shoveling Snow in the Dark; Stalking Coffee in Sitka; Recycling Freedom; Tattoos and a Thong; Learning the Names of Cows; How to Live at the Dump; It Doesn't Just Happen; Making Pottery out of Sewage; Pray for Me I Drive Highway 79

The Stolen Canoe MysteryPlaying Pool with the Cat Men; Sounding the Writing Mudhole; Investigating the Heron Murders; Who's Driving the Subdivision?; Overlooking Antelope Ridge; Epilogue: Waiting for the Storm; Additional Resources

Local Note:

eBooks on EBSCOhost

Personal Subject:

Hasselstrom, Linda M.

Subject Term:

Women ranchers -- South Dakota -- Biography.

Ranch life -- South Dakota.

Community life -- West (U.S.) -- Case studies.

Social change -- West (U.S.) -- Case studies.

Human ecology -- West (U.S.) -- Case studies.

Geographic Term:

South Dakota -- Social life and customs.

South Dakota -- Biography.

Cheyenne (Wyo.) -- Biography.

West (U.S.) -- Rural conditions -- Case studies.

Format:

Electronic Resources

Electronic Access:

Click here to view

Publication Date:

2009

Publication Information:

Available:*

Shelf Number	Material Type	Copy	Shelf Location	Status
978 22	1:E-BOOK	1	1:ONLINE	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

In No Place Like Home , Linda Hasselstrom ponders the changing nature of community in the modern West, where old family ranches are being turned into subdivisions and historic towns are evolving into mean, congested cities. Her scrutiny, like her life, moves back and forth between her ranch on the South Dakota prairie and her house in an old neighborhood at the edge of downtown Cheyenne, Wyoming. The vignettes that form the foundation of her consideration are drawn from the communities she has known during her life in the West, reflecting on how they have grown, thrived, failed, and changed, and highlighting the people and decisions that shaped them. Hasselstrom's ruminations are both intensely personal and universal. She laments the disappearance of the old prairie ranches and the rural sense of community and mutual responsibility that sustained them, but she also discovers that a spirit of community can be found in unlikely places and among unlikely people. The book defines her idea of how a true community should work, and the kind of place she wants to live in. Her voice is unique and honest, both compassionate and cranky, full of love for the harsh, hauntingly beautiful short-grass prairie that is her home, and rich in understanding of the intricacies of the natural world around her and the infinite potentials of human commitment, hope, and greed. For anyone curious about the state of the contemporary West, Hasselstrom offers a report from the front, where nature and human aspirations are often at odds, and where the concepts of community and mutual responsibility are being redefined.

Author Notes

Linda M. Hasselstrom received her bachelor's degree in English and journalism from the University of South Dakota in 1965 and her master's degree from the University of Missouri in 1969. She then taught communications at Black Hills State College in Spearfish, S.D. She also taught poetry and fiction as a writer-in-schools for the South Dakota Arts Council.

An accomplished author and poet, Hasselstrom founded Lame Johnny Press with the goal of publishing the poetry, fiction, and nonfiction works of writers in the Great Plains states. The press published 23 books before it closed down in 1985.

Hasselstrom was named "Author of the Year" by the South Dakota Hall of Fame in 1989. Some of her books include Windbreak; The Book Book: A Publishing Handbook; Roadkill; and Going Over East--Reflections of a Woman Rancher, which won the Fullcrum American Writing Award in 1987.

Linda Hasselstrom runs the family ranch in South Dakota and teaches freshman English at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.

(Bowker Author Biography)

Reviews (1)

Booklist Review

When Hasselstrom is at her ranch in South Dakota, her nearest neighbors may be out of sight on the far side of a prairie. At her home in Cheyenne, however, human contact can be just as close as the other end of a (frequently clogged) sewer line. But whether she measures the distance between herself and others in acres or inches, Hasselstrom's appreciative sense of community is as varied as it is valued. Contemplating the often amorphous parameters of society found in the remote ranches, crowded cities, dying towns, and newly emergent subdivisions that iconically comprise the American West, Hasselstrom takes stock of what it means to live responsibly upon the land and with others. In a series of acutely intimate essays, Hasselstrom critically assesses the changes that inevitably influence these vast, and vastly complicated, relationships. With her feet firmly planted in the past and her eyes cast appraisingly toward the future, this prairie philosopher considers her personal heritage within the context of the land that sustains her.--Haggas, Carol Copyright 2009 Booklist