by marquart@iastate.edu | Sep 22, 2021 | Recent Publications
They loom over us like sequoias, our parents. In my first holy communion photos, they flank me, grave and unsmiling in formal black clothes—my father’s wool suit, my mother’s boucle skirt, long gloves, and short jacket. “At 79, My Mother Decides to Plant...
by marquart@iastate.edu | Sep 17, 2021 | Recent Publications
Frack first the bakken then the three forks formation even deeper the oil patch, they call it two miles below the surface oil embedded in shale late devonian remnants of the anoxic sea the coastal carbonite layer deposited when the middlewest was...
by marquart@iastate.edu | Sep 22, 2021 | Recent Publications
At the Bismarck Airport, I pick up the jar of chokecherry jelly in the gift shop before boarding my flight back to Iowa. Not sure when I’ll make it home to North Dakota again. “Taste of Home.” On Second Thought | Sense of Place Issue. Humanities North Dakota (April)...
by marquart@iastate.edu | Sep 23, 2021 | Recent Publications
For years, I’ve encouraged students to “tell it cool” when narrating a tale that is harrowing or emotional. A cool narrator can be a buoy in rough waters. I’ve always thought this advice came from Hemingway, but at this moment as I search my bookshelves for the place...
by marquart@iastate.edu | Sep 23, 2021 | Recent Publications
A few years ago, I was giving a talk at the Fargo Public Library about researching and writing my book, The Horizontal World, which is a memoir about growing up a rebellious farmer’s daughter on a North Dakota wheat farm. In the 1970s, I was a college student at...
