This issue was the first to appear on our static platform.
Publisher's Note
It Takes a Village to Build an Issue
What does “community” mean on the prairie? In this issue, we offer a mosaic of answers gleaned from the residents of one small town. Read more →
Editor's Note
We Contain Multitudes
In a community writing workshop, Rootstalk’s Editor discovered a small town’s true diversity. Read more →
Memoir
A Place to Call Home
A “rubber band community” is one that, no matter how far away you go, you always want to come back. This retired teacher explains. Read more →
Memoir
The Hottest Car in Town
There was a time for this retired farmer when Saturday night in his small prairie town was a hot car and someone to race. Read more →
Memoir
Pony Rides, Vice-Presidents and Weddings in the Rain
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. Read more →
Memoir
A Child’s First Taste of Freedom
A costume, a pillow case, a couple of friends, and a whole town to roam in: that was Halloween for this coffee shop owner. Read more →
Personal Essay
Healing the Smallest Casualty
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 far at that. Read more →
Photo Essay
What Do You Think Community Is?
What’s the best way to find out how “community” is defined where you live? Ask the local kids to make a mural. Read more →
Essay
On the Changing Nature of the Obituary
Want to know how prairie culture has changed? Consult the obituaries in your local paper. Read more →
Essay
Worthless Rocks
On any given outing on the prairie, you might just turn over an artifact from the country’s indigenous past. Or maybe not… Read more →
Multimedia
Mammals of the Prairie
In this issue we’re publishing a variation on our “Birds of the Prairie” feature. This time, it’s “Mammals of the Prairie.” Read more →
Podcast
Roots Talk! Podcast Episode 5
In Rootstalk’s fifth podcast, our audio producers talk with Prof. Brandi Janssen about the complexities of sustainable agriculture. Read more →
Essay
Community, Commons, and Ecological Restoration at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage
How do we reverse the degradation of our prairie home by industrial ag? The residents of Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage think they know. Read more →
Interview
Jumping Into the Void
What does an artist do in a prairie town that doesn’t have an arts community? Matt and Sarah Kargol’s answer: make one. Read more →
Essay
My Integrated Life
Musician, journalist, educator with a 40-year career in the arts–our contributor has folded together multiple extraordinary lives. Read more →
Poetry
Two Poems
The poet–an Australian transplant–takes on the autumn’s changeable weather and its effect on we who move through it. Read more →
Essay
Cheyenne Bottoms
During the yearly migration, an astonishing forty-five percent of all North American shorebirds pass through this Kansas marsh. Read more →
Essay
Little Prairie On The Freeway
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 highway? Read more →
Poetry
Two Poems
Richard Luftig’s second appearance on our pages features an imagined road trip, and the solace of endurance in winter. Read more →
Closeup
Closeup: Regan Golden
To depict ecological change in the American landscape, this artist brings together paints, drawing materials and altered photographs. Read more →
Book Review
Robert Wolf’s “Building The Agricultural City: A Handbook for Rural Renewal”
This contributor, a soil scientist, environmental activist and farmer, reviews a new book offering a vision of rural prairie revival. Read more →
Poetry
Two Poems
In this poet’s work the prairie’s weathers have an intimate connection to the landscape’s history. Read more →
Essay
Extraction, Roots, Energy, and The Plains
This scholar of Native American culture meditates on the meaning of roots, and the challenge to them represented by energy extraction. Read more →