An anthology of poetry and prose from thirty-five of today's leading literary voices from the Sunflower State, brought together to explore how Kansas makes us feel and why we're proud to call it home. Kansas Matters gathers thirty-five of the state's leading literary voices to offer profound insights into the feelings that Kansas evokes. This living map of personal geographies and histories draws on the rich emotions and memories that bind Kansans to the Sunflower State. Brought together in a new anthology of thirty-five poems, essays, and short fiction, these writers reflect on twenty-first-century Kansas: on the beauty of the land and the fight for its preservation; the divisions of identity and the belonging of home; the context of our history and our hopes for the future. These contemporary voices show us Kansas as we know it to be and Kansas as we want it to be-a complex, emotional, and inspiring assertion of why Kansas matters.
Thomas Fox Averill is professor emeritus of English at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas, where he taught creative writing and Kansas studies. He is an O. Henry Award short-story winner and author of ten books. His introduction to What Kansas Means to Me: Twentieth Century Writers on the Sunflower State (1991) was titled "Afflicted with Affection," and he remains so. In 2010 he created the Thomas Fox Averill Kansas Studies Collection at Washburn's Mabee Library. Leslie VonHolten writes about land and culture in the prairie and Great Plains regions. She is a 2022 Tallgrass Artist Residency fellow and long-time commentator on High Plains Public Radio in Garden City, Kansas. Her recent essays have been published in The New Territory, Literary Landscapes, and The Dark Mountain Projecthusband, Tim, and their misbehaving dogs and garden.
"Kansas Matters, curated by Averill and VonHolten, serves up a surprising and delightful smorgasbord of stories, essays, and poems by authors connected to contemporary Kansas. Any reader who is curious about the history or diversity of this varied prairie realm will savor the result. Luminaries such as poet B.H. Fairchild or bestseller Ian Frazier appear alongside upcoming new talents, as the state gets attention from all angles -environmental, racial, cultural, political, and more." -Tim Bascom, Director of the Kansas Book Festival and author of Climbing Lessons: Stories of Fathers, Sons, and the Bond Between "Kansas Matters presents a vivid tapestry of poems and essays that delve into the personal geographies and histories of the Sunflower State, where "the richness of memory and emotion" thrives. Spanning locales from Nicodemus to Topeka, the anthology captures a range of experiences from a 1950s Mennonite girlhood to a 1970s Wichita boyhood while navigating themes of familial loss, identity, and, ultimately, a contagious affection for Kansas, which emerges as both a symbol of liberation and a microcosm of complex politics, offering a chorus of voices a platform to shape the state's evolving literary legacy." -Gary Jackson, author of origin story: poems "This book does more than tackle the matters of Kansas it is a celebration, exploration, and critical appraisal of the ideals and ideologies that form the Sunflower State, a tornadic wind of visionary voices whose poetic insights shine as bright as the astra on the state flag." - Amy Brady, author of Ice: From Mixed Drinks to Skating Rinks-a Cool History of a Hot Commodity "This thoughtfully curated anthology of Kansas voices gave me new insight in the experience of living in Kansas. Reading it, I found a new appreciation of having lived in this wild and wonderful state." -Ling Ma, author of Severance: A Novel "To too many, Kansas is two things: flat and bland. But these folks don't know Kansas: its pastel palette (and heather), its hills and valleys. The people are colorful and spicy, both understated and outspoken. Kansas has cowboys, neo-Beats, homemakers, senators, quilters, astronauts, basketballers, storytellers and listeners. The state has quiet pizzazz: unflagging, technicolor. Kansas saves the nation (and state) time and time again. These prose and poetry pieces get at all that -and at the stars Kansans reach for, and sometimes almost grasp." -Kevin Rabas, Poet Laureate of Kansas (2007 - 2009), and author of All That Jazz
