The waning days of summer bring stories of summer travels, and this got me thinking a bit about travel across North Dakota. I’ve lived in North Dakota for more than a decade and every trip out of town feels like an adventure as prairie vistas, small towns, and prospering little
Exquisite Tangent The Tapestry of Bayeux It winds through the rooms, enormous. Orange, umber, flora and fauna, exquisite technique, serpents uncoiling, the meaning of hounds, stallions stitched with sea-blue hooves. Imagine that Meteors Fall into the limbs of a cherry tree and they set the pink blossoms ablaze. The petals
By W. Scott Olsen Monday, December 14, 2015 I had expected a sound. Something deep, low frequency, something earth-core and knee shaking. Something heavy. Something I would feel in my teeth. Something dangerous, threatening, pressing. There was a storm on Lake Superior. Gale warning. The waves had grown large and
62 years ago, the University of North Dakota welcomed George F. Starcher and two years later, North Dakota Quarterly awoke from its 23-year, depression-induced slumber. In the first volume of its return, NDQ featured an article by then President George F. Starcher titled the “Future of the University.” Starcher probably
Last week, the managing editor at North Dakota Quarterly mentioned that a few folks were inquiring about whether they could pull together a selection of the articles and special editions on Hemingway published by NDQ over the past 30 years. It so happens that Robert W. Lewis, the long-time editor
Jaclyn Patterson We stilled time together all that long winter before. We were needing many small, tender things: things kept in jars, lightly toasted, and resembling antique watches. The hill was ours. We stood one-footed atop the snow, warm and unknowing in our knowing. Inside, Eliza. Weakened, she rallied the
A quick shout out to our friends down the road in Moorhead, Minnesota where Concordia College publishes Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies. The website is beautiful. The content is thought provoking. And the impulse to consider and reflect on the essay as a kind of writing is particularly valuable
Stewart B. Shelley I don’t go camping anymore. The contents of a pamphlet proffered recently by an earnest young park ranger should explain why: The National Park Service (USNPS) welcomes you to Yosemite National Park. Enjoy your camping experience, and remember: this is bear country! In the event that you are awakened in
As our newest issue is heading out to subscribers, we have a few more bits of good news from NDQ headquarters. First, Wayne Harrison’s short story collection Wrench won the 2015 New American Fiction Prize and will be published in 2017. His story “Seasons of Doubt” is in this issue
Nancy Friese’s vibrant Lake Light watercolor on the front cover sets up the focus of this Spring/Summer issue of North Dakota Quarterly. You don’t need those big fat summertime reading lists. You are holding in your hands a wonderful collection of fiction, essays, and poems. The strangely haunting “Kindle and Scorch” by
North Dakota Quarterly 