Filled with adventurous writing, sharp scrutiny, meticulous and audacious use of language, North of the Platte, South of the Niobrara: A Little Further into the Nebraska Sand Hills winds around its subjects the way the rivers and creeks of the Great Plains twist around humps of prairie grass, ranches and rock outcroppings. The ambitious goal of author Bryan Jones was to create a fresh understanding of the Nebraska Sand Hills from the inside. Surely he has done that, and more. He reflects with almost unbearable poignancy on war and its consequences, and with fierce advocacy on two beloved Nebraska poets. He brings humor and occasional cynicism to reflections about “the metaphysical and metaphorical aspects� of the Sand Hills, Ted Turner and other newcomers, the Sandoz family and other old-timers and a considerable chunk of Western history.

In A Ranchwife's Slant humor columnist and speaker Amy Kirk candidly profiles the big things in life in small but humorous ways: marriage, parenting, the gender gap, and problem solving, all under the premise of living and working with cattle. Kirk doesn't candy-coat what family life is like with cows and openly shares the good, the bad, and the crazy of her family's lifestyle along with the steady challenges that are part of the gig. She gives an entertaining perspective of what it's like being a ranch wife raising a family and livestock alongside her husband Art. In Kirk's first anthology of previously published humor columns, she covers topics that husbands, wives, men, women, and parents can all relate to with vignettes of her family and ranch life in rural western South Dakota. Included are Kirk ranch photos and direct quotes from her personal collection of her kids' comical witticisms. More about Amy, her published writing, and her speaking engagements can be found on her blog at: www.amykirk.com. You can also visit her Facebook page A Ranchwife's Slant or her Twitter handle, @RanchwifesSlant

Poetry. In DIRT SONGS: A PLAINS DUET, Twyla M. Hansen and Linda M. Hasselstrom reflect on the influence of the Great Plains. These seasoned poems celebrate clouds, water and the earth; as well as their love of all things farm and ranch, green and blooming, feathered and furred, wild and domesticated, warm and breathing. "Two of the most significant poetic voices in our region, our nation--together at last. The music they create is a miracle, born of the generations, of soil and sky, wildflowers and birdsong, flesh and spirit. This book is a song to help reorient our relationship to the earth and to each other. A song to live by."--John T. Price, author of Man Killed by Pheasant and Other Kinships

In the true stories, essays, and poems of Leaning into the Wind we meet the real women of the High Plains today. Included are reflections on cowboys, tractor-driving lessons, outhouses, ranch marriages, and family legacies.

First published in 1935, "Old Jules" is unquestionably Mari Sandoz's masterpiece. This portrait of her pioneer father grew out of "the silent hours of listening behind the stove or the wood box, when it was assumed, of course, that I was asleep in bed. So it was that I heard the accounts of the hunts," Sandoz recalls. "Of the fights with the cattlemen and the sheepmen, of the tragic scarcity of women, when a man had to 'marry anything that got off the train, ' of the droughts, the storms, the wind and isolation. But the most impressive stories were those told me by Old Jules himself." This Bison Books edition includes a new introduction by Linda M. Hasselstrom.

At a time when values of frugality, home, family, and care of the land seem increasingly absent, one woman looks to her past to create a life of significance for her family. Her search takes her back to the prairie of her grandmothers, who survived personal hardships and lived off what the land provided. Lipp-Acord mourns the loss of one child and celebrates the births of others, all while balancing her own desire to put down roots with her husband's life as a ranch hand. Written over ten years, these essays compose a picture of endurance and grace as the author addresses her history and finds her way home.

Crazy Woman Creek is a collection of prose and poetry about real women in the West and their connection to a larger whole. Long troubled by the misguided images of skinny cowgirls on prancing palominos, the editors embarked on a mission to set the record straight. They wanted these western women to reveal the realities of their lives in their own words.
In Crazy Woman Creek, 153 women west of the Mississippi write of the ways they shape and sustain their communities. Whether these groups are organized, imposed, or spontaneous, this collection shows that where women gather, anything is possible. Readers will encounter Buddhists in Nebraska, Hutterites in South Dakota, rodeo moms rather than soccer moms. A woman chooses horse work over housework; neighbors pull together to fight a raging wildfire; a woman rides a donkey across Colorado to raise money after the tragedy at Columbine. Women recall harmony found at a drugstore, at a powwow, in a sewing circle. Lively, heartfelt, urgent, enduring, Crazy Woman Creek celebrates community -- connections built or strengthened by women that unveil a new West.

The grassroots publishing sensation continues with WOVEN ON THE WIND, the second volume of women's writing from the heart of the American West compiled by the editors and ranchers Linda Hasselstrom, Nancy Curtis, and Gaydell Collier. They called on women in sixteen states and provinces to write about their friendships with other women in the West, a subject that they discovered has all too often been overlooked or underplayed. The result is WOVEN ON THE WIND, a unique and exhilarating collection, "a beautiful, intricate mosaic of women as mothers as well as friends" (Fencepost). In a region where time and space are large and solitude is a fact of life, these women tell of the beauties, ironies, rigors, heartbreak, and humor of life and how it is uniquely enriched by friendships past and present. The voices in this volume -- unsentimental, unflinching, and utterly unforgettable -- take readers into the fields, kitchens, barns, and souls of nearly 150 women and reveal a vital part of the real western American story. "Here is the essence of the West -- not the myth, but the truth."

In Feels Like Far, award-winning author Linda Hasselstrom paints an intimate portrait of family, love, work, nature, and survival against the backdrop of the far-flung South Dakota prairie. Sixteen linked stories tell of the joy of training a first horse, the heartbreak of finding a fatally injured cow, the beauty of cavorting nighthawks, the stubbornness of her father, a rigid old rancher who bucks at old age, the deep, almost spiritual bond she shares with a friend who is diagnosed with AIDS. “In deliciously direct and unsentimental style” (Kathleen Norris), Hasselstrom maps the landscape of her life, demarcating the same beauties and brutalities that intermingle on the Great Plains she calls home.