Center News and Events
February 5, 2010
TALLGRASS WORKSHOP TO OFFER
HIGH SCHOOL WRITERS COMPETITION
EMPORIA, Kan. -The Tallgrass Writing Workshop is pleased to announce the Don Coldsmith Young Writers Award for Kansas high school juniors and seniors. The award honors the life-long achievements of western writer and columnist, Don Coldsmith, by encouraging young writers in their craft. Awards will be presented during the 25th Annual Tallgrass Writing Workshop to be held June 25 – 27 on the ESU Campus.
All Kansas high school juniors and seniors are eligible to enter the competition. A minimum of five double-spaced typed pages of prose, poetry, or fiction will be juried by the workshop faculty. Winning students will receive individual instruction and critique from members of the esteemed workshop faculty and complimentary access to all workshop events during the weekend. Students should send works to Max McCoy, Tallgrass Workshop Coordinator, Box 4019, Emporia State University, 1200 Commercial, Emporia, KS 66801. Deadline for receipt of submissions is May 15 and entries cannot be returned.
Don Coldsmith, a founder of the workshop, was a prolific writer with more than 40 books, 150 magazine articles, and 1,800 newspaper pieces. His syndicated column Horsin’ Around was a weekly staple of good humor, common sense, and the most interesting and often over looked details of life.
Don was the 1990 winner of the Spur Award for best novel, given by the Western Writers of America. He was also a recipient of the Owen Wister Award for lifetime achievement, named a Distinguished Kansan by Native Sons and Daughters of Kansas, and received the Edgar Wolfe Award for his contribution to literature.
Coldsmith died June 25, 2009. He was 83.
The Tallgrass Writing Workshop has a long history of excellence in serving writers at all stages of career development. Participants include teachers, novelists, poets, journalists, historians, and those writing family histories. The workshop is offered by the ESU Center for Great Plains Studies and the Department of English, Modern Languages, and Journalism.
August 15, 2009
A Window on Flint HIlls Folklife:
The Mardin Ranch Diaries 1862 1863
Rarely are detailed glimpses of 19th century life in the Flint Hills available to the 21st century reader. The recently published book, “A Window on Flint Hills Folklife: The Mardin Ranch Diaries 1862-1863,” gives readers just that glimpse on early life in Chase and Lyon counties.
Published by The Center for Great Plains Studies at Emporia State University and edited and introduced by Jim Hoy, Professor, ESU Department of English, the book allows readers to travel back to the days of farming and stock raising, pasture burning, and daily customs during the early settling of the Flint Hills.
"The grass is rich and matted, you cannot see the
soil.
It holds the rain and the mist, and they seep into
the ground...
It is well-tended, and not too many cattle feed upon
it;
Not too many fires burn it, laying bare the soil."
Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
There are four major grasslands in the world--the Pampas of South America, the Savanna of Africa, the Steppes of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and the Great Plains of North America. The Great Plains is a strip of land 400 miles wide lying just east of the Rocky Mountains. It stretches all the way from Mexico 2500 miles north into central Canada. Parts of ten states and three provinces--North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba--are in the Great Plains.