Originally published in 1997 by Houghton Mifflin, this is a collection of true stories, essays and poems which tell of the glories and rigours of living close to the land.

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. In a direct and unsentimental style Hasselstrom maps the landscape of her life, demarcating the same beauties and brutalities that intermingle on the Great Plains she calls home.

The grassroots publishing sensation that began with "Leaning Into the Wind" continues in this second volume of women's writing from the heart of the American West.

Long troubled by the misguided images of skinny cowgirls on prancing palominos, the editors embarked on a mission to set the record straight by encouraging western women to reveal the reality of their lives in their own prose and poetry.

Charmingly, Mari Sandoz tells of a long-ago Christmas in western Nebraska when her father s house was filled with good music. Old Jules had ordered an Edison phonograph and boxes of cylinder records from the East, paying for them with an inheritance and ignoring debts, to the chagrin of his long-suffering wife. But the entire family soon entered into the holiday spirit as neighbors arrived to feast and dance and enjoy musical selections ranging from Lucia di Lammermoor to Casey at the Telephone. Even old enmities dissolved under the spell, for, as Old Jules said, The music is for everybody....

Acclaimed nature writer Linda M. Hasselstrom sees herself as a rancher who writes - a self-definition that shapes the tone and content of her writing. Now owner of the cattle ranch where she grew up in western South Dakota, she lives in daily intimate contact with the natural world. As she says, Nature is to me both home and office. Nature is my boss, manager of the branch office - or ranch office - where I toil to convert native grass into meat....If I want to keep my job as well as my home, I pay attention not only to Nature's orders, but to her moods and whims. The essays in this book...

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...

"Words that spring from a deep intimacy with the land"
From the Texas panhandle to the mountains of Arizona, Amy Auker has lived the cowboy lifeas wife, as mother, as cook, as ranch hand, as writer. In fine-grained detail she captures the prairie light, the traffic on small farm-to-market roads, the vacant stillness of shipping pens when fall works are over. But she also captures the unmistakable westernness of the people and animals around her: the son who must get back on the horse, the husband who gives great gifts, the horses whose names and temperaments are as recognizable as...

Filled with adventurous writing, sharp scrutiny, meticulous and audacious use of language, North of the Platte, South of the Niobrara 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 Bryan Jones is to create a fresh understanding of the Nebraska Sand Hills from the inside.