By Maryann Henck

Nature doesn’t real­ly care whether there are human beings or not.
I’m sor­ry to break this to you.
- Mar­garet Atwood

I’m not sure what I need to com­ment on first – the bloem or that wry, news­flashy quote. Let’s start off with the easy things first – the quote. Cana­di­an envi­ron­men­tal activist and con­tem­po­rary Scheherazade, Mar­garet Atwood, real­ly knows how to dri­ve her point home and reverse per­spec­tives. Isn’t it utter­ly refresh­ing to hear Nature’s point-of-view? Although She may not care about our exis­tence, we should def­i­nite­ly be con­cerned about Hers – espe­cial­ly on Her spe­cial day – April 22 – a.k.a. Earth Day!

Now you might be won­der­ing what a bloem is or maybe you’ve already guessed by now that it’s a port­man­teau or a blend – a word formed by clip­ping two words and then merg­ing them: blog + poem = bloem. If you ask me, it’s quite a sim­ple equa­tion and an appro­pri­ate trib­ute to World Book Day, which hap­pens to be on April 23. If you’re inter­est­ed in words, lit­er­a­ture, the future of books, and their con­nec­tion to the envi­ron­ment – for there is one – then you are cor­dial­ly invit­ed to sam­ple my bloem, “The Future of the Library: The Future Library,” which serves as an appe­tiz­er for the main course, an inter­view with Mar­garet Atwood about this fas­ci­nat­ing lit­er­ary and envi­ron­men­tal project.

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By Maryann Henck

One week before Christ­mas and no gift in sight?
Allow me to assist you out of your plight
For who real­ly wants one more thought­less gift?
Doomed to be piled on the re-gift­ing snowdrift
So why not cre­ate a sto­ry to tweet
In 140 char­ac­ters – short and sweet

Well, actu­al­ly in 280 char­ac­ters or less as Twit­ter has recent­ly dou­bled its tweet length. No Twit­ter account or mon­ey is required – just a bit of time. There’s no rea­son to fall under the glam­our of the pre-hol­i­day com­mer­cial­iza­tion craze. All you need is a seed for a sto­ry that you can let grow and trim back into shape. You can do the old-school thing and write or type it on a dec­o­ra­tive piece of paper. Then just stuff it into a lit­tle stock­ing. Of course, you can text or What­sApp your gift of twic­tion as well. In search of ideas? Then take a peek at some of the twic­tion from my cre­ative writ­ing students.

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By Maryann Henck

What is it like to grow up in an Old Order Amish com­mu­ni­ty? Can the allure of tra­di­tion and a sense of belong­ing to such a com­mu­ni­ty over­ride the long­ing for free­dom and the oppor­tu­ni­ty to expe­ri­ence the great wide world? This unre­lent­ing push and pull between secure Amish com­mu­ni­ty life and the tempt­ing siren song of the out­side world have shaped ex-Amish author and blog­ger, Ira Wagler. In his best-sell­ing mem­oir, Grow­ing Up Amish, the author offers his read­ers an hon­est, bit­ter­sweet, and mov­ing account of how he left the Amish, only to return and even­tu­al­ly leave for good.

As one of the guest speak­ers at the Plain Peo­ple Con­fer­ence, Ira Wagler gave a heart­felt talk as well as read excerpts from his mem­oir about com­ing of age and his first love, Sarah Miller. But why don’t you lis­ten for yourself?

By Drew Hayden Taylor

After a dozen trips or more to Deutsch­land, I can offi­cial­ly say I con­sid­er Ger­many to be my home away from home. Each vis­it reunites me with old friends, and if I’m lucky, I get the oppor­tu­ni­ty to make new ones. I’ve grown fond of the land and the peo­ple. Upon reflec­tion, I think I have quite prob­a­bly seen more of Ger­many and its cities than most of its cit­i­zens. I lost track after the thir­ti­eth town. Or was it the for­ti­eth. … Hard to say. After this many trips, it’s all a blur of schnitzel and white asparagus.
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By Daria Radler

Writ­ers are a spe­cial breed. Con­stant­ly shift­ing through their per­cep­tion of the envi­ron­ment with detailed atten­tion, they store and ana­lyze any piece of infor­ma­tion on the end­less shelves of their flour­ish­ing mind. Every­thing is of val­ue. The way the grumpy barista was hold­ing the pen as he scrib­bled their name on their cup of take-away cof­fee; the momen­tary silence before a daugh­ter answered her moth­er, assur­ing her that she would be home in time for din­ner; the way he brushed her cheeks ever so slight­ly, trac­ing the out­line of her cheek­bone with the tip of his thumb as they sat on the park bench next to each oth­er, their eyes drink­ing in each oth­ers’ presence.

Writ­ers are like magi­cians. They turn to the world for inspi­ra­tion to cre­ate a uni­verse of their own, using a hand­ful of words to lat­er engage their read­ers. They feed the pages of a satir­i­cal play, a lost romance, or a spec­tac­u­lar crime. I’ve always found writ­ers fascinating.

When I came to Amer­i­ca as an exchange stu­dent in the spring of 2015, I was burn­ing with curios­i­ty but rather shy of expec­ta­tions. Lit­tle did I know that the U.S. would be my lit­er­ary haven.  Read more »

By Michaela Keck

This past fall, my trav­els and work oblig­a­tions had me fly into Cal­gary. I took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to spend five addi­tion­al days in spots I con­sid­er breath­tak­ing­ly beau­ti­ful: Water­ton and Glac­i­er Nation­al Park. I crossed over the Cana­di­an bor­der and into Mon­tana on a late after­noon in Sep­tem­ber and drove past herds of bison toward the vil­lage of St. Mary just as the last rays of the sun broke through the clouds and lit up the moun­tain ranges that rise so abrupt­ly from the grassy plains.

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