Last summer, on a road trip from Minneapolis to Kansas City, I passed through a town in Iowa where I lived from age two to five.  Here is a picture. I have limited memories from these years, and most of these are filtered through home movies that I watched later or stories my father told me about his first job there as a Lutheran minister. But I have a strong impression that the town, named Williams, was intact and reasonably thriving—not unlike a nearby town named Kanawha wh

While studying rural communities that face poverty, shocking rates of cancer, and poisoned fishing waters from industrial pollution,...

I was dismayed to learn that the Trade Lake Township board appears (at least temporarily) to be backtracking on its promise—voted under...

In few days I head to my summer writing place, a log cabin in the Wisconsin north woods where my mom grew up. It's about halfway between...