Emily Brisse

Today I have returned to my students. I'm always surprised, after the exhaustion of spring, to discover how much I've missed them, how excited I am to be back in the classroom, teaching. I've spent the past month preparing for the next nine, and somewhere between notes on A Farewell to Arms  and rethinking my lead-in lesson on perspective, I reread the critical thesis I wrote two summers ago. I called it "Landing: A Focus on Place in Flyover Fiction." In it, I examined first place--how it's created in writing, effective techniques, etc.--and second those writers from my flyover state who seem to have a handle on such things. I wrote it as a writer for other writers. But this time, because of the headspace I was in, I read it as a teacher, and my planning from that day on changed. Later, I read in the most recent issue of Orion  Erik Reece's essay "The Schools We Need." He talked about many things, but the paragraph that stood out to me was th...

Such timing, this book entering my life, the landscape shifting and changing around me, just so. Come two more weeks into April, and I could not have abided a story with blizzards and below zero temperatures. Come one week earlier, and I would not have savored strong rivers and spring time like I do this day. Also: pardon the antiquated language. This is how eleven-year-old Reuben Land talks, steeped as he is in his dad's KJB. Also, I have this terrible habit of falling in love with first-person narrators just like him, first-person narrators who believe that round and starchy words have a place on the tongue. Peace Like a River . Minnesotan Leif Enger wrote a good one. The book came out in 2001 and promptly garnered a bevy of accolades and "best-seller" labels. It's easy to see why. This story is nothing if not eminently readable. Let me just list some prevalent themes: family, tragedy, faith, love, adventure. You see what I mean? There is not a lot that is rac...