Writing from Home: Lessons from a Novelist-Slash-Small-Town Newspaper Columnist

“Small towns around Wisconsin are depopulating, the main streets emptying and shuttering. An American way of life is disappearing, and with it, an exchange is made. If there is no future for small-towns, what about local media like the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram? Who will report on the illegal acts of multinational corporations polluting the countryside? State officials undermining local and regional democracy? Who will grow the nation’s food? Who will work in its factories? Who will be the stewards of the backroad forests, orchards, prairies, rivers, and streams?”