Author’s welcome: For many years, my writing has focused on a sense of place, the intersection of people with the landscape, here in my native Dubuque County, Iowa, as well as more broadly in the Driftless Area, that hilly and rugged region of the Upper Mississippi Valley that was bypassed by the glaciers. In more recent years, I have added a sense of place in Ireland to my writing repertoire, based on time spent teaching and travelling there. Increasingly, my sense of place is tied to my belief that all land is sacred.
The landscape is full of stories, from geologic beginnings to early human inhabitants, to cultures thriving and displaced, to contemporary tales of destruction and preservation. It is the writer’s task to awaken the stories from the land. |
Kevin Koch is a Professor of English at Loras College in Dubuque, IA, where he teaches courses in creative nonfiction, nature writing, among others. When not teaching or writing, he can be found bicycling, hiking, cross-country skiing, or canoeing/kayaking in the Driftless Land. -- He can be reached at kevin.koch@loras.edu
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The Thin Places: A Celtic Landscape from Ireland to the Driftless
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The Driftless Land: Spirit of Place in the Upper Mississippi Valley
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Skiing At Midnight: A Nature Journal from Dubuque County, Iowa
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Chasing Black Hawk:
A video-essay
A video-essay