Author kent meyers biography
The Witness of Combines
If you haven't experienced Kent Meyers, take this opportunity now to find some of his earlier works. His command of language is mind-boggling in its simplicity. He seems to be able to find the exact word to match the exact emotion at the exact moment that emotion is needed.
THE WITNESS OF COMBINES is a collection of essays. More aptly stated, it is a collection of essays that focus on the prairies of the Midwest. Particularly Minnesota and South Dakota. Being a South Dakotan, I find immense pleasure in his words, at how he is able to describe this vast expanse of nothingness, make the reader feel as if they had always lived within this world.
Breakdown of essays:
WITNESS OF COMBINES (5 stars) - When Kent's father dies, Kent and his family are left to handle the harvest season alone. An overwhelming task for the veteran farmer, but an almost impossible task for the unskilled hands of two sons who were recently left fatherless. Instead of wallowing in the agony of losing their father, Kent and his brothers decide to bring in the harvest...but they are not alone. To their surprise, dozens of combines and trucks venture up their driveway, eager to help in any way they can. This will be the last harvest for the Meyers boys, they know this, the workers know this. What ensues is a magical display of neighborliness not often seen today. A truly wonderful piece displaying what really lies at the heart of man.
WINDBREAK (5 stars) - Kent's older brother, Kevin, built a windbreak for their cattle for a FFA project. It wasn't a perfect windbreak, as it should have contained spaces to let the wind trave
Erika Buiter—Staff Writer
Photos by Emi Stewart
Kent Meyers, author of “The Witness of Combines,” visited the Hulst library to talk with a group of students and community members. Meyers, a retired professor who lives in Spearfish, South Dakota, writes both fiction and non-fiction, but his road to authorship was a slow one.
Meyers began his college education as a chemistry major, but lost his fascination in the sciences when math and more abstract concepts entered his chemistry classes.
“I had a crisis of education,” Meyers said. He considered dropping out, but stuck with it and took general education classes—including an English course.
“[Writing] engaged my intellect and my emotions in a way that I didn’t know was possible,” he said.
Inspired by this new passion, Meyers changed his major to English, graduated and completed a master’s in English–but his road to authorship was far from over. It wasn’t until he attended the Great Plains Writing Conference that he realized he could write fiction just as well as the regional authors who attended. After the conference, he and a few friends formed a writing group, where Meyers could explore writing in a safe environment.
It would be five years before Meyers published a short story.
“We tend to believe that we learn in this nice, level, 45-degree angle, building day by day, and it gets more and more, and then you reach some stage where you know,” he said. “My experience has been that a quantum kind of jumping thing is a more realistic way to look at how you learn.”
After getting his first short story published, Meyers experienced a kind of “creative leap,” finding it easier to continue to write short stories and essays. His non-fiction work, “The Witness of Combines,” contains a variety of essays centering on the death of his father, the land that he lived on as a teenager and the close-knit Midwestern community he was a part of.
Howard Schaap, associ
Kent Meyers author biography, plus links to books by Kent Meyers.
Kent Meyers
Kent Meyers is the author of The Work of Wolves, Light in the Crossing, The River Warren, and The Witness of Combines. He is a recipient of an ALA Alex award, two Minnesota Book awards, and a Mountains and Plains Booksellers Association award. His work has been included in the New York Times list of Notable Books and is published in a wide array of prestigious magazines.
This biography was last updated on 09/24/2009.
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- Reviews
- "Beyond the Book" articles
- Free books to read and review (US only)
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- Book club discussions
- and much more!
- Just $50 for 12 months or $18 for 3 months.
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