Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature (SSML)

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Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature (SSML)

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The organization publishes the peer-reviewed scholarly journal MidAmerica along with Midwestern Miscellany. More information can be found at https://ssml.org/

Founded in 1971, SSML encourages the study of Midwestern literature and culture in whatever directions the insight, imagination and curiosity of its members may lead. SSML holds an annual conference in East Lansing, Michigan, with presentations of scholarly research and creative writing, and also sponsors panels at the conferences of MLA and MMLA. SSML members also produced the two-volume Dictionary of Midwestern Literature. SSML's annual awards include the Mark Twain Award, presented to a living writer for distinguished contributions to Midwestern literature; the MidAmerica Award, presented to a living scholar for outstanding contributions to the study of Midwestern literature; and the David D. Anderson Award for Outstanding Essay in Midwestern Literary Studies, presented to the author of a scholarly essay published in a journal or edited volume during the previous year.

11/04/2026

The Midwestern Nobel Laureate in Literature meets the Midwestern pope, whose writings also constitute Midwestern literature.

Pope Leo XIV met with American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan in a private audience on Wednesday, November 4.

11/04/2026

Say to them,
say to the down-keepers,
the sun-slappers,
the self-soilers,
the harmony-hushers,
"Even if you are not ready for day
it cannot always be night."
You will be right.
For that is the hard home-run.

Live not for battles won.
Live not for the-end-of-the-song.
Live in the along.

—Gwendolyn Brooks

10/31/2026

Both Harrison and Kooser received the SSML Mark Twain Award for Outstanding Contributions to Midwestern Literature.

First Frost over Harvested Fields

by Ted Kooser

Too dark before dawn to see them, but out there
are lakes of pale silvery starlight, from one shore
to another, not the tick of one cricket to warn us
of how thin the cracked ice is over the future,
were we out there and not alone at our windows,
peering into the dark, our breath on the black glass,
imagining what those fields must now look like
all covered in frost, and I think of my lost friend,
who is done with imagining now, no dawn
to come later for him, nor a warm breeze to lift
the bright chaff of first frost and then melt it away.

*****************************************

Always a joy to share one of Ted Kooser's poems. We're just steps into Autumn now, but the cusp of Winter is not far ahead. Ted and Jim were longtime friends, and their collaboration on the collection Braided Creek is a masterpiece.

Thanks to Narrative Magazine for sharing this poem. Ted and Jim both released new poems via Narrative. If you hit a paywall, perhaps consider subscribing. They put out good work.

Ted Kooser is a two-time U.S. Poet Laureate and the author of numerous poetry collections, including Raft; Delights & Shadows, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry; Splitting an Order; Kindest Regards; and Cotton Candy. As poet laureate, he created “American Life in Poetry,” a free weekly column for newspapers, featuring a poem by a contemporary American writer. Born in Ames, Iowa, Kooser is a former vice president of Lincoln Benefit Life, where he worked as an insurance representative for many years. He is Presidential Professor Emeritus at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

https://www.narrativemagazine.com/issues/narrative-backstage/poetry/first-frost-over-harvested-fields-ted-kooser?uid=127565&m=c146869140d36ced2260baae23bd0a7f&d=1790022817

Photo Credit: Don Usner

10/30/2026

Midwestern Nobel Prize Laureate Bob Dylan talks about his life and work in relation to literature.

10/15/2026

Ernest Hemingway after a 10 day, 250 mile solo hike to Michigan, July 20, 1916

09/13/2026

https://electricliterature.com/7-books-about-the-midwest-by-asian-american-writers/

These complex representations of Asians in America's heartland affirm that we exist here and our stories deserve to be told

09/10/2026

This new book from Michigan State University Press includes an essay on the literature of Mid-Michigan, written by SSML member William Barillas.

Inspired by the iconic American Guide Series published by the Federal Writers Project in the 1930s, this new guide to Flint, the Saginaw Valley, and the Thum...

09/09/2026

Ohio University Press in Athens recently published The Innocent Midwest: Culture, Region, and Identity, 1793–1930 by Marcia Noe, longtime SSML member.

Excerpt from the web page description:
"The Innocent Midwest delves into one of the most enduring stereotypes in American cultural history: the image of the Midwest as a bastion of innocence. Despite its share of social, political, and economic complexities, the region has long been portrayed as wholesome, virtuous, and peace loving—a perception that has persisted from its pastoral beginnings through industrialization and into the digital age….
..Rather than offering a sweeping theory of regional identity, The Innocent Midwest focuses on the recurring literary figure of the innocent Midwesterner—an individual shaped by the land and striving for self-actualization. The book draws both on canonical authors like Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, Booth Tarkington, Sinclair Lewis, Theodore Dreiser, and Willa Cather and on lesser-known voices such as Maria Susanna Cummins, David Graham Phillips, Elia W. Peattie, William Webb, Chief Luther Standing Bear, and Oscar Micheaux, whose works contributed to the cultural construction of the Midwest.”

The Innocent Midwest delves into one of the most enduring stereotypes in American cultural history: the image of the Midwest as a bastion of innocence. Despi...

06/13/2026

Bob Dylan talks about the “magic” involved in the composition of his early songs.

05/13/2026

Official website: http://www.pbs.org/americanmasters | Celebrate the life and career of Pulitzer Prize...

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East Lansing, MI
48824

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http://www.ssml.org/

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