2016 Kansas Notable Books, Part II

i know today on tv are prisons new books like kansans or about kansas i'm kate mcintyre each year the state library of kansas celebs fifteen books as kansas notable winners in the second of a two part series we'll hear from the authors of many of those books including fiction nonfiction poetry young adult literature and more it's my favorite show of the year a chance to read some good books meet the others and get some books away later this hour find out how you can win a kansas notable book they canvass noble both winners were honored at the kansas book festival on september tenth two thousand sixteen i met up with many of the kansas noble winners at the festival in topeka including scott martelle is the author of the mad man and the assassin the strange life of boston corbett the man who killed john wilkes booth scott thanks for joining us today you're

having it may surprise many of our listeners it surprised me that there was any connection between the assassination of abraham lincoln and kansas and we'll get to kansas connection in a minute but let's start out talking about boston corbett who was this eccentric little man who was eccentric is born in england and came here is a young kid with his father moved to new york i became an apprentice as an older apprentice so packed furniture used mercury opposes mercury vapor paro the processing for the feld and he unveiled a whole bunch of an entry for the phrase mattered narrative that's working for a cd it's a long time in new york and of these facilities are working and have trade and got married his wife died tragically young so some of that event of the bottle of whiskey barely get

saved by some people an evangelist in new york city they saw rocco was the way this makes corals at the kidnapping and sober now and proselytizing the same time inadvertently and the dealer the process had become a deep deep believer and the zealous some would have described on its recruiting he did his day job to earn money to street preaching and save people like himself he'd go out and find a drunken street bring him back to as rooms so we're not gonna job chemistry kit and i'll go find another one and he's using all of zynga for that is a lot of borrowing money from friends for faithful to do these concessions really living the life that he thought she was a christian and what happened with the advent of the civil war oh that is working for alice was a reason that they don't want the national guard unit is supposed to be called up and in that year you could buy a way out so he paid court to take his place and corporate volunteered and our

cousins twelfth cavalry and he spent most of the civil war for different incidents most of the civil war the union army and they included for months in andersonville prison notorious prison in georgia which was lots of prison open or stockade that held tens of thousands of them in any given point was a patient of starvation on settlements and a broken record itself relieved maintain his sanity but his record to remember her daughter the reasons dave is hot and his stint in the army and kerry can to that fateful night when abraham lincoln was assassinated he had been really so innocent bill had healed enough to come back to active duty james california the assassination happened everybody on the union side in washington is trying to find it and you're putting a pine woods for a while and then one upholding the tobacco farm and just like your happenstance courts unit was the one that went to

the right format the right fountain hunting tobacco bar under a search engine and the fundamental the night john wilkes booth but you have to read that passage so i love to have them have occured of misunderstanding of the soldiers have surrounded the barn knowing that it was presented with a copy by damien duff david her old who had already left the bar knee and said judy is giving up it was a part of this you just want you know he was part of it but so at this point it's just i was in the barn and the government a couple of detectives were with them and started a fire the back of them aren't professional of our misses how does having like to recruit morning in earlier court had offered to go inland self and bring an act of bravado that they rejected at the side of the bar and the sergeant would offer to take listener harold alone kept a steady gaze and injured actors to hand wide gap between two

planks certain as a slender man about five feet four inches tall with longish dark hair parted in the middle and slick back behind his ears you're a scraggly beard a soft brown eyes conservative union army often on since the storm war and steadily since late and sixty three he earned reputation for religious zealotry that i want what landed him in the stockade recalling a superior officer who swore addressing us troops that did fade but also help them survive for once an interest in simple prison whether the sergeant himself knew exactly what was running through his mind at that moment flame for calling up inside the back wall of the barn illuminating at lincoln's killer tortilla maker the two detectives are standing on the far side of the party have been burned or so displaced about ten yards from each other on the barn to ensure with conflict in the flickering light of a growing flames the second son who is raised as rival toward the open door and soldiers and taxes beyond you believe the killer's want to kill again so right hander sergeant stated his gun owners

opposite forum took careful aim to the gap of the shoulder and fired the soldier later credit or blame provenance for the decision to shoot and compatibility and only had a few yards to travel beyond a bit from some tented more to the left the base of the skull shattering the fourth cervical vertebrae and seven the spinal cord with and then tore out on the other side who's collapsed paralyzed mortally wounded within seconds doherty conjured some of the soldiers pull into a blazing building and move into the yard and there was a fire roared through places sasson on the house porch frequently for about three hours the setting for the film shows in boston corbett and without getting into provinces troubled life became the stuff of legend infatuation and a mansion and eventually institutionalization for such a boston court was mad as a hatter that's the madman and the assassin the strains like avastin corbett the man who killed john wilkes booth i scott martelle scott let's jump forward a couple years to eighteen seventy eight when corbett moves to

kansas what brought him here describe his timing kansas city was broken skull was shot us auto industry had come for replace the fashion runway felt that he couldn't make a living a church couldn't admit that keep itself going and i asked the government for employment is the postmaster in camden a response a friend of his and this is conjecture joseph whitehead moon in andersonville he had an eighty acre homestead in clark county and homes sit next to his have not been claimed and correspondent about a campus in whitehead's local about it so the court can help little property went back and made one last appeal to press they were filled packed up a few belongings begin heading west and wound up and they're and so the guy who had grown up in new york city and spent his life

so hat maker was not only a former kansas and there's a reason why those eighty acre for one client it's somewhat rocky terrain very close to lowell so that i would be a formal complaints the american farm that were doing this interview in the kansas state capitol and coincidentally enough for a short time boston corbett worked as an assistant doorkeeper to the kansas house of representatives it was a short lived appointment first i did a reading of the book festival today in the very chamber that he had been assigned as the doorkeeper just come from russia after the call though union soldiers veterans or for leaks supported group and the figure though that traditionally dollars a month and

so a fellow veteran agree to an elected to the house representatives and he for making the appointment as soon as the third working for something like that again in that era which a retrospective that idea was mentally ill for most was of the left were purposeful life another psychology psychiatry spano sr bipolar disorder depression idiot be relatively ok for a while and then get very paranoid delusional people try to steal flanders money and stuff so i started as a doorkeeper isn't one of those better roads and in some of the celebrity roulette shake the hand of a man who eventually going on but then he went into a dark place and the other two people laughing at him he's very slight build prevent an appearance and when people support a woman with something similar to be done and one morning before the session began at the armory in that time was helping deaf in america janitors when the force with the force for the basis of their friendship with some of these guys

and news of this dark mood and heard them laughing and laughing at him and walked up on them with a revolver drama that started several hours' worth of showdown slash no guns are shot but people different approach and he finally penned waited amount they kind of contain him he's moving around to different places and waited for an unguarded moment was construct a way to jump into the floor on and he liked the reactors this year you're on a jolly bunch of fouls or something like that on took him to gillette stadium a senate hearing for probate judge all the guys were involved in stuff michael dunn testified against and you just cross examination which is nonsensical the conspiracy theories and the news i'm on a lot of other people getting suggestions an easy decision and listen to the mountains to do that because it possible there the sad

and mysterious end of his life nobody really knows what happened last week when he was there for how the data for me for the part of your foul longer and in that year of the instrument on the grounds of maturity and son and these were mentally ill people of inmates on the head for fringe around the corals are walking on the grounds of a predictor of other inmates that were in his unit was in jail and i saw this kid right up only and coral of politics reporter named billy back in cobb county and such a radical opponent tied up and go up into the building to see you son of the administration's effort to have supported suddenly scientists to slow down and smell the roses that compliance of the pre of folks go by and when enough distance opened up be able to fool the horse and climate gun and took office a lesson learned to be ever saw boston court he wound up in near where the constitution's all the school's reputation you know they say they're

in one of their friends was there are foreigners from and simple answer to that theres house and spend a couple today's there and it already deposited a bank draft a fifteen dollars in a bank in concordia i think captured his friend allen so yesterday thousands of the mexico and he writes a bank draft to thatcher's brothers and was given fifteen dollars in cash and got on a train and that's what i'm ready so those worries that scott martelle the author of the mad man and the assassin the strange life of boston corbett the man who killed john wilkes booth it's just one of the two thousand sixteen kansas notable books we're featuring on today's k pr presents we've got a copy of the madman and the assassin to giveaway find out how you can win this or another kansas notable book later this hour dana bowerman of lynn's berg is the

author of bottled of mom's guide to early recovery it's a raw account of one woman's journey from alcohol abuse to sobriety when i went into recovery i was writing at the time was writing freelance work doing freelance work but you know obviously when recovery happens or maybe not obviously to all the listeners the ipad takes over some of the most important thing in your life and i was really focused on him and it sort of consumed me but then after the fact when i had a couple of months of recovery and i got contacted by the publishers crp essential recovery process and they asked me to write for them right but for them and i just thought at the time kind of blissfully oh wonderful i always wanted to write about and i started in on it and boy was i surprised at how it was almost like i was going through recovery again that early stage all over or so but what's in what in many ways was a good thing and it was it

was grinding and difficult and it was amazingly healthy and helpful for retailers and he pointed to the word robin it's a very raw account of what it's like to be in recovery but it's also incredibly funny asides find the funny part of it because i would say this is serious the topic to be funny about but i think that like this money and that you know shakespeare will tell you that china's economy go together very well and to me here it takes is all dulles can have a level or it brings everybody down to the same page and has really don't know you know how to speak in a way that's not going to access humor is it to me that's what keeps the souls are going and i mentioned it i'd read about quite a bit in my but my brother who died from this disease of this whole area it's an ailing problem with that is he used his funny

sometimes to cover up a lot of pain and i use my funny to uncover the pain and i think that that's helping me beyond recover and hoping hopefully helping others to some human psychology read that there were two surprising things in this book one was how funny it was but the other was how many have lessons and i use that in air quotes that incoming the lessons that you speak of are not just limited to people in recovery there things that i think probably every young mom can attest to or can identify with it i had at the end of each chapter kind of tongue in cheek taught chemistry things i did that because i'm not opulence an analyst what they've letter then i was like jesus so so some of them are a little bit sarcastic but they really do how the league's an alliance rob thomas i ended up looking back at them and thinking and this isn't all

about you know to sobriety or not drinking i think there's only one chapter called them it's hard to be happy and it talks about how sometimes we end especially the mom says that you know in this ad is the contrast mom is all out there with her pretty pictures and her cute little how my daughter mason jars in her without stopping they use all the time the muslim and you know i just don't get it's everything is so jarring she notes can even drink with a straw anymore unless it's like a cute straw was i mean you stop so we have these mines that have these expectations about what life in space to look way and we're not happy in our lives are miserable falling apart inside and so i have a lot of stuff in here that kind of pokes its that enjoys and rob baedeker sky makes fun and eight laps at it in an egg and you know when i go back a bit like hanssen and what they have

done for our lives and things like that it is it is kind of crazy how the book covers a lot of it ground say let's talk about one of the things you talk about is the power of changing just one thing that you know i just i just re read that chapter and i thought to myself boy you need to go back to that i had forgotten you know went when the perfectionist so get in our zone i must fix the law and i can't buy me something is injured like cleaning house i could never do it and i'll find myself scratching the bottom of my refrigerator vegetable than when really it should just be throwing some laundry and you know i'm going to clean the entire house are the ceiling for you know for aig it can be very overwhelming and you know just that one thing if you find yourself and happier stalker interactive something i learned from a twelve step meetings just puts down on your to do list whether it's actually written

or not but for me i love less so just the dumb one thing to do that they not ten not the teen one thing and now one thing to change your and make sure something different that you haven't done before and so we'll see how that kind of you know masses with fewer or it or maybe recalibrate staff in and i can see it is a completely gone to the same doctor for twenty years and you saw the same problem as you know trying a different doctor and see how that goes and it might not be perfect but this is the one thing you know just write one thing i saw it sent a second letter that just one just one because it's so arrieta not what makes the world you know and your children and your house and your husband and all of it that's one thing to read an excerpt from the book tour ed section you

actually that i found an just now and it's from that chapter there referred to how to survive being happy and i am once you back tracking give you an explanation that i have just really been sober at this point in the book for a little bit not long maybe probably about two months so i was a tender little thing and i had just received in the mail i am a wedding invitation and the wedding invitation sent me into almost i want to say like emotional exposure land urban area now explains i'm looking at the invitation and i'm thinking to myself how dare he invited us doesn't know how hard this will be for me perhaps it's fortunate that ryan did not know that's a gentleman game and one man ali acknowledge it was at the golf invite me to witness a marriage to his sweetheart i had no a cycle that anger and talking to myself walking in the loop between a dining room in the kitchen murdering and holding the invitation like it was evidence from a crime scene i

said i can't do weddings as i started the paper i can't do weddings and that's when i realized i cant do weddings this means i'm not normal this means my life will be for awkward and scary because weddings will be i'm sure are happening all over the place now our happy little frazzled start looking up everywhere like romantic rabbits and i will have to contend with all the sweating bullets and in that moment in my kitchen i hate everyone who ever phone well let us today just means people will celebrate its drinks into your hands practically for seniors celebrate all that mission this right along with them i don't like celebrations i hate what i cry of that war and seeded i was the grinch of everything i walked out into our front porch and contemplated the most depressing thing about her i wouldn't be able to tell us my new year and halloween know the pictures of my readers they're either couldn't sit it seem like such a fool's errand all this dressing up thinking costumes were there was no alcohol to make people comfortable with the tail of the whiskers and lack of dignity because halloween night strangers come into

order as an alcoholic ie opening doors answering phones signaling for packages talking being responsible basic interaction how was i supposed to do life if life included all these findings are names had to be garnished by one otherwise they were up on things and i would be so terribly aware that they should be fun making me want to drink even more and i would now have to do all sorts of events over anniversaries without romantic champagne anniversaries anniversaries are supposed to be romantic and fun also the superbowl housing and a deal at the border are cheering the horrible halftime shows also anything to do with christmas christmas that bailey's an economic and you really cares about the bird the baby jesus when you can shrink more wine but fire while listening to josh brolin we don't have a fireplace and i never cared for more wind hot line added an unnecessary stop to drinking it thanksgiving thanksgiving men

traveling which really strung out so that their martinis at my house cause he's an army and happy to oblige even have those few jobs that are like a neon themselves suddenly needs to hear it in a martini or maybe to aq and what about mainly in the book deal how could i possibly not drink where that happens brace yourself for the irony i got a deal about not drinking and yes for about five seconds i bought the i'm so happy and to celebrate now why and i probably smash the problem you're crazy call your mother instead was a picture of a kid eating and sing on base the us snickers you don't drink anymore remember that's bottled a mom's guide to early recovery by dana bowerman of lynn's birds thank you some west and i think is such a pleasure to be here if you're just joining us today on k pr presents its the two thousand

sixteen kansas notable books part to the best new books by kansans for about kansas selected by the state library and came out entire you're listening to katie our prisons on kansas public radio if you missed last week's keep your prisons part one of our annual kansas notable books program it's no archive on our website k pr di che you dot edu just look under news and then katie our presents again that's katie yard that's k u dot edu while you're there you can sign up for a chance to win a two thousand sixteen chances notable book thanks to many of the publishers we've got several to give away for a chance to win a book look under extra and then available giveaways well you're at our website consider making a guest to kansas public radio x listener support that makes keep your prisons possible without it we wouldn't be able to bring new locally produced programs that you enjoy

and depend on we're just about ready to kick off our fall membership drive you can plotz now and now that you've done your part i'm ready our next book is twenty five years among the indians and buffalo a friend's your memoir by william de st edited by his great grandson warren street warren thank you so much for joining me to a pleasure the original title for this book was to read to her it five years among the indians and buffalo personal recollections of adventure on the plains as a teamster soldier militia man homesteader trapper buffalo hunter scout guide and cowboy on the plains of kansas colorado and nebraska with pastor in the great southwest the wichita mounds of the indian territory

oregon idaho wyoming and the black hills of the dakotas warren was there anything that your great grandfather didn't do what he did he did everything for about two years and he enjoyed fall wildlife on the western plains of kansas mainly but colorado and nebraska as well so i've just given the very shorthand version of all the things he did over his career tell us a little bit more how would you describe your great grandfather he was a true planes man he grew up in a move to kansas when he was ten years old and he grew up in jefferson county and went to school there is just north of topeka and when he got to the age of sixteen the plains called to him and the romance of being out and in the open was just very attractive to him he signed on to a

framing company these folks took wagon trains of frayed out to the front here and that was the start of his life on the plains there were times when he lived in towns he was a storekeeper for a while and he did land location that was to help the settlers find a homestead location that was good for them but for the most part he was on the plane to the buffalo hunters a fur trapper of trapped beaver and the poise and wolves for their hides and he served a tour with the general sheridan and custer in a famous winter campaign making sixty eight sixty nine he was a cowboy for a while but most of his life was out very independent living on the plains in eighteen seventy eight he was involved with some military events with a group of cheyenne indians moving

through kansas on their way to return to their ancestral lands in montana and that kind of brought an end to this flag of on life that he had led he settled down and found for just a newspaper in an oberlin kansas became a state legislator or farmer rancher he was speaker of the house i guess we're here in the capitol building and i noticed his photo on their wall by chambers of the house and he's the only speaker who has a p for his party affiliation he was a populist during the heyday of the populist movement in kansas but the book that he published for the book that he wrote them and now it's available and published form just covers the his age is between about seventeen and twenty seven when he was up we much of a ranger out on on the buffalo ranch one of the amazing things about his story is that

he kept a journal during that time and he really documented what he was doing out on the plains tell me how that journal came into your possession and the story of how it came to be published a hundred and fifty years later how he did keep this journal and i'm i'm sorry to say that i think that actually journalists it's not in my possession he based the manuscript that i do have on his journal are they kept i think it's an unusual thing for a person on the planes to sit down at the end of a day of trapping are hunting and write down something about the day's events but he did he was a reader or he was out on the plains and he talks every now and then about having of a magazine or something like that a book in his pack that he can read the journal help to inform his later writing

we think about age fifty or so he felt an urge to write down the details of his young life he consulted this journal and then i think talk to friends who have been out on the buffalo arrange with him tried to put together things from public records that helped remind him of more stories and it was a five hundred page manuscript built on those forces that i inherited from my great uncle who is a who was the youngest child bill street young boy willie mcgee street my my great grandfather and then it fell and your possession and i was given the manuscript about fifty years ago but their life happened my i had a career and this manuscript just got moved from one place to another and it was always there and i'll always felt an obligation bag because i knew the family's commitment having it published so i retired i tried to do what i could to at

least publish a copy of the faithful call before every descendant now now living and it wasn't until i had that ready to go to the publisher or party ready to self publish that someone suggested i sent it to a real publisher as they put it and that was the university press of kansas and they have been just very generous with their help in in making it a a published product that bill's tree would have been very proud of i feel like i had a mission and i feel very good about completing it as you might expect for somebody whose career was spent out on the plains this book is just full of one story after another after another one story that really stuck with me is something that didn't happen to your great grandfather but to a friend of his jules van meter who got stuck inside a beaver allied soon can you tell me that story

sure the bill and you are hunting partners for the early part of his time on the plains one who will spell of three or four days you will was by himself in camp the others have taken the heights to a rail and he got curious about what was in beaver large so one afternoon when he holed out his trusty knife and this is in the dead of winter the bigger problems like frozen over and he starts hacking away at the side of the relaunch cutting its way into beaver large finally makes a hole big enough for him to discount really into it he looks around him satisfy his curiosity but then he goes to back out and by cutting into the bigger large he actually ended up like if you think about how this would happen he ended up making sharp and ends of these bigger large

sticks all pointing inward laden areas inside and each goes back out and it's of course it's just not going to work for and so he was there for twenty four hours wondering where you know if the walls were going to come and eat his eat him halfway up from the front legs up or what and he finally did figure out a clever way of getting out of this title but that was a very close call for joel made a great story later on the light like many close calls it's a great store is a great story are there any other stories that happen to your great grandfather that that really stuck with you like it's that there are there are dozens and dozens of things that happened to him and force of his life out of the plains as our story you'd like to share with us well you know one of the one of the stories that that i like because of their graphic description is when

he and his writing partners come on a small herd of buffalo and if you'd like i can read from the book he says the survey went out looking bait they start this small herd of buffalo they shot one of them the buffalo and went down and the rest of the herd starts running to the west and then he says the arrest ran often westerly direction they've gone but a short distance from the scene changed from a peaceful quiet landscape with only a small herd of buffalo running away from a lonely hunter as if by magic came indians why the scores they appeared in groups from every direction and around the fleeing heard it was inconceivable to week who had been on a constant lookout for game without a fun of indians that the prairie expanse before us could contain so many concealed living being it's whether they've observed us or not an all reason they had they were apparently not quite ready for the attack on the herd but the running buffalo were met in the west by a strong

force of hundreds who turned them to the north and then to meet another line of indian hunters determined to the east where they were met by other indians to circle them off to the southwest and then others to drive them to the west where the scattering remnants of the hurt were apparently wiped out in the stage setting for the first and only surround buffalo hunt by indians it was my great fortune to see we occupied a position on a little rise of land near the front of the stage the stage is a beautiful piece of curry about three or four miles an extent there were the wild running buffalo in a compact mass very much resembling a great big black ball rolling over the prairie surrounded by the half naked indian hunters mounted on their hunting ponies there were a few ravines on the plain language the buffalo an indians plunged disappearing for an instant while the scenes reel shifted with their reappearing into new shapes and shades finally fading away in the distance toward the southwest

it was a sight that no mortal i will ever be holdin on this or law that's warren street reading from twenty five years among the indians and buffalo affront to your memoir by his great grandfather william street it's just one of the fifteen books that the state library of kansas selected as the two thousands sixteen kansas notable books we featured many of the kansas notable books on last week's k pr presents if you missed the program or would like to hear it again it's now archived at our website k pr that k u die edu this week we're hearing from six more kansas notable authors i met up with them at the kansas book festival held september tenth two thousand and sixteen at the capitol in topeka including cindy him lines of wichita

sees the author of for the sake of art the story of the kansas renaissance for the sake of our tells the story of the friendship between inspired artist bridge or simply in and carl smalley of mcpherson and how their friendship turned the town of mcpherson into a cultural and artistic hub in the early part of the nineteen hundreds across mali was born in canada kansas the tiny town and had a love of art growing up on he would cut pictures on magazines we wanted to be an artist but he knew he didn't have the talent for it he worked in his father's feed and seed store in mcpherson and had wanted to go to college but i had to stay home and work and to his very disappointed he wasn't going to be able to go to college but this summer he graduated from high school he went to the nineteen oh four st louis world's fair what's changed his life and pretty much the artistic

history of a lot of mcpherson alm he learned about etchings and lithographs and visited the palace of fine arts that had artwork from twenty seven nations there was a tone that had a thousand electric lights on at the mcpherson didn't have much electricity yet mainstream wasn't paved yet so it opened up this whole world to him he bought a consignment of prince brought them back to mcpherson and convinced his father to let them put a few etchings about to see bands and you can imagine with the farmer's mcpherson thought that in the scene starting yes yes in the seed warehouse little corner where there were watching some some work with pottery in june first addition books and then he had to be on good fortune to me bridge or sand saying who had immigrated to lend spur to teach at berklee college in at ninety four and say insane had studied in paris and stockholm and had seen a lot of the world he also went to the st louis world's fair but it probably did make quite as huge impact on him because he had seen the world a little bit

and then in nineteen ten the superintendent m mcpherson schools they build a new school and there is no work in the school so he came up with the idea of a new exhibitions that people would pay admission a nickel or a dime to go to anything across mali have some prints so they exhibited there's a first year and then he enlisted san saints help and those two men over the next twenty five years organize these amazing exhibitions abroad in some of europe's top artists whistler and rembrandts he and george bellows and robert henri and men at hand half of the population in mcpherson at the time was five thousand people twenty five hundred people would get out in the winter in their wagons or horses go over the dirt roads to these art exhibition it's insane saying would always give a lecture and there'd be a whole room devoted to say in saint new work and people talked about a valley area to make the front page of the local newspaper's

it was picked up intensity new york city off and write about it and a journal in paris said the mcpherson county had the highest per capita part ownership of anywhere in the world and that this girl smiling must be the world's greatest art dealer so it was a very very unlikely time and place ended just had all the right ingredients to form sort of a kansas renaissance at what point did this girlfriend just how little corner in there the seeds door to a real presence in the mcpherson communities on small his father died in nineteen eighteen and left the seed store in fact it was a really big c operation carl's sold the seed store and finally was able to open his own art book and gift shop which some people said was the finest set shot between chicago and the west coast and that flourished in mcpherson from nineteen eighteen and tell he had to close in nineteen thirty four because of the depression isn't about dust bowl

farmers who had been great clients in the school kids would save up their money because they were excited about art and it just sort of dried up after that so he sold the shop and move to the west coast where he was a book representative for publishers how did you become interested in their story i was taking a while i went to the mcpherson schools and i knew they were censoring paintings on the walls but i had no idea about the incredible history that schoolchildren had actually saved money and raised money to biology our work until i was in mayo kansas history class of mcpherson college and had to come up with a research topic so the more i found out about it and especially the school kids had been a race this money and then there were some missing etchings that were interesting they'd been written about intensity started i couldn't find them and then to find out the story of the year dr work in the seed store

was pretty fascinating and then you throw in bridger say and saying it was internationally known artist in mcpherson county at the time and it was just really fascinating story and so i started to research when people were still alive who remember to smile is our shop so fortunately he was able to interview a lot of them so had that research started come from back in the late seventies with that they remember that his shop then there was the meeting place for young people in mcpherson he keep the coffee pod on late on saturday night and the unmarried people would go in there and they had art classes he had a rental library he had a little tea shop in there and he we import jury and handmade stationery from italy and i just have all of these wonderful art objects the noun main street in mcpherson kansas characterize the relationship between smalley and sensing with a friend's yes they were they were very close they were fourteen years difference when they met

the same thing was thirty nine and smiley was about twenty five and they had a wonderful relationships insane needed someone to help promote his art he and smiley was very good at that you organized traveling exhibitions and exposed syncing to a much wider audience and he's even though and since they met was not interested in a surly and making prince and smiley nagged him for so long and actually bought him the lithographic crayons there was a hundred years ago the sheer that he forced him to do his first lithograph and that's how a lot of his popularity spratt so the nineteen sixteen he created the first of more than three hundred prince's insanely did during his career and i'm sensing star margaret gets cross mali the credit for forcing her father to do that and they wrote found there were some letters discovered

just a few years ago two hundred letters written between the two men they talked about the depression the dust bowl and discounting paintings at how hard it was to collect from people and sam saints watercolors are going for like seventeen dollars at the time so you really got a look at the business of art and how difficult it was for him to make a living even though i was teaching at bethany do you have an excerpt you could read from your book the sake of our challenge here this is sad and somalis are choppy in the nineteen twenties no matter how hot the kansas sun goddess is streamed through the front windows a smile is our sherpa to twenty one north main in the person the proprietor would never consider going to work dressed in anything but a black suit and tie even the hottest of summer days could not dampen the enthusiasm across mali had felt for our since he was a young boy his intense

brown eyes survey the satisfactions the paintings that hung on the walls the wrist burgess insane in a prominent position of course flanked by henry varnum poor oscar jacobson robert cray well gerald cassidy the global pj o'rourke felt and manage their bees paintings represented more than art thou art was very dear every one of the artists was also a friend a small guest booked by the front door was more like an autograph album in which areas had signed their names next a small sketches framed etchings lithographs hung on the walls but the stock was so great surplus was neatly stacked in an overflowing portfolio the contents of the portfolio bore the signatures of such mastery printmakers as rembrandt whistler and more a as well as his friends insane these were small a special favorites because they enabled him to offer original works an affordable price is he remembered with fondness the first consignment of prince he had ordered at the nineteen oh four world's fair when he was nineteen years old after some cajoling his father allowed him

to display some of the prints about the band says wholesale and retail seed business that's for the sake of art the story of the kansas renaissance by cynthia minds of wichita thank you so much thank you our last book is a kansas trail guide by kristen and jonathan cannard how did this book come to be assertive without then he had wanted to how about out there on kansas trail and can really find anything as updated and then reached out we said hey would you want to do this i said sure and then it actually i got picked up and suddenly or committed an hour no luck so pretty big journey what is that you were looking for it they didn't exist where i really wanted to do was there is a lot of information that's available but there's nothing really pull it all together into one spot

and then a lot of information that was there was simply calm your information about yours the trailers along it is what we wanted to do was dig a little bit deeper and provide readers with some history on some natural history some back or knowledge that they could not only high control to really appreciate how the area that was than an hour and some of the other things about it as well i've interviewed other peers other authors and co authors because you were the first brother and sister team that i have come across what seemed like alice's question at each email server to prison when some like writing a book like this with your brother i guess if i thought twenty years ago if it would be able to do this with my brother probably not since we're both knee and high school and sibling revelry and what have you but we can't we'd we split up we divide in concord and a hands we each sort of wrote our own portions of it and then compared notes in and at each other's work and it actually worked really smoothly there were really any

problems than i can be really really support each other and work well together i would agree with workers in service of a much bigger project than a single person could take on baum and christians a very talented writer and so i was fortunate to go to work with her on the project and so there really wasn't experts were i think that we worked well together and were able to do some things that you know among other government deal otherwise you know any of the map work i did not know i did the actual hiking in the making the maps on the way that actually put it into a finished product that was all jonathan tilly balance out strength glue i think how many trails exactly in this book do you cover there's over at treehouse that are in there and the way that the book's set up is we have what we term future trials answer which are typical like the best trails within an area

or a park and then will also give a brief description of two or three additional channels as well so it's a little are dependent an exact number but it's a rail at all together ok so let's just take one of those trails answer to walk me through what it was like writing about that trial i'm so i'll say b eisenhower state park iii trail at malvern wake the horse trails there which spam horse trails have their own unique charms and hazards so i had that so i was actually i am you'd say i did start with what was in terms of what was there in terms of that the state park information what their jihad and so then you figure out where you're going to go you show up there and you never know if the trailers actually can be there's still there's overgrown i'm and that was why i was there i was relatively easy to find it was well mapped out are

well i am well mark's along the way and so that makes a really enjoyable time to be able to go along in and to be that and that was why and where it was a mix of through the woods to get a lot of financial aid if it's too warm and you come out on tuesdays rolling hills that overlooked awaken the wildflowers were in bloom and so that was kind of a an ideal an experience and richard allen and it was a really a nice when to map and a nice when i can people said and visit i would say it was always an adventure to show up to a trump for the first concert or trill such heard about or read a little bit about but she never knew what you're going to get until your standing at that two hundred and some in the trailers that had anticipated going on or just nods no longer maintain order patrols and there were some that i didn't expect a lot from but they turned out to be fantastic travails and so you when you get there just kind of that

sense of woods has come to be like and it's hard to say and we're actually out on the trails it's really time intensive because he couldn't just go on hike at like you normally would for each loop you have to map that with the gps and make sure that you're getting every way point marked each landmark know that along the way and chickens keeping a running log of notes as you go trying to take some good pictures as you're out there as well and then once you've got the hiking day and then the real work started because he had to go back and researched the area look into the natural history of a cup articles related to kind of history the places work and so is really quite a process to cut ties everything together like can we just see this but it's designed with me beginner intermediate or really seasoned hiker in mind i think that we tried to include trails for

everyone and so we made a point to include some trails that were excessive force for families or grandchildren and our people who want it like shorter trail but still get to experience and really amazing natural areas but then we also put in central java over twenty miles long over fifty miles long trails the serious hikers serious biker would really want to seek out so i think that there's really a range of difficulty a range of lincoln there and we kind of tried to provide something for everyone in science jonathan you live here in kansas in sterling va kristen you live in california or other plans to do eight california trail guides knew that would be a sad thing california that's when the places are you think are people kind of know about the hiking and there's a lot of really specialized but like you could just get somebody valley heights and then you're somebody high country x and

it becomes this really i'm specialized and it's great it's wonderful how these trails of sounds but i think it's a baptist candidate a saturated market and i think it's on the kansas shelter it was an opportunity to getting back to an audience that i am i think people want it and knew they wanted a confined and then there's some people who when they pick up the book didn't realize how much they would want something like this in their lives so i was really neat opportunity and then also i think gave us a chance to really see the state in new ways that are needed for their i die but for me on different parts of california can see what's there in kansas didn't have that i'm in quite the same way so i was in a record straight set to write a book for here say that i am again would be hiker that would love to take up hiking i'm saying is that really all that hypothetically doesn't really know where to start can you give me some pointers and some tips for getting out there and

hitting the trails be prepared with a nice guy but i'm a i'm the kind of common sense media attention but you know bring water letterman or you wired there's no cell service but at the weather brings somewhere just never know and but then it means not to over think it you know starts small and see what's there and you realize how great it is out there and skin bill to understand europe's hedge fund a place which are excited about which are interested in and just go for it and there's a lot of places out there for people to go and a lot of these are successful it'll require a lot of specialized equipment are here where training you know they're just here is that you can going hard for a song or so as you thought it would be my advice that's jonathan and kristin cannard the brother and sister team behind kansas tour guide their best hiking biking and riding in the sunflower

state kansas trail guide for the sake of art bottled twenty five years among the indians and buffalo and a madman and the assassin just a few of the two thousand sixteen kansas notable book award winners the best new books by kansas others or about kansas selected by the state library of kansas if you missed last week's k pr presents part one of our annual cannes is notable book so you can listen to it any time on our website k pr that kay you that ed you while you're there if you'd like a chance to win a copy of a campus notable book we've got several to give away good or website kbr that kay you that ed you look under extra and then available giveaways again that's k pr that kay you that ed you click on extra and then available giveaways well you're out our website consider making a gift to kansas public radio it's listener support that makes k pr prisons

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describe donald trump race baiting cruz america's largest a lot larger than life and hillary clinton's policy wonks squirmed strong suit a terrible human i'm rachel martin join me for a special broadcast the making of clinton and trump character in the twenty sixteen election from npr news or the making of clinton and trump next week on kbr presents i'm j mcintyre kbr present as a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas