Writing-related Awards and Honors:

  • Notable Essay citations The Best American Essay, Robert Atwan (series editor) in The Best American Essays 2008. Edited by Adam Gopnik for “Nine-mile Prairie.”
  • Notable Essay citation in The Best American Essays 2002, Stephen Jay Gould (ed.) for “Household Words.”
  • Notable Essay citation in The Best American Essays 2001, Kathleen Norris (ed.) for “My Place of Many Times.”
  • Notable Essay citation in The Best American Essays 1994, Tracy Kidder (ed.) for “Summer Reading.”
  • Notable Essay citation in The Best American Essays 1991, Joyce Carol Oates (ed.) for “Pheasant Country.”

Prizes and Fellowships:

  • ·Jefferis Endowed Chair of English, University of Nebraska-Omaha, 2008.
  • Finalist in 2004 Editors’ Prize Contest, Missouri Review for “The Fence.”
  • First Prize, Creative Nonfiction contest, Flint Hills Review, 2002 for “Thirty Shades of White.”
  • Literature Fellowship from the Nebraska Arts Council, Spring 2001.
  • The Chicago Tribune’s Editor’s Choice Award for Flight Dreams: A Life in the Midwestern Landscape, January 17, 1999: section 14, p. 5.
  • Second place in the Society of Midland Authors 1996 Awards Competition (Category: Adult Nonfiction) for Field of Vision.
  • Fourth place in the 1994 Minnesota Voices Project Competition for Field of Vision.
  • Second place in PEN/Jerard Fund Award for distinguished nonfiction work-in-progress by an emerging woman writer, 1993.
  • Frank Vogel Scholar in Nonfiction at the 1992 Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Middlebury, Vermont.