Author Description

In From A Place Called Wapakoneta, Dan Newland revisits the home town he wrote about in his earlier books, The Rock Garden And Other Stories (2021), and Visions of What Used To Be (2022). This is a much-expanded anthology of mostly personal stories about the people, customs, places and history of the Midwestern small town where the author was born and reared. The stories in “From A Place Called Wapakoneta” are told in an engaging, descriptive and informative style, and are seasoned with touching emotion and an often sharp sense of humor. These are inspired as well as inspiring stories of universal appeal that will also strike a chord with anyone brought up in small-town America any time in the last half of the twentieth century. It is, furthermore, a sort of appealing personal documentary on life in twentieth-century Middle America that younger readers interested in what life was like before PCs, cellphones, the Internet and social media changed the world forever are sure to enjoy. An expatriate who describes himself as being “like an aging vampire who still carries some of his native soil with him wherever he goes”, in the twenty-five story-style essays included in this anthology, Newland paints a personal picture of his town and its people. He takes the reader on trips back home to meet up with old friends and to remember loved ones who are now gone. He recalls his own historical real estate in an ever-changing world. The author strikes a contrast between the times of his youth and those of today, recalling the “advanced technology” that thrilled young people of his time: “Just imagine! A radio you could carry with you wherever you went!” He revisits then-institutions, now all but forgotten, like the neighborhood mom and pop grocery stores that he frequented as a boy, or the grill and soda fountain that his family owned and operated for a quarter-century before interstate highways and chain-eateries carried traffic away and killed small-town businesses along their