2026 Summer Read

Hi, Radio Readers! Linzi Garcia from Emporia, Kansas, here. I work as poetry editor and publicist for Meadowlark Press, a small, regional press specializing in Midwest voices. I also serve as the director of the Diverse Voices Literacy Program through House of Morrow, a local arts organization. House of Morrow and Meadowlark Press combined forces to bring you a really special project.

I’m Megan Hope, a native Southwest Kansan (currently living in the Missouri Ozarks) and proud supporter of HPPR. A book I think will resonate with many High Plains listeners is All the Living, by C.E. Morgan, published in 2009 by Picador and widely available at libraries and booksellers.

This is Tracy Million Simmons, owner of Meadowlark Press in Emporia, Kansas, for High Plains Public Radio Reader’s Summer Reading List. As a regional press specializing in stories from the Midwest, I’d like to take this moment to introduce you to our newest memoir, Reptile Romance, by Harley Elliott.

Good afternoon, HPPR listeners, this is Andrea Elise coming to you from Amarillo, Texas. Today, we’ll talk about Simon Paré-Poupart’s biography, Trash!: A Garbageman’s Story. We’ve all heard adages like, “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” or someone “trash talking” another person, or even that something is “a load of garbage.”

Hi, I’m Tara Shaw and I’m here to recommend a Summer Read for the HPPR Radio Reader’s Book Club. I currently live in Edina, Minnesota, but I grew up in Baldwin, KS and am a huge fan of HPPR and their programming.

Hello and happy summer, Radio Readers! Linzi Garcia from Emporia, Kansas, here. I work as poetry editor and publicist for Meadowlark Press, a small, regional press specializing in Midwest voices. There’s a book that we published earlier this year that I can’t get out of my head, and I really want to tell you about it.

Hello, Radio Readers. I’m Jane Holwerda in Dodge City, Kansas. My current mission is to read books I’ve collected. But I am sometimes waylaid by “new” things promoted by media I align with. And so, a few weeks back, I closed Thackeray’s Vanity Fair to read Caro Claire Burke’s novel.

This is Tracy Million Simmons, owner of Meadowlark Press in Emporia, Kansas, for High Plains Public Radio Reader’s Summer Reading List. As a regional press specializing in stories from the Midwest, I’d like to take this moment to introduce you to Heaven in a Wildflower, historical fiction set on the Kansas prairie of the early 20th century.

At the time of this recording, it is July. It's hot - 100-degree temperatures, severe weather. 
But this time of July, we now start thinking about August in the fall sports season. It won't be long, and kids will be at the football field practicing, and they'll be on the volleyball court. It's going to be in full session. 


My name is Charles Roamer, and I'm the author of 83 Odyssey---An Adventure Down the Spine of America on U.S. Highway 83. I'm an old road warrior who wrote a book for travel story enthusiasts, and those from the High Plains region where U.S. 83 courses through would, I think, be especially interested in my story.