Summary (also available through PDF flier): Through elements of memoir, history, and philosophy of land use, a lover of her Mennonite farm childhood looks critically at farming’s impact on the land, comparing settler values of land ownership to those of first peoples who see themselves as owned by the sacred homeland.

"Beautiful and deeply researched, this meditation on a farm on the Oklahoma panhandle took a lifetime to write. From the Inland Sea, to Coronado’s exploits, to Comancheria, to the Dust Bowl, to her parents bent on farming after World War II, it is a love song to place and the story of one thoughtful person’s change of heart and mind. Structured by the seasons—like the liturgy or life on the land—this book is made to savor.  See if it doesn’t change you too.” —Julia Spicher Kasdorf, Author, As Is

“Hinz-Penner offers an engaging personal and political narrative that explores the contradictions, myths, and resilience of what we call her landlines, bloodlines, and songlines. Her memoir includes helpful distillations of significant historical periods and patterns of Mennonite migrations and Indigenous and settler histories. I hope it will inspire other settlers to venture their own decolonial re-memberings.” —Elaine Enns, Co-Author, Healing Haunted Histories: A Settler Discipleship of Decolonization

“This book is so rich—as we have come to expect from Raylene's pen. From her youthful perch atop the perfectly stacked alfalfa bales, Penner looks over the sandy soil of the family’s dairy farm to the horizons and ponders the mysteries, the spirits of former residents. In rich prose and poetry, the author explores her places of origin and dares to probe the mythologies that have long sustained her people.” —John Sharp, Author, My Calling to Fulfill: The Orie O. Miller Story

Market: Anyone interested in a memoir about having, as Hinz-Penner puts it, “mythologized my heritage as the legacy of a people purified by the fires of martyrdom, simple hardworking farmers looking for refuge from the state. The story is not that simple.”

Shelving: Memoir, autobiography—Mennonite/Anabaptist; Indigenous Peoples; History of Kansas, BISAC: Autobiography; History, Religion. RTM: 170 Autobiography; 690 Religion/Ethics.

The Author: Raylene Hinz-Penner was born and raised in southwest Kansas near Liberal, with extended family and emotional roots in central Oklahoma. For decades she taught English at Bethel College, her alma mater (along with Kansas University in Lawrence and Wichita State University). She is the author of Searching for Sacred Ground: The Journey of Chief Lawrence Hart, Mennonite (Cascadia, 2007).

Quote: “What is the right way to honor the land and our time here when we sell it? With whom should we share the proceeds of our rich lives on this land? The land itself will remain the record . . . as it holds the stories of our wanderings, evictions, relocations, settlements, resettlements—so many human footsteps before and after ours.—From the final chapter

Publisher: Cascadia Publishing House LLC
Imprint: DreamSeeker Books
Potential Copublisher: None
Publication date: 2022
Tentative Pages: 206
Format: 5.5 x 8.5" trade paper with notes, bibliography, index
Prices: $19.95 US/Can. ISBN 13:  978-1-68027-022-8