Kent Meyers and "The Quietest Place in the Universe"

Congratulations to my fellow writer and long-time friend Kent Meyers, who teaches at Black Hills State University and has written several novels and other books. His essay, "The Quietest Place in the Universe," appears in the new issue of Harper's magazine. It's an amazing piece that wrestles with the complex issues of astrophysics and renders them poetic and compelling. Kudos Kent!

Kent Meyers (photo by Kent's wife Zindie Meyers)

My sense of Kent's writing goes as far back as seeing him reluctantly draw from the bottom of an office desk drawer his first publication--a poem in a book of poems collected by one of those "poetry contests" that profit from selling the collection to the proud recipients of letters of approval.  

I've seen Kent struggle through writing essays, stories, poems and trying to publish even romance stories of the sort you might read in Woman's Day.  But his persistence paid off, slowly, incrementally, until, suddenly, in 1998 and 1999, he had two books in print--The Witness of Combines, a collection of essays that he wrote over a period of 20 years or more, and The River Warren, a novel that describes horrific acts in a small town.  He hasn't looked back.  

Since then he has continued his writing and teaching career, winning awards and publishing consistently.  Congratulations to Kent.