The Lyon County Historical Society will be holding a panel discussion over Sarah Smarsh’s New York Times Bestselling Book “Heartland: Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth” at 6:30 P.M. April 4 at the History Center.

Attendance to the panel is free. The panel is funded by a KC Humanities grant. 

“The grant will provide 40 copies of the book for community and campus members via the Center for Great Plains Studies at ESU or the Lyon County History Center in town…It also provided a small stipend of $50 for the panelists” said De Wayne Backhus, chair of the Center for Great Plains Studies Advisory Committee and retired ESU professor. “It’s incredibly beneficial to discuss common reading and talk about the various perspectives of the other attendees…It can challenge thoughts. With social media today, it is really hard to find common ground for conversations.” 

The panel discussion will feature several members of the Emporia community: Sarah Johnson, Emporia State librarian; Marc McDonald, Pastor at St. Andrew’s Episcopal instructor at Flint Hills Technical College; Joelle Spotswood, Emporia State creative writing instructor; and Max McCoy, Kansas author, according to the Humanities Kansas website. 

“We partnered with the Lyon County History Center and Historical Society to write a grant for the KC humanities council,” said Susan Brinkman, assistant director for the Center for Great Plains Studies. 

They had originally planned the writer’s workshop with Sarah Smarsh, but decided to hold the panel instead, according to Brinkman. 

“I think it’s a great way to get other people’s perspectives on books and uncover themes that maybe you hadn’t thought about before,” Johnson said. “(Sarah Smarsh) talks about rural poverty but I didn’t spend all of my childhood in Kansas, I grew up in an urban area of Pennsylvania where I saw poverty a little different.” 

The Tallgrass Science & Nature Writing Workshop with Sarah Smarsh is April, 12-13th. Registration is $160 for two days, or $65 for the Saturday Keynote presentation and is online at tsnw.brownpapertickets.com.