The #Midwessay: Mark Ehling, Reflections on a Plague Year

Reflections on a Plague Year

(or: How Some Midwesterners Talk About Death)

Mark Ehling

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Mark Ehling is a writer and artist living in Edina, Minnesota. His most recent project is the Minneapolis Mail Club—a mail-art delivery service that sends handmade books and art to subscribers around the world. He can be found on the web at http://newcarriage.com.

What is the #Midwessay? What is the Midwest? What are the characteristics, if any, of the #Midwessay (the Midwest essay)? What gathers us together? What pulls us apart? Springing from a twitter conversation, we started asking writers and readers what they imagine (or would like to reimagine) as the Midwest and the Midwessay. The #Midwessay is a series of reports from the Midwest (whatever that is) by and/or about Midwestern essay and essayists (whatever those are). Essay Daily will be publishing these, sorted (loosely) by state, in February 2021 and beyond.  These #Midwessays will be collected here and on a separate site at a later date. If you'd like to submit a report / essay, send it our way. Details and coordinators for each state are listed here. You can also ping Ander (link at the upper right) if we don't list a coordinator yet for your state. —The Editors