Creative Non-Fiction
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The Longest Day
His Father Died At His Feet. 50 Years Later The Accident Still Haunts Him. The author lost his father in an accident at the crag nearly 50 years ago. He’s taken that long to be able to write about it. Featured photo: David Markusen (left) and Steve Markusen on the summit of the Grand Teton…
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The Longest Day
The dog days of August 1974 had found us at our local crag. Perched on the border of Minnesota and Wisconsin, Taylors Falls is a narrow gorge of billion-year-old basalt, 40-foot cliffs carved 10,000 years ago by the meltwaters of retreating glaciers. The gorge hosts over a hundred trad- and sport-climbing routes. Relatively flat ground above…
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JULIAN
ADELAIDE LITERARY AWARD ANTHOLOGY 2020 Steven Markusen Julian “Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us. They go together.” —Pema Chodron, The Pocket Pema Chodron Julian sits across from me in a Spartan classroom in the education department of the Duluth Federal Prison Camp. A bundle of barely restrained kinetic…
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THE WARRIOR
ADELAIDE LITERARY AWARD ANTHOLOGY 2020 Steven Markusen The Warrior “This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the…