Published last fall by Holiday House, Grasslands is Debra Seely's first novel for young adults. Set in Kansas during the 1880s, the novel covers the life and times of 13-year-old Thomas.
Influenced by such Great Plains authors as Willa Cather, Laura Ingalls Wilder and Mari Sandoz, Seely '97 was wellread in terms of place and time when she began writing Grasslands while a graduate student at WSU. And she had the added benefit of her own family history: Thomas is based on her great-grandfather, A.V. Fink, who was born in 1881.
Observation was also important. "I'd observe boys of Thomas' age to help get the voice of my character," she says. "Despite the different eras, I think the general concerns of adolescence are the same."
Seely, who is acting director of Newman University's Milton Center, devoted a year to research. "I read a lot of history books and some collections of letters," she says. "There was a community history book I came across that had the greatest stories from the 1880s in it. And, of course, there were the stories my grandparents told me about my great-grandparents."
More of those Kansas tales have found their way into Seely's sequel to Grasslands. "It takes place a few years later," she says, "and has many of the same characters, but different themes."
— Kerry Jones '00
