Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Count me in on Roadside Poetry April 26, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:53 AM
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“We’ve selected YOUR poem for our spring Roadside Poetry installment!”

For nearly a month now, I’ve kept that exciting, boldfaced news mostly to myself, sharing it with only my immediate family, my mom and a few select friends and extended family members.

But now that the billboards are up—yes, I said billboards—I no longer feel obligated to keep this a secret.

I won the spring Roadside Poetry competition and my poem now sprawls across four billboards, Burma Shave style, 50 yards apart in Fergus Falls.

That’s it, my poem, the winning poem, which is posted along North Tower Road west of Minnesota State Community and Technical College in Fergus Falls, just down the road from Fleet Farm. Take exit 54 off I-94 on the west edge of Fergus.

Paul Carney, the project coordinator who delivered the good news to me via e-mail in early March, tells me that 100,000 vehicles drive by the billboards each month. “How’s that for readership?” he asks.

Well, mighty fine, Paul. Mighty fine.

Getting my poetry out there in this unusual, highly-public venue really is an honor for me, adding to my poems already published in two magazines and four, soon-to-be five, anthologies.

The mission of The Roadside Poetry Project “is to celebrate the personal pulse of poetry in the rural landscape,” according to roadsidepoetry.org. The first poem went up in September 2008 and was, interestingly enough, written by another Faribault resident, Larry Gavin, a writer and Faribault High School English teacher.

The poems, all seasonally-themed, change four times a year. Mine will be up through the third week of June when a summer poem replaces it. Yes, entries are currently being accepted for the summer competition.

About now you’re likely, maybe, wondering how I heard about this contest. I honestly cannot remember. But I do remember thinking, “I can do this.” So one night I sat down with a notebook and pencil and started jotting down phrases.

Like most writers, I strive to find the exact/precise/perfect/right words.

I scribbled and scratched and thought and wrote and crossed out and jotted and erased and counted and filled several notebook pages.

These poems do not simply pop, like that, into my head, onto paper.

To add to the complexity of this process, poets are tasked with creating poetic imagery that describes the wonderment of the season, all in four lines. But there’s more. Each line can include no more than 20 characters.

Now that character limitation, my friends, presents a challenge. Just when I thought I had nailed a phrase, I counted too many characters. Again and again, I had to restart until, finally, I had shaped and molded the poem I would submit.

“I love the language and the imagery,” project leader Paul said of my winning spring poem.

Honestly, when I wrote this poem, I could feel the sun warming my back as I stooped to drop slips of zinnia seeds into the cold, damp earth. Visualizing has always been a part of my creative process. Choosing the words “vernal equinox” simply seemed so much more poetic than the single, plain word, “spring.”

Even though Paul loved my poem and it fit the contest guidelines, there was a problem: Audrey Kletscher Helbling. Count and you get 23 characters and two spaces in my name, putting me five over the 20-character limit.

I understood the space limitations, but explained to Paul that I really wanted Audrey Kletscher Helbling, not Audrey Helbling, on the billboard because that’s my professional name. He agreed to see if the sign-maker could fit my full name and keep it readable. From my experience years ago writing newspaper headlines, I knew that the letters “l” and “i” took less space than other letters. The sign-maker was able to honor my request.

I haven’t been up to Fergus Falls yet to see my poem and Audrey Kletscher Helbling splashed across four billboards. But a trip will be forthcoming.

FYI: Paul Carney hopes to expand Roadside Poetry, supported in Fergus Falls by the Fergus Area College Foundation, to other locations in Minnesota. However, additional funding is needed to finance start-up, printing and other costs. If you would like to support this public art venue, have questions, need more information or wish to enter the seasonal contest, visit roadsidepoetry.org.

© Text copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Photos courtesy of Paul Carney

 

Kudos from MPR for Minnesota Prairie Roots March 29, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:55 AM
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OK, I’M NOT EVEN GOING to apologize for tooting my horn here today. It’s not something I’m all that comfortable doing. But, hey, every once in awhile it’s alright to let everyone know you’ve been recognized.

That latest recognition for me as a writer comes via Minnesota Public Radio’s Bob Collins. He publishes a popular online MPR weekday column, News Cut. He’s a professional blogger, meaning he gets paid for blogging, which I aspire to accomplish.

I’m a News Cut fan, and not just because Collins has referenced my Minnesota Prairie Roots posts numerous times. I sincerely enjoy reading the content he pulls together and comments and encourages discussion on.

MPR Public Relations Manager Christina Schmitt interviewed Collins about News Cut for an article published in the Plugged In Minnesota Public Radio highlights section of Minnesota Monthly’s March issue. The “Behind the Blog: Bob Collins” article titled “Looking Sharp,” runs on pages 6 and 7.

 

This two-page spread in Minnesota Monthly's March issue features an interview with MPR's Bob Collins in which Minnesota Prairie Roots is mentioned.

And that’s where I’m mentioned, on the second page, when Schmitt asks Collins which online sources he trolls for information.

He taps into Twitter. And, like everyone else, Collins says he checks the BBC, National Public Radio and The New York Times. But then Collins shares that he also reads blogs like…ta-da, drum roll here, please…Iron Ranger Aaron Brown’s Minnesota Brown and Audrey Kletscher Helbling’s Minnesota Prairie Roots.

I’m honored, humbled and more than a tiny bit giddy that Collins would single the two of us out from among the hundreds, if not thousands, of writers out there in the Minnesota blogosphere.

Such an endorsement from a well-respected entity like MPR means a lot to me as a professional writer. It validates that I can blog, and blog well, or at least blog well enough to grab Collins’ attention and interest.

In the interview, Collins tells Schmitt that Minnesota Brown and Minnesota Prairie Roots “are intimately tied to what’s going on in their parts of Minnesota. They’re not news sources per se, but they quite often touch on a topic that is interesting and give me ideas to expand it a little bit.”

 

Right here, in the fourth paragraph, Collins talks about Minnesota Brown and Minnesota Prairie Roots.

So there you have it. Direct from News Cut.

To read the full story, track down Minnesota Monthly’s March issue. I’m looking for copies now as I only learned several days ago about this article. Gotta show my mom, you know. So…, if you have any extra copies of the magazine, send them my way.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Tips to successful blogging from Minnesota Prairie Roots December 3, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:18 AM
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I AM NOT NECESSARILY the self-promoting type, which, for a writer, likely spells missed opportunities.

While I appreciate positive comments, even glowing praise and public recognition, I struggle with marketing myself. I’ve turned down invitations to speak to groups because I dislike giving public presentations. Not that I can’t, and won’t, but, given the choice, I’d rather not. I’m at that place in my life where I don’t feel pressured to do what others expect.

I’m not on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or any social networking site that would likely benefit my career.

Rather, I have focused my energy on writing, simply writing, and not shouting to the world, “Hey, look at me, I’m great!”

But today I’m going to shed my conservative Minnesota Lutheran, avoid-the-spotlight persona and share my thoughts on blogging, which in my humble opinion, I’ve become quite good at during the past year. Even writing those words, though, makes me feel uncomfortable and boastful.

Yet, numbers don’t lie. Since launching my Minnesota Prairie Roots blog on July 15, 2009, my readership has soared. A year ago my views totaled an unimpressive 896 for the month of August, my first full month of blogging. This August, I had 6,132 views.

But the numbers get even better. The past three months, my views have scooted close to 10,000 per month with 9,623 views in September, 9,573 in October and a record 9,976 in November. That’s a current average of 332 daily views.

Maybe those numbers are small potatoes in the blogging world. I don’t know and I really don’t care, all that much. I’m happy with where I’m at, although getting paid for blogging would increase my happiness quotient substantially.

 

The homepage of WordPress.com, chose my "In Praise of Preserving Country Churches" as one of 11 featured posts from among 300,000-plus world-wide on July 10. There's my post in the lower right.

I’ve been featured on the home page of WordPress.com on “Freshly Pressed,” chosen from among hundreds of thousands of bloggers world-wide for that honor. That July 10 selection pushed my views to an all-time high of 1,052 on a single day.

I’ve been categorized among Minnesota’s best bloggers on at least two online publications.

At MinnPost, my posts have been featured numerous times on “Minnesota Blog Cabin” by Justin Piehowski who, weekdays, “surveys hundreds of Minnesota’s best blogs looking for the best of the best.”

Bob Collins, who writes the online “News Cut” for Minnesota Public Radio calls Minnesota Prairie Roots an excellent blog and one of his favorites. “This woman can write,” he wrote in a recent tweet. To get that kind of praise from a respectable media outlet like MPR confirms that I really can blog, and well.

And get this, Minnesota Twins fans, I even made Joe Mauer’s official Web site on June 11 under the section “Joe’s Kemp’s Dairy TV spots,” posted by his mom, Theresa Mauer. She links to my June 17 Minnesota Prairie Roots post, “I may not be Joe Mauer’s mom, but I’ve got it.” Let me tell you, getting onto Mauer’s Web site certainly drove traffic to my blog.

I’m not sure how I’ve managed to achieve all of these honors or grow my readership beyond family and friends. Mostly, I’ve stayed true to my down-to-earth self, writing about my everyday life, the places I visit, the things I do and observations I make about the world around me. In other words, I really haven’t changed how I write because my writing has been noticed.

My writing isn’t particularly opinionated. In fact, the topics of my blog posts seem rather ordinary to me. Perhaps therein lies their appeal. One reader (I must divulge that she is my cousin) says my writing makes her feel good. She likes that I don’t gripe and complain or have an agenda (usually). Another reader, who is a native Minnesotan and New York Times bestselling author living in California, says “Reading your e-magazine is almost like visiting Minnesota again.”

Whatever the reasons for my success, I’m pleased that folks continue clicking on Minnesota Prairie Roots. This validates me as a writer.

Recently a writer-friend asked for blogging tips. After some thought, which really made me examine this blogging passion of mine, I created a list that has proven successful for me.

Even though directed at blogging, these suggestions can apply to writing in general:

  • Keep paragraphs short. Big blocks of copy can be daunting to readers.
  • Use catchy, creative titles.
  • Categorize and/or tag your blogs. I did not tag initially. Big mistake.
  • Use photos. Readers find blogs paired with artwork to be more visually-appealing and interesting.
  • Keep a constant list of blog topics in your head or on paper. This means remaining attentive to everything around you. Almost anything can become a blog post. I never run out of ideas.
  • Engage all of your senses when you write. Paint a picture with words.
  • Use strong verbs. I avoid forms to “to be” whenever possible.
  • Sometimes what you think are the most mundane topics turn out to be the most interesting to readers. Do not underestimate a topic.
  • Story-tell with quotes in a style of creative nonfiction. I always, or almost always, use present tense when I write in this style.
  • Proof your writing to assure that you publish an error-free piece.

Now, with this post I’ve likely broken many of the above guidelines—too few images, too many weak verbs, too many long paragraphs. But this is not my typical writing style or topic. I’ve dared, for one day, to step outside of my comfort zone and promote myself. Thank you for indulging me.

IF YOU ENJOY READING Minnesota Prairie Roots, tell me why. You, after all, dear reader, have encouraged me through your views and your comments. I am grateful for the 72,986 (as of 2:15 p.m. December 2) views I’ve gotten during the past 17 months of writing for Minnesota Prairie Roots. Very grateful.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling