Windbreak House

What's Here?
(Note that this page is still under construction-- more information about Linda's memberships will be posted as time permits, and this is only a sampling of Linda's honors.)


Linda's Memberships

Authors Guild

HAHA --- Hermosa Arts & History Association

ILCW --- International League of Conservation Writers

WWW --- Women Writing the West


Linda's Awards and Honors

Center for Western Studies
1990 Western American Award for Achievement.

High Plains BookFest
2012 High Plains Book Award Finalist: Dirt Songs, poetry.

National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum
2001 Western Heritage Award for Best Poetry Book: Bitter Creek Junction.

Nebraska Center for the Book
2012 Nebraska Book Award for Poetry: Dirt Songs.

South Dakota Humanities Council
2011 Distinguished Service in the Humanities Award.

University of South Dakota
2011 billboards promoting USD.
2003 Commencement Address Speaker.

Women Writing the West
2012 WILLA Award Finalist: Dirt Songs, poetry.
2010 WILLA Award Winner: No Place Like Home for best creative non-fiction.
2003 WILLA Award Finalist: Between Grass & Sky, memoir/essay.
2001 WILLA Award Finalist: Bitter Creek Junction, poetry.

Zonta Club of Billings, Montana
2010 Best Woman Writer Award for No Place Like Home.

Hermosa Arts & Historical Association

Established in 1999, HAHA is working to restore a historic 1889 school building-- which then became the Masonic Lodge-- into a museum and community arts center in Hermosa. Some of the fundraising events held to support this project include:

* A DVD of local folks talking about the history of the community is for sale.
* The annual "A Hermosa Saturday Night" musical/variety show is held the last Saturday of April.
* A "Cemetery Walk" where HAHA members portray community members and present biographical information.
* A "Christmas Carnival." Music; wagon rides; a chili, soup and pie lunch; bake sale; games for the kids; and, of course, Santa Claus!

Linda is a member of the Board of Directors, she has donated family items to be displayed at the museum, and she helps with the annual fundraisers (organizing the Cemetery Walk; baking brownies; serving pie; donating auction items; washing dishes).

In November, 2008, Linda wrote this in support of HAHA:

Like most Western communities, Hermosa, South Dakota, is home to a growing population with varied goals, ethnicities, and backgrounds. Like many such communities, it could easily become only a collection of bedrooms, a place to build a house and let the dog run loose while a family goes to work or school in the larger town nearby, Rapid City. The members of HAHA would like to use their organization and this building to create, or re-create, a community spirit that matches the challenge of the changes we face. We’d like Hermosa to be more than a collection of separate houses with Black Hills views and big security lights.

Churches often provide community cohesion, and Hermosa has three, besides a branch library, a locally-owned and operated café, a grocery store, a convenience store, the usual tavern, and various social clubs that create a web of connections. Businesses focus on the larger rural community, and the volunteer fire department draws members from every social level.

But there’s no single place where members of all these groups can get together, can cooperate in building the kind of community where we all want to live. The Hermosa Arts and History Association would like to change that by preserving past history as well as helping the town and the surrounding community move into the future with the cooperation of all residents, old and new.

Since 1889, the building housing the Hermosa Arts and History Association has stood four-square at the center of community life. In the beginning, it sheltered our first school, then a Masonic Lodge. Symbolically, the structure embodies a history most towns have lost to bulldozers and change. The Association’s governing board has vigorous plans and energetic members ready to fill the structure with activities that will appeal to residents and their families, to students, and to visitors. In order to face its second century, however, the building needs critical maintenance and repair work.

On December 12, 2008, the Board of Trustees of the South Dakota State Historical Society approved the nomination of the Hermosa Masonic Lodge, Hermosa, Custer County, South Dakota to the National Register of Historic Places.


For more information:
Hermosa Arts and History Association
25 N. 2nd St.
PO Box 175
Hermosa, SD 57744-0175
(605) 484-2370
website: www.HermosaHistory.com

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International League of Conservation Writers

The ILCW is a forum to bring writers together from all over the world who are writing to promote wilderness, nature, conservation, and other means to protect and restore the natural areas, habitats, animals, and plants of our planet. ILCW will present periodic writing awards to authors who excel in this field.

Linda is a founding member.

For more information:
website for International League of Conservation Writers

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Center for Western Studies
1990 Western American Award for Achievement

The mission of the Center for Western Studies at Augustana College, Sioux Falls, SD is preserving and interpreting the history and cultures of the Northern Plains.

Founded by author and Augustana College English Professor Herbert Krause, the Center serves as a repository for over 500 substantive collections and maintains a library in excess of 36,000 volumes on the American West. In addition, the Center holds an extensive art and artifact collection, and sponsors annual events such as the Boe Forum, the June Dinner-Theater Event, the Dakota Conference, and the Artists of the Plains Art Show. With more than 70 publications to its credit, the Center is also the largest academic publisher in South Dakota.

The Western America Award is given for outstanding contributions to our intellectual and aesthetic life in any and all fields of endeavor that relate to the preservation and interpretation of the history and cultures of South Dakota, the Northern Plains, and the American West.

The award has been given periodically since 1976 to a South Dakotan or a citizen from a neighboring state who has devoted a lifetime to the pursuit of this goal. In 1990 Linda was the 8th person to receive the award and was the first woman recipient.

The award itself is a medallion of bronze, designed by the late Ogden Dalrymple, himself a prize-winning medallist and sculptor.


For more information:
Website for the Center for Western Studies

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High Plains Book Awards

2012 Book Award Finalist
Dirt Songs was the 2012 finalist (runner-up) in the poetry category.


The High Plains Book Awards are presented each year by the Billings, Montana YMCA Writer's Voice program and the Parmly Billings Library.

The Bookfest is held in conjunction with the High Plains Book Awards. These awards have been established to recognize regional authors and/or literary works which examine and reflect life on the High Plains including the states of Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, and Kansas, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan.


For more information:

The Parmly Billings Library website for the High Plains BookFest

The Writer's Voice of the Billings Family YMCA assists emerging artists and writers in their artistic and professional development, and provides public programs enriching all sectors of the community with emphasis on arts education for rural youth.

Corby Skinner, Director of The Writer’s Voice
402 North 32nd, Billings, MT 59101
Phone: 406-294-1620
FAX: 406-248-3450
Email: corbys@billingsymca.org

Website for the Billings, Montana YMCA The Writer's Voice


Read an article about Dirt Songs at the High Plains BookFest

article by Tami Haaland in the Billings Gazette

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National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum
2001 Western Heritage award for Best Poetry Book


Bitter Creek Junction, published by High Plains Press of Glendo, Wyoming, won a Wrangler for best poetry book for 2001 from the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma City, OK.

Since 1961, the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum (formerly known as the Cowboy Hall of Fame) has presented "Western Heritage Awards" to honor and encourage the legacy of those whose works in literature, music, film, and television reflect the significant stories of the American West. Each honoree receives a Wrangler, an impressive bronze sculpture of a cowboy on horseback.


For more information:

www.nationalcowboymuseum.org
National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum
1700 NE 63rd St, Oklahoma City, OK 73111
(405) 478-2250

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2012 Nebraska Book Award Winner for Poetry

Dirt Songs: A Plains Duet, co-authored by Twyla M. Hansen and Linda M. Hasselstrom (published by The Backwaters Press, 2011) was selected as the 2012 Poetry award winner.

The Nebraska Book Awards program, sponsored by the Nebraska Center for the Book (NCB), recognizes and honors books that are written by Nebraska authors, published by Nebraska publishers, set in Nebraska or concerning Nebraska.

Although Linda poems in the book are primarily about her homes in South Dakota and Wyoming and her travels to the southwest and elsewhere, Dirt Songs was co-authored by Twyla M. Hansen, a Nebraska resident, and published by The Backwaters Press, a Nebraska publisher, thus qualifying for the award.

The Backwaters Press, publisher of Dirt Songs, won a few other awards as well-- 2012 Award for Anthology (for the book Aspects of Robinson: Homage to Weldon Kees, edited by Christopher Buckley and Christopher Howell) and 2012 Award for Nonfiction: Biography (for the book Rattlesnake Daddy: A Son's Search For His Father, by Brent Spencer).

Greg Kosmicki and The Backwaters Press was also the 2011 recipient of the Jane Geske Award, presented annually to an organization, business, library, school, association, or other group that has made an exceptional contribution to literacy, book selling, books, reading, libraries, or Nebraska literature.

Way to go Greg!


For more information:

Website for the Nebraska Center for the Book

The Nebraska Center for the Book, a not-for-profit organization, supports programs to celebrate and stimulate public interest in books, reading, and the written word. NCB has been an affiliate of the Library of Congress Center for the Book since 1990.

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South Dakota Humanities Council
Distinguished Service in the Humanities Award

Linda received the Distinguished Service in the Humanities Award, given by the South Dakota Humanities Council to a select few each year for their "unique spirit of service and lasting contributions to the humanities" in South Dakota. The award was presented to Linda and three other recipients during the 9th annual South Dakota Festival of Books, held October, 2011 in Deadwood, SD.

Because she was out-of-state at another event, Linda was unable to accept the award herself. Gaydell Collier, good friend and fellow editor of the three wind anthologies, picked up the award on Linda's behalf and presented it to her in November, 2011.


For more information:
SD Festival of Books website
SD Humanities Council website

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University of South Dakota

Billboards Promoting USD
Rapid City, South Dakota -- September through December, 2011

Linda is one of several distinguished USD graduates (BA, 1965) who was chosen to appear on billboards across the state promoting the University of South Dakota. Some of the other notable USD alumni immortalized this way were SD Governor Daugaard, newsman Tom Brokaw, native dancer Kevin Locke, and artist Mi Young Lee.

Shortly after the billboards went up-- before Linda had even been notified by USD-- she received this note from a friend and family member who lives in Rapid City:

Driving down West Main Street, I was getting a feeling someone was watching me. It was benign-- not your hair-on-the-arms creepy type of feeling, more of a familiar (friendly?) sort of presence.

I dismissed the ethereal (agnostic that I am) and tried to make eye contact with whatever sentient beings there were on West Main. Now there's a task in discernment for you: South Dakota National Guard complex on the right and Shotgun Willie's on the left with the odd tan 'n' gamble enterprise in between.

Whoa!! Those eyes were friendly enough, but 40 feet off the ground. My eyes are not what they used to be, but . . . now I won't be able to say that I haven't seen you lately. . . . you're adding a little class to the visual street scene.

Linda's billboards were located at 2530 West Main and at 5th & Kansas City Streets in Rapid City, from September through December, 2011.

The photograph of Linda that USD selected was taken by South Dakota photographer Greg Latza when he visited Linda's ranch in the summer of 2010.

For more information:
Read about Linda's time at USD on her Bio Page of this website.
Website for University of South Dakota.
Website for Greg Latza Photography.



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USD Commencement Address Speaker, 2003

Linda M. Hasselstrom, Class of 1965, was honored to be chosen as commencement speaker for Winter Commencement at her alma mater, The University of South Dakota on December 13th, 2003.

Linda's talk entitled "Getting a Life," included excerpts from her newly-published book, Between Grass and Sky, (University of Nevada Press). Over 300 students were candidates for degrees. The USD website press release generously predicted that Linda’s speech would be “the highlight of the ceremonies.”


For more information:
Read about Linda's time at USD on her Bio Page of this website.
Website for University of South Dakota.



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Women Writing the West

2010 WILLA Award Winner

No Place Like Home: Notes from a Western Life (University of Nevada Press, 2009) was selected as the 2010 winner of the WILLA Literary Award for creative nonfiction by Women Writing the West. The award was presented at the 16th annual WWW conference at Rancho de los Caballeros in Wickenburg, AZ in October, 2010.

The WILLA Awards, named for Pulitzer Prize-winning western author Willa Cather, represent the best of published literature for women’s stories set in the American West, chosen by professional librarians, historians, and university-affiliated educators. Awards are also given in contemporary, original softcover, and historical fiction, scholarly nonfiction, poetry, and children’s/young adult fiction and nonfiction.

2012 WILLA Award Finalist

Dirt Songs: a Plains Duet, co-authored with Twyla M. Hansen (The Backwaters Press, 2011) was a 2012 WILLA Award Finalist in the poetry category.


2003 WILLA Award Finalist

Between Grass and Sky: Where I Live and Work (University of Nevada Press, 2002) was a 2003 WILLA Award Finalist in the memoir/essay category.


2001 WILLA Award Finalist

Bitter Creek Junction (High Plains Press, 2000) was a 2001 WILLA Award Finalist in the poetry category.


For more information:
website for Women Writing the West


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Zonta Award for Best Woman Writer
Presented at the 2010 High Plains Book Awards

Linda Hasselstrom won the Best Woman Writer Award from the Zonta Club of Billings for No Place Like Home, her 13th published book, which examines the changing nature of community in the modern West.

The awards were presented as part of the High Plains Book Awards in Billings, MT, on October 8th, 2010, and included recognition for best poetry, best first book, and best nonfiction.

The awards recognize regional authors and/or literary works which examine and reflect life on the High Plains, including Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, and Kansas, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan.


For more information:
website for the Zonta Club of Billings, Montana

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