Author and English Professor Kevin Koch returns to Mount Horeb’s downtown Driftless Historium (100 S 2nd Street) on Thursday, July 18, 2024, at 6:00 p.m. to share his latest book “Midwest Bedrock: The Search for Nature’s Soul in America’s Heartland.”

Koch will take his audience on a Midwest tour from the comfort of their chairs [= no road construction!], interweaving brief readings and striking photography of twelve Heartland states, including, of course, the best of the best—Wisconsin!

This longtime lover of the land contends that to know a place deeply means to understand it on several levels. From the headwater of the Mississippi at Lake Itasca, to Wisconsin's delightfully meandering 1,100 mile Ice Age Trail, to Iowa's Effigy Mounds, to Ohio's Hocking Hills, and a smattering of romantic (and rugged, and functional) landscapes in between, Koch burrows below often-unassuming surfaces to the layers of natural and cultural history nestled below.

Kevin J. Koch is a Professor Emeritus of English at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa. His other works include “The Driftless Land: Spirit of Place in the Upper Mississippi Valley” and “The Thin Places: A Celtic Landscape from Ireland to the Driftless.” Koch, a native of Dubuque, Iowa, can be found in his down time enjoying the natural expanses of this very same and very distinctive Driftless region.

The Mount Horeb Area Historical Society operates the Driftless Historium, an award-winning museum and research center. MHAHS was founded in 1975 to collect, preserve and share the history and heritage of Southwestern Dane County.

Registration is not required for this free event. Copies of Koch’s “Midwest Bedrock” will be available for sale and signing immediately before and following the main presentation. For more information call 608-437-6486 or email mthorebahs@gmail.com.