Skip to content →

Author: Patrick Dobson

Dr. Patrick Dobson is a work in progress until his termination. In the meantime, He is a writer, scholar, postman, and college professor living in Kansas City, MO.

The University of Nebraska Press published his travel memoirs, Canoeing the Great Plains: A Missouri River Summer in 2015 and Seldom Seen: A Journey into the Great Plains in 2009. Canoeing the Great Plains won the 2016 High Plains Book Award in Creative Nonfiction and the Thorpe Menn Literary Excellence Award. His essays and poems have been published in New Letters, daCunha, Kansas City Star, Garo, Wood Coin, and JONAHmagazine, and others.

Dobson earned a doctorate in American History and Literature at the University of Missouri-Kansas City in 2013. He has edited books, taught journalism, and been a union ironworker. He now teaches American History, Modern Latin American History, and Western Civilization at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, KS.

He looks forward to hearing from you soon.

Listen to the inner primitive: A letter to a student

Josie, I was and am a student. In terms of years served, I have more college education now than grade and high school combined. I know what you are going through. Though I am a hard-ass in a lot of things academic–it does us no good to get grades without…

Leave a Comment

I want to know even if it’s bad for me

To: rbuchanan1@unl.eduSubject: Seldom seen Rob, I shouldn’t ask because it’s not good for me. But curiosity is killing me. Can you tell me how my book, Seldom Seen, is doing so far? It’s probably too early to count returns, but I hope the sell-through is good. I’ve been busting ass…

Leave a Comment

Feeling oppressed?

The blog. We think of it, the institution, as a means of getting new and needed voices into the public. It gives many the feeling of personal expression and usefulness. No one stands in the way of everyone with a little time, a computer, and a few thoughts rolling around…

Leave a Comment

The day that’s always gray

Sunday evenings have always been a scary, special time. When I was a kid, after all the ruckus of getting my siblings and me to church at 8 a.m., eating big food when we arrived home, playing like wild maniacs all day, and taking baths, the evening turned into a…

Leave a Comment

Rush is a socialist’s best friend

I listen to a lot of AM radio because my truck’s AM/FM only brings in the AM well. It’s Rush Limbaugh, Rusty Humphries, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, etc. And, man, there’s a lot of etc. out there. Most times, it amuses me. I understand the language, the viscera, the emotion.…

Leave a Comment