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.

Because reality has become the joke

A friend of mine asked the other day how he could make jokes when reality has become the joke. He referenced the recent turn in American politics in which absurdity and nonsense has gained traction—to the point where millions of people actually believe the outlandish statements of the political candidates, who…

Leave a Comment

Ah, blissful sleep after a lifetime of endless nights

Sleep eluded me for over thirty years. A good night’s rest was a memorable experience and one to be celebrated. It happened only about once every two or three weeks. Most of the time, I would fall asleep right away but then awakened two or so hours later to toss…

One Comment

Students have it rough these days

The last day of school means five weeks of blissful rest from student concerns Those poor kids. They took their final exam in my class today. Most of them were just glad to get it over with. “Done,” one kid said, “now I can sleep some.” It wasn’t that my…

Leave a Comment

It’s a dog’s life

The dogs rule the house. Sure, we are supposed to be in charge. They are supposed to behave, do what we tell them, and disappear until we need them either for emotional support or when we want to pet soft things. That’s not the way it works. Molly McGuire and…

Leave a Comment

Someone will clean it up (not me)

Every other Monday, the cleaning people drive me out of my house. They bustle in with their plastic tool boxes that have handles of various cleaning implements sticking out of them. They drape towels and rags over their arms, and they drag their vacuum cleaner over the threshold with bumps…

Leave a Comment