Hear Me Ohio

by Jen Hirt

Hear Me Ohio is a collection of essays about leaving Ohio while always looking back at it from places as far and different as Idaho, to the familiar forest of an arboretum in Kentucky, to the Pennsylvania riverbanks of the Susquehanna River. Hirt writes about loss and discovery, but also horseradish and hold-ups, unicorns and spiders, chestnuts and dobsonflies, dogs and kayaks. Readers will find nature writing, meditations, literary journalism, and memoir--a range of approaches for covering a range of miles and years since a childhood spent growing up in Hirt's Greenhouse in Strongsville, Ohio, which was the subject of her first book.

150 pages, Paperback

Published March 2, 2020

About the author

Jen Hirt is the author of the memoir UNDER GLASS: THE GIRL WITH A THOUSAND CHRISTMAS TREES (Ringtaw Books/University of Akron Press 2010), which won the Drake University Emerging Writer Prize for 2011; the poetry chapbook TOO MANY QUESTIONS ABOUT STRAWBERRIES (Tolsun Books 2018); and the essay collection HEAR ME OHIO (University of Akron Press 2020). Other award-winning writing includes "Students of the Route" (Terrain contest finalist); "Glow in the Dark" (Gabehart Prize); and "Lores of Last Unicorns" (Pushcart Prize). She has had four essays make the list of notable essays in the Best America Essays series. She is the co-editor of CREATING NONFICTION: TWENTY ESSAYS AND INTERVIEWS WITH THE WRITERS (SUNY 2016) , which won "Gold" at the Foreword INDIE Book of the Year Awards in the anthology category. She is also the co-editor of KEPT SECRET: THE HALF-TRUTH IN NONFICTION (MSU 2017). Her creative work has been published in journals such The Gettysburg Review, The Colorado Review, TriQuarterly, Salamander, and Redivider. She holds a B.A. in English from Hiram College, an M.A. in English from Iowa State University, and an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Idaho. She lives in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and teaches at Penn State Harrisburg.

Reviews

[Shannon Frystak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jen Hirt is first and foremost a nature writer. Having grown up in her family’s greenhouse in Ohio, her latest essay collection, Hear Me Ohio takes us on a journey from Iowa to Idaho to Pennsylvania and Maine, as she grapples with the meaning of her varied and often mundane experiences traversing the country through multiple job searches, to a “reality house” church, a man and his ball of string, the views from her front porch where she muses on the lives of spiders and befriends a stray cat, to the forest where she and her dog encounter dead deer, and on the waterfront at her home in Harrisburg, where she grapples with a premonition about a dead body. Jen Hirt’s gift is her attentive and detailed descriptions of the natural landscape – both flora and fauna – allowing us to travel alongside her, revealing herself and, sometimes, her family, through her peripatetic life seemingly searching for meaning and magic in all things, not the least of which include bats, one-eyed deer, and unicorns. Hirt always finds her way home, to Ohio - in a hundreds-year old horseradish bottle, her family’s history, and her mother’s death. Insightful and contemplative, this collection of short meditations is a beautiful and thought-provoking compilation of memoir essays.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jen Hirt's latest book, a collection of personal essays, answers back to her homestate of Ohio while chronicling her various journeys across the United States. Many of her works explore the relationship we have we have with the natural world around us whether it's observations about a one-eyed deer or a attack against the poisonous hobo spider that has invaded her home. Other essays explore history including the blight of the American chestnut. Hear Me Ohio is a must read for all lovers of the personal essay.