KANSAS FARM BOY

About the Book

"Kansas Farm Boy" is a return to the farm near Abilene, Kansas but with a different twist. I am trying to take real life, dress it up in fiction mode and make a “good read.” Thus, character names are all modified and only coincidentally related to real persons. Photos are from real life. The narration is obviously in part, in part only, a product of reading Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Farmer Boy.” However, there are differences. This book is not directed to young children, but to anyone who grew up on a farm or has had the farm and small-town experience. Much of the material, characters and episodes appeared in my early book “The Farm.” Now I am hoping it will read in part more like “Farmer Boy.” The challenges are to recreate real episodes, invent others, but mainly write the dialogue. It was fun to write.

About the Author

Mark Curran is a retired professor from Arizona State University where he worked from 1968 to 2011. He taught Spanish and Portuguese and their respective cultures. His research specialty was Brazil and its “popular literature in verse” or the “Literatura de Cordel,” and he has published many articles in research reviews and now some fourteen books related to the “Cordel” in Brazil, the United States and Spain. Other books done during retirement are of either an autobiographic nature – “The Farm” or “Coming of Age with the Jesuits” - or reflect classes taught at ASU on Luso-Brazilian Civilization, Latin American Civilization or Spanish Civilization. The latter are in the series “Stories I Told My Students:” books on Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, Portugal and Spain. “Letters from Brazil I, II, III, IV and V” is an experiment combining reporting and fiction. “A Professor Takes to the Sea I and II” is a chronicle of a retirement adventure with Lindblad Expeditions - National Geographic Explorer. “Rural Odyssey – Living Can Be Dangerous” is “The Farm” largely made fiction. “A Rural Odyssey II – Abilene – Digging Deeper” and “Rural Odyssey III Dreams Fulfilled and Back to Abilene” are a continuation of “Rural Odyssey.” “Around Brazil on the ‘International Traveler’ – A Fictional Panegyric” tells of an expedition in better and happier times in Brazil, but now in fiction. The author presents a continued expedition in fiction “Pre – Columbian Mexico – Plans, Pitfalls and Perils.” Yet another is “Portugal and Spain on the ‘International Adventurer.’” “The Collection” is a bibliography of primary and secondary works on the “Literatura de Cordel” in Curran’s collection. “The Master of the “Literatura de Cordel” - Leandro Gomes de Barros. A Bilingual Anthology of Selected Works” is a return to the topic of the Dissertation in 1968. “Adventure Travel” in Guatemala – The Maya Heritage” is a return to the A.T. series, the 4th preceded by books on Brazil, Mexico, Portugal and Spain. “Two By Mark J. Curran” combines two shorter narratives on the author’s life, “ASU Days” and “The Guitars – A Music Odyssey.” “Rural Odyssey IV – Parallels. Abilene, Cowboys and “Cordel” is cultural, historic fiction in the Rural Odyssey Series. “The Writing and Publishing Journey” is a capstone volume and catalogue of all of Curran’s books up to that time with color images of all the covers and short summaries of the genesis of the books. “Adventure Travel” in Colombia – Moments of Mayhem” continues the Adventure Travel Series. “Adventure Travel” – A New Partnership - The Royal Princess” follows. It makes fiction of the real trip to Rome, the Aegean, Crete, Ephesus, Istanbul, the coast of Russia on the Black Sea and finally Mykonos and Athens in Greece. “Rural Odyssey V” Trouble in a Kansas Riverside Town With “The Ballad of the Smoky Hill River Rambler” is the newest in the series. In 2024 there is “Brazil’s ‘Literatura de Cordel’ - The Broadside Engravings of Mexico’s José Guadalupe Posada.” Amazing similarity between these two popular literatures from one end of Latin America to the other. Then came a return to a first love, “Letters from Brazil V. ‘Let the Good Times Roll’”, USA 2024. “Rural Odyssey VI. Abilene. Trail Mix,” USA, 2025 A return to Abilene, the cow towns and the Smoky Hill Trail to Colorado and the all-important Santa Fe Trail from Missouri to New Mexico. “Five ‘Romances’ from ‘Cordel’”, USA, 2025. Five classic long narrative poems of Brazil. Portuguese and English. “Travel Made Fiction – South America by Air,” USA 2025. A fun trip made fiction to Peru, Argentina, Uruguay, Much of Brazil and Colombia. Travel Made Fiction “Adventure Travel” to British Columbia and Alaska, USA, 2025. The Graveyard Elegy – Memories of Abilene. Based on the stones of the Protestant and Catholic Cemeteries, Images of places in town, and farm memories, past and present. The Scamp Odyssey. 2004 and 2011. Colorado to Minnesota to Backus where we purchased the Scamp and the return in 2004, Kansas and Nebraska in 2011. “O Livro da Gratidão.” 38 Encontros com Escritores, Folcloristas, e Professores. Homenagem e gratidão pelo que fizeram para guiar-me de 1966 a 2005. Rural Odyssey VII. Fiction. A return to Abilene for Mike, Mariah and Ariel and then the novella of Klaatu. 2026. Based in part on “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” Scamp Odyssey II. 2026. The West Coast. Scamp Odyssey III and IV. The Mountain West. 2026 Scamp Odyssey V. Highlights. The Last in the Series. Emphasis on nature. And now, “Kansas Farm Boy.” 2026. Real life made fiction, a boy’s adventures in growing up on a farm near Abilene, Kansas.