Michael Shay's Hummingbirdminds

I spent the past couple weeks with James. I knew him in my youth as Jim, Nigger Jim, from Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn.” On the eve of the...

Part 2 of my review of John Green's "Everything is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection. " Rea...

My two most recent reads were “on the road” style of historical fiction novels: “West with Giraffes” by Lynda Rutledge and “Gone, the Redeem...

It's not often that you get to read a novel set in Alaska by an writer who almost died in an Alaska plane crash but now tours the U.S. p...

I saw Josh Brolin on Stephen Colbert this past week. He was promoting his new Amazon Prime series “Outer Range.” He said it was part contemp...

Russia invaded Ukraine this week. Putin does not want a democracy on its border. The Ukrainians are fighting back. The U.S. knows what joini...

Cheyenne Frontier Days is underway. I live maybe a half-mile from Frontier Park, home of the rodeo and night concerts. On most nights, I can...

Dino the Sinclair dinosaur and an unnamed mule deer in front of the Carbon County Museum in Rawlins. Photo by Annie Shay. Daughter Annie and...

I've been watching movies that paint a different portrait of the American West than I was taught in school.  "Lonesome Dove" o...

Excellent article in The Atlantic about how the pandemic will change the nation's retail businesses and our cities. I've always lov...

Millions of Americans await federal stimulus checks or unemployment benefits during the current crisis. Artists are entrepreneurs (artrepren...

INTRO: "The Way We Worked" exhibit wrapped up its stint at the Laramie County Public Library on Nov. 16. This Smithsonian-sponsore...

"Hell's bells, it's Wild West Days!" A line from Jack Kerouac's "On the Road." A character named Slim can...

Much wailing and gnashing of teeth lately about the state's brain drain. No, we're not talking about the sinking IQ levels of WY G...

Made in Wyoming (and published here too): This new anthology from Jackson's Sastrugi Press features a great line-up of the state's...

It's as if I went to sleep in winter and awoke in spring. For the past two days, hurricane-force gusts have toppled semis on the inter...

If this is Labor Day weekend (and it is) that means that we honor the hard-working people of the world by shopping at the new Wal-Mart that ...

Photo from the Wyoming State Archives shows downtown Cheyenne's Mayflower Cafe during Frontier Days sometime around the late-1940s.  ...

The wind is driving me crazy. But the warm weather brings thoughts of gardening. Landscaping, too. I've been wanting to kill my lawn for...