About Pass-Through Place
Plus a pre-order link!
Hello! I often use this space to practice storytelling, and in my most recent post, I offered a more storied peek at how I decided to finish and submit the manuscript for my upcoming book, Pass-Through Place. Today, I’d love to tell you a bit more directly about the book—and offer a few brief looks inside—to help you explore if it may be a good fit for your bookshelf or for someone you know. Pre-orders are now available! Thank you for being here.
When people ask me where I’m from, I usually say central Kansas, and if they are curious, and sometimes they are, they might ask exactly where. Many times, I hold up my left hand and tilt it sideways, so that my palm is facing out. I stretch my palm as flat as I can, though it is not quite flat. My palmar flexion creases run across my hand like narrow rivers, my bones form gentle valleys, the lines and crevices and wrinkles time has written into my skin create texture marking this palm as only my own. I press all my fingers together into small hills, so that the only thing showing is the back loop of my wedding ring around my ring finger.
“Imagine,” I say, “this is Kansas, and the little bite from the Missouri River is here in the corner, where my fingers come together. And over here” —I gesture to where my palm stretches wide— “that’s western Kansas.” Then, I point to a spot just left of my wedding band, not quite in the middle, but almost.
“I’m from right here,” I say. “South central Kansas.”1
This is a short section from the essay “Planted” in my book Pass-Through Place: Essays on Home, Hope, and Following the Horizon. The book is now available for pre-order from Meadowlark Press!2
Pass-Through Place is a collection of personal essays shaped by growing up in central Kansas. Each essay stands alone, weaving through time and space, and sometimes venturing into other locations (Germany even appears in a few small moments!). But each essay is influenced by Kansas, as a landscape and people. Taken together, the twenty essays in the collection unfold loosely as a memoir.
From the official book description . . .
Ride along with Jenna Brack as she explores the vast and varied Kansas landscape, a place some consider flat and uninteresting. In this collection of personal essays that unfold as a coming-of-age memoir, Brack reveals how the land and people of Kansas have been catalysts for growth, healing, and identity. As Brack passes through wheatfields, historic ice storms, or the sprawling Flint Hills, she also travels through her own inner landscape of longing and loss. Together, these essays spotlight Kansas as much more than a pass-through place, and instead as a formative place of resilience and hope. Brack’s storytelling invites us to consider how our own pass-through places are infused with meaning—even how they might carry us home.
In the early days of imagining this project, I reflected on Kansas roads or paths I have traveled, then followed the threads that emerged. That exploration led me into all sorts of memories—early life, writing dreams, learning to drive, navigating heartbreak, marriage, pregnancy loss, anxiety, and more.
I wrote these essays across years—the writing process has been long, slow, and largely hidden. I grew up during the process of writing this book, and so did my kids! I wrote most of these essays before knowing exactly what they would become, or who would want to read them. They are my stories, but if it’s true—and I believe it is—that the specific can open us up to the universal, then these stories are for you, too.
As I share in the introduction, “these essays are for all of us who find ourselves journeying on long stretches of highway, where there is nothing to see but brown, fallow fields. They are written for those of us who grapple with our hopes under an open sky, one that sends terrifying tornadoes as quickly as the clouds can part. They speak to those who once saw horizons full of possibility but have long ago stopped looking, merely attending to what is directly ahead. These essays are also a lament over the places we call home, and the way they are embedded with not only beauty, but also pain and loss.”3
“Woven from her love of place and moments in her lifetime—both unassuming and notable—writer Jenna Brack invites us to pay tender attention to our life at hand, and to the softly worn discovery that ‘a place like Kansas rewards the quiet search.’ Like a friend sitting with us at our kitchen table, Jenna’s writing lovingly invites us to see wherever we are with great care. A heartbreaking, sentient, deeply moving collection of essays.”
—Amy Messenger, songwriter and poet
I hope, as my friend Amy so generously offers in her endorsement, that this collection will meet you tenderly. If you have read my other essays—like this one on Coffee + Crumbs—I expect you will find thematic resonance in the book. My lens is focused on Kansas, but within that landscape, these essays are about the human experience of passing through.
The book is slender, so it will slide nicely into your purse or backpack. I would be honored if it found other book friends on your shelf!
Pass-Through Place will be available in early April. But you can reserve your copy now using the link below:
Worlds Within
Conversations on place + writing
I recently joined with my friend Adrienne Garrison, a beautiful writer and novelist, to host a series of conversations around place-based storytelling. In each episode, we talk with guests about the place(s) they call home, their writerly inspirations, and the landscapes that shape a story.
You can find episodes releasing on Adrienne’s Substack, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. In episode one, I share more about Pass-Through Place, and we explore a passage from Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead. I also reveal how a moment of exclaiming, “That part of Kansas isn’t flat!” became a seed of inspiration for gathering up my own Kansas stories.
excerpt from “Planted” in Pass-Through Place: Essays on Home, Hope, and Following the Horizon by Jenna Brack. Forthcoming from Meadowlark Press, 2026.
A quick note on pre-ordering! Pre-orders are so helpful to authors. While my book will eventually be available on other sites, ordering directly through my publisher is an easy way to support a small press + my work at the same time. I’m grateful for your support.
“Pass-Through Place: An Introduction.”
Yeah!! Maybe I’ll get a chance to read this actually in Kansas sometime as we travel!!
So so so happy for this!