Ted Kooser lives on acreage near Garland, Neb. What would become his writing career began when Ted was in his teens. Today he is known for his conversational style, with subjects often about love, family, place and time. A unique fact about Ted is that he and Will Cather are the only Nebraskans ever to win a Pulitzer Prize for literature. He mentions two recent books that he enjoyed writing: Valentines (poems) and House Held Up by Trees (an illustrated children’s book). ~ David Harrison By Ted Kooser I’d been writing poems for quite a few years before I understood what my job was to be. I’d published a little poem called “Spring Plowing” in which I imagined a community of field mice moving their nests out of the way of the tractor and plow and into a safe place in the deep grass of a fence row. I rarely got a letter from someone who’d read something I’d written, but this time I did. A woman in Omaha sent me a note saying that she’d read “Spring Plowing” and would never again…