Books

My novel, Before I Get Old, is available here: https://www.amazon.com/Before-Get-Old-Dana-Yost-ebook/dp/B09L79L18Z/ref=sr_1_1?crid=20DZ25R8FWN74&keywords=dana+yost&qid=1655475865&s=books&sprefix=dana+yost%2Cstripbooks%2C115&sr=1-1

From My Porch: On Your Street, In Our World

A new book co-authored by my son, Luke, and me. It’s a combination photo-essay book and poetry book. It contains 54 photos by Luke and six poems by me. The photos are images Luke saw in his home of MInneapolis over the past year, divided into sections. They’re observational, almost journalistic photos. They include images of the COVID-19 pandemic, the George Floyd tragedy, political signs, the holidays, the changing seasons, and places to go to find solitude. One of the photos was selected for a juried art show in St. Paul.

To order:

Amazon: click here

1940: Journal of a Midwestern Town, Story of an Era

Called a “tour de force” by historian Joseph Amato, the book is a history of the rural Midwest in 1940, a pivotal year in history between the Great Depression and World War II. Local, regional and national history — told through the perspective of a small Minnesota town and its people. The book is, in Amato’s words, “Truly alive to one place during one year. Many people, classes and cultures, amply and intelligently unified….proving one place is many places, one time joins many lives and times. History here benefits from a journalist.”

To order:

Ellis Press: click and then go to the home page/order form

Amazon: click

Good Shepherds: Living the Faith

This book of collected essays, articles, poetry, and devotionals explores how lay people live their faith in their everyday lives and in extraordinary circumstances.

To order:

Electio Publishing: click

Amazon: click

A Higher Level: Southwest State Women’s Tennis 1979-92

They survived raw Minnesota winters, and home facilities so inadequate they were mocked, almost boycotted.  Yet despite having almost no funds to operate their program, the Southwest State University women’s tennis team overcame those obstacles and more to become one of the nation’s best small-college programs from 1979-1992.  A Higher Level captures the experiences of the SSU team in that era—a team of winners with diverse personalities, which has much to teach us today about sports, team-building and life itself.

To order:

Ellis Press: click and go to the home/order form page

Amazon: click

The Right Place

The people, institutions, and problems of southwestern Minnesota (and Iowa) are representative of the situation across the rural Midwest these days. The Right Place, from Ellis Press, is a collection of essays and poems — some that are uplifting, some that are not as they reflect the breadth of life in the region. There are stories and poems about accomplishments, artists, friends, nature and faith, but also about death, illness, and economic failure. A wholly engaged life brings us all sorts of emotions, experiences, and lessons.

To order:

Amazon: click

Grace

In a review of this debut poetry collection, the poet Philip Dacey wrote: “Grace traces the journey from a wish for peace in the first poem to a calm communion with the moon in the last. The poems in between range from contemporary history (Iraq; the Cottonwood, Minnesota, school bus crash) to more personal matters, including a ‘bruised mind’ or mental ‘murk.’ But Yost’s writing throughout is anything but murky; he writes clearly and affectingly of his various subjects, with the sharp images and American diction of a midwestern William Carlos Williams. As the title suggests, a religious or spiritual element runs throughout—at times specifically Christian, though not without wit (Jesus as hockey goalie. Plenty wins out over murk; Grace is about that triumph. William Butler Yeats said, ‘Rhetoricians would deceive their neighbors, sentimentalists them-selves,’ but Yost would deceive no one; like the outstanding journalist he has long been, he aims to undeceive by means of honesty, integrity, gritty realism, and a command of the language. In one poem he hears a phone-like ringing and can’t find the source, but by the end of the book he has found that source—he’s no doubt been calling himself—and answered. His answer is this very collection, and we are privileged to be listening in on the conversation embodied by these urgent and necessary poems.”

To order:

Ellis Press: click and then go to the home page/order form

Chapbook

The Adventurous Life of Tilla Dahl Deen (Ellis Press)