(November) Went into a second printing of Scoria Roads with additions, revisions, and an update of the oil industry in western ND. This Second Edition, published in 2017, is available NOW!!!
In Sept. 2016, Norma received the Heritage Education Commission Annual Beverly Paulson Family History Award in the Memoirs Category for her book Scoria Roads!
The article written about Norma and her book Scoria Roads concerning her Grand Forks book signing at Ferguson Bookstore there. Grand Forks Herald, Scoria Roads, May 22, 2016
Check out the article about Norma and her book Scoria Roads in the June/July 2016 issue of Fargo’s Area Woman magazine! The article is titled “Twenty Stories in Twenty-One Years.”
“Scoria Roads” is now available on loan on CD at the North Dakota State Library for the visually impaired, physically impaired, reading impaired, and those recovering from surgery. To get a copy, email: tbooks@nd.gov. For those out-of-state, ask for directions on this email on how to receive it.
Tuesday, July 7 –Norma Thorstad Knapp grew up in southwest North Dakota. She shares stories of hardship and heartbreak in her new memoir, “Scoria Roads, Twenty Houses in Twenty-One Years.” – Hear it at www.prairiepublic.org
Now available!
Scoria Roads
Here is a dynamic memoir set mostly in the barren prairie of western North Dakota where hardship and heartbreak are mirrored in the landscape. In this captivating read of short stories with letters to her sister, Knapp shows us how living with loss, abuse, divorce, poverty, and domestic violence can give us life lessons.
After each letter Knapp writes heart-rending stories about living in twenty different houses in her first twenty-one years. This is a touching meditation on what it means to love, lose, accept, and negotiate fate’s obstacle courses. The memoir is filled with Knapp’s towns and landscapes changed from the sweet safe ’40s and ’50s to a chaotic world today caused by a blistering oil boom.
Throughout we learn tidbits on North Dakota’s and our nation’s histories, the Norwegian immigration and their early mores and traditions, and how family can provide a safety net, binding us together. Ultimately, Scoria Roads is a profound affirmation of the importance of hope, love, caring teachers, resiliency, and extended family.
