South Dakota Magazine 2026 Collector’s Edition – Book Review

September 8th, 2026

Arts Journal: A Celebration of our Creative Culture July/August 2026 p.79

A NEIGHBORHOOD NEAR YOU

Jim Reese was a boy when a serial killer terrorized his neighborhood in Omaha. In high school, his best friend was raped and murdered by a classmate who once tutored him in math. As an English professor at Mount Marty University in Yankton, he spent 14 years teaching writing in prisons around South Dakota.

Is there a connection between each of those developments in his life? That’s a question that has long intrigued Reese, and one that he explores in his new book Coming to a Neighborhood Near You.     

Reese’s work is part memoir, part confessional and part treatise for rehabilitation of the nation’s criminal justice system. He is up front with his own failings in his journey to become a writer and passionate in defense of what educational programs in prison can provide. His gritty stories from behind the walls of notorious prisons like San Quentin to Yankton’s Federal Prison Camp – which occupies the beautiful former campus of Yankton College in the heart of town – help readers see the problems and potential solutions that Reese advocates.