Midwest Book Review on Jon C. Stott’s “Summers at the Lake”

Carolyn Wilhelm’s Bookshelf
Jon C. Stott delightfully described the many joys of lakeside living with the unchanging activities of summer. Deb Le Blanc’s many photographs are stunning, enriching the text. Readers will feel like they are right there at the cabin next to the author. Stott says calendars are not required; just note the active fly type until summer is over and time has flown. Fireflies? Not so much, however. Light pollution, habitat loss, and pesticides make precious sightings few. Excerpts from the author’s father’s published writings show how lakeside living was the same for several generations that spent summers at the lake. Often locals will not reveal where their prized blueberry picking spot is, but we find out where the author found his spot. Famous poets and authors are quoted concerning flowers and typical sightings of the Upper Peninsula. Encounters with hummingbirds, loons, blue herons, and ducks are recounted. Dealing with older appliances, including televisions, meant adventures with fire and explosions. Lakeside clothing such as printed T-shirts, beekeepers’ hats, and treasures are sorted according to events. Read about when Stott paddled his canoe four centuries into the past on a quiet morning. Take a trip back into the summers of your childhood and reminisce as you read. Nostalgic, melancholic memories.

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Summers at the Lake: Upper Michigan Moments and Memories
Jon C. Stott
Modern History Press
5145 Pontiac Trail, Ann Arbor, MI 48105-9627
https://www.modernhistorypress.com
B09YDNKM6R, $5.95 Kindle
9781615996704, $19.95 PB, $34.95 HC, 177 pp.

How Dare We! Write, 2nd Edition [PB]

978-1-61599-683-4
$24.95
In stock
1
Product Details
UPC: 978-1-61599-683-4
Brand: Modern History Press
Binding: Paperback
Edition: 2nd
Author: Sherry Quan Lee
Pages: 266
Publication Date: 08/01/2022

How Dare We! Write: a multicultural creative writing discourse offers a much needed corrective to the usual dry and uninspired creative writing pedagogy. The collection asks us to consider questions, such as “What does it mean to work through resistance from supposed mentors, to face rejection from publishers and classmates, and to stand against traditions that silence you?" and "How can writers and teachers even begin to make diversity matter in meaningful ways on the page, in the classroom, and on our bookshelves?"

How Dare We! Write is an inspiring collection of intellectually rigorous lyric essays and innovative writing exercises; it opens up a path for inquiry, reflection, under­standing, and creativity that is ultimately healing. The testimonies provide a hard won context for their innovative paired writing experiments that are, by their very nature, generative.
--Cherise A. Pollard, PhD, Professor of English, West Chester University of Pennsylvania

So-called “creative writing” classes are highly politicized spaces, but no one says so; to acknowledge this obvious fact would be to up-end the aesthetics, cultural politics (ideology) and economics on which most educational institutions are founded. How Dare We! Write, a brilliant interventive anthology of essays, breaks this silence.
-- Maria Damon, Pratt Institute of Art; co-editor of Poetry and Cultural Studies: A Reader

How Dare We! Write is a collection of brave voices calling out to writers of color everywhere: no matter how lonely, you are not alone; you are one in a sea of change, swimming against the currents.
-- Kao Kalia Yang, author of The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir, and The Song Poet, a 2017 Minnesota Book Award winner

How Dare We! Write is a much needed collection of essays from writers of color that reminds us that our stories need to be told, from addressing academic gatekeepers, embracing our identities, the effects of the oppressors tongue on our psyche and to the personal narratives that help us understand who we are.
---Rodrigo Sanchez-Chavarria, writer, spoken word poet/performer and contributing author to A Good Time for fhe Truth: Race in Minnesota

Learn more at http://blog.SherryQuanLee.com

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