Each year it is my pleasure to nominate just six short pieces for the Pushcart Prize. Always a tough selection, but here’s my nominations for 2024. Winners would be announced in April 2024 if it comes to that. And the nominees are… Hilton Moore for “The Cell Tower” (North of…
Small Press Bookwatch: September 2023 James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief Midwest Book Review 278 Orchard Drive, Oregon, WI 53575 The Native American Studies Shelf Synopsis: No less than 27 out of the 50 states’ names in the USA are based in Native American languages. Additionally, six out of 13 of Canada’s…
https://cpa.ds.npr.org/s544/audio/2023/08/int-ellenlordwalloon-final.mp3 Click on the player above to listen to Ellen Lord’s interview Michigan native Ellen Lord has released her first chapbook, Relative Sanity, which features her elegiac and nature-centered poetry. Currently residing in Charlevoix County, Ellen has an Upper Peninsula connection with an ancestral home in Trout Creek. Her writing…
Synopsis: Penned by author and local newspaper columnist Sharon M. Kennedy in recent years, “The SideRoad Columnist: Observations from an Upper Michigan Author” presents a very special collection of her newspaper columns. To delight the reader, each installment tells a complete story in miniature. “The SideRoad Columnist” showcases Kennedy’s own…
Review by Tom Powers, Michigan in Books I don’t envy the hard choices the editors had to make in selecting the poetry, fiction and non fiction included in this annual publication showcasing the best from what I consider the largest (geographically speaking) writers’ colony in the country. Among the cornucopia…
Indians and Other Misnomers of the Upper Great Lakes is really quite a simple but important book that must have taken an enormous amount of work and research to produce. I also personally thought it profoundly ironic for multiple reasons. Basically, as the subtitle states the book simply lists names…
From The Mystery/Suspense Shelf Voodoo Shack: A Michigan Mystery Terri Martin Modern History Press 9781615997213, $29.95, HC, 150pp Synopsis: When 11-year-old Iris Weston discovers a ramshackle hunting cabin deep in Hazard Swamp, she and her friends decide it’s perfect for a secret clubhouse. The gang dubs it the Voodoo Shack…
Faces, Places, and Days Gone By — Volume 1 Mikel B. Classen Modern History Press https://www.modernhistorypress.com 9781615997251, $34.95, HC, 138pp Synopsis: With the publication of Faces, Places, and Days Gone By – Volume 1: A Pictorial History of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Mikel Classen’s pictorial history is the next best thing…
Local Beer Guidebook Author to Visit UP Brewpubs and Craft Breweries This June, Jon C. Stott, award-winning writer of beer travel books, will be visiting brewpubs and craft breweries in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to celebrate the publication of his new book, Yooper Ale Trails (published by Modern History Press, Ann…
Raymond Luczak, a Yooper native (from Ironwood and Houghton) and author/editor of 30 books, is seeking new work for a new poetry anthology about experiencing Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (U.P.), which Modern History Press (MHP) will publish in the summer of 2024. Since 2017, MHP has published 28 books, in all…
The Writing/Publishing Shelf Synopsis: Whether you are a new or experienced author, this updated and expanded third edition of “The Frugal Editor: Do-It-Yourself Editing Secrets-From Your Query Letters to Final Manuscript to the Marketing of Your New Bestseller” by veteran author, editor and book marketer Carolyn Howard-Johnson will dramatically assist…
Jon C. Stott, author of the new book Yooper Ale Trails: Craft Breweries and Brewpubs of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (Modern History Press, 2023), will be visiting local brewpubs and craft breweries in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula from June 8 to June 28, 2023. Stott will visit 9 breweries in UP and…
Coats of Arms: An Introduction to the Science and Art of Heraldry Marc Fountain Modern History Press (2022) ISBN: 978-1615996957 Reviewed by Megan Weiss for Reader Views (03/2023) Coats of Arms: An Introduction to the Science and Art of Heraldry by Marc Fountain introduces readers to the intricacies of Heraldry….
https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/5pguwa/audio1750531592.m4a Ann Dallman has lifelong roots in Michigan’s UP. She started out as a newspaper reporter/photographer and returned to journalism after retiring from teaching. In Cady and the Birchbark Box, Cady Whirlwind Thunder solves the mystery behind a weathered journal found inside a very old birchbark box. Why was the…
Reviewed by Dawn Colclasure for Reader Views (12/2022) A poetry book with a title like Chlorophyll can give one pause. What is so special about chlorophyll to write a whole book of poems about it? For Raymond Luczak, who grew up in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, plenty can be said about…
John Burroughs’ Bookshelf Synopsis: Featuring full-color pages accessible to readers of any age, “Coats of Arms: An Introduction to The Science and Art of Heraldry” (written and illustrated by Marc Fountain) is a how and why quick-start guide that explains knighthood and nobility and royalty, what coats of arms mean,…
Winner of the Historical Society of Michigan’s book award for Children & Youth (2022) Join Cady and John Ray as they unravel a forgotten mystery… In Cady and the Birchbark Box, Cady Whirlwind Thunder solves the mystery behind a weathered journal found inside an old birchbark box. Why was the…
“This book turned out to be unlike any writing reference book I have read. Of the thirty-odd writing books in my collection, many have spoken to my identity as one who loves the written word, as a recovering perfectionist, as a person who thinks in rhythm and will rewrite a…
Today……I will be chatting with author, and artist Joanna Walitalo who will announce the details of her book giveaway of Woodburnings after the reading at the end of the interview. When did you move to the UP? And are you a full-time Yooper? Joanna Walitalo grew up in Oil City…
by Ernest Dempsey, staff writer Carnival Lights by Native American author and speaker Chris Stark won the award for best fiction book at the 2022 Northeastern Minnesota Book Awards (NEMBA). Published last year by the Modern History Press of Michigan, the novel tells the engaging story of cultural survival through…
