Always / Siempre by Helen Vitoria and B. L. Pawelek

Always / Siempre

by Helen Vitoria and B. L. Pawelek

Always/Siempre is a work of poetic and photographic ekphrasis, presented in English with Spanish translations.

Helen Vitoria has been nominated for Best New Poets and the Pushcart Prize. She is the Founding Editor of THRUSH Press.

B.L. Pawelek has been nominated for the Pushcart and Best of the Net prizes.


ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Helen Vitoria Helen Vitoria’s poems can be found in: Ping Pong Journal, The Awl, Rougarou, PANK, Pebble Lake Review, GRIST, Barn Owl Review and others. Her work has been nominated for Best New Poets & the Pushcart Prize. Her poetry collection, Corn Exchange (Wild Chestnut Press, 2013) has been awarded the 2014 Silver IPPY Book Award in poetry among other national awards. She edits THRUSH Poetry Journal & THRUSH Press.

B.L. Pawelek is a husband, dad, and hiker living in Eden Prairie, MN. He attended to Loyola Marymount University and has had his poetry and photography published in numerous journals. He has also been nominated for the Pushcart and Best of the Net prizes.

FIND OUT MORE
B.L. Pawelek: http://blpawelek.wordpress.com/
Helen Vitoria: http://www.helenvitoria.com/
Publisher: Concepción Books

PURCHASE
Amazon and Barnes & Noble

Calling - Sharon Chmielarz

Calling

by Sharon Chmielarz

In Calling, Sharon Chmielarz recalls the lives of those, who, in Elisabeth Bishop’s words, in “Brazil, January 1, 1502  “... who kept calling, calling to each other...”  They are known and unknown  painters, musicians, the local beautician, islanders and immigrants.  They are subjects for our attention, long overdue.  These are portrait poems serving as windows into the lives of Monet’s egg girl, Galileo’s daughter, the Two Fat Ladies.  They are a record of the people we come from, recorded in lyric and narrative, with dashes of humor and anger, love and sadness at the irrefutable wash of history the poems find themselves in.  They are women who are showcases of strength, reflection, and the ordinary transformed by the desire to be counted.  They seek the remembrance due the neglected.  The poet’s drag-net sweeps them all in. 

BIOGRAPHY

Sharon Chmielarz’s books of poetry include Calling, The Sky Is Great The Sky Is Blue, The Rhubarb King, The Other Mozart,  But I Won’t Go Out in a Boat, Different Arrangements, and one chapbook, Stranger in Her House. Her work has been a finalist in the National Poetry Series, and in ‘99, ‘01, ‘02, ’05, ’07 and ‘10 nominated for a Pushcart.  It’s been featured on American Life in Poetry (‘07) and individual poems translated into French and Polish.  The Rhubarb King, won a Merit Award from the 2007 Midwest Independent Publishers Association. The Other Mozart has been made into a two-part opera. Her book Calling was first runner up in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards, 2011, for poetry.

UPCOMING READINGS

Feb. 10, 2012:  Banfill Locke Center for the Arts

early 2012, but as yet undated: North Star Chapter of the German Russians, Berea Lutheran Church, 7538 Emerson Ave. S., Mpls. (Richfield)

WEBSITE
www.sharonchmielarz.com

PURCHASE
Amazon


OTHER BOOKS PUBLISHED

The Sky Is Great The Sky Is Blue (Whistling Shade Press, 2010)

The Rhubarb King (Loonfeather Press, 2006)

The Other Mozart  (Ontario Review Press/ imprint W.W. Norton, 2001)

But I Won’t Go Out in a Boat (New Rivers Press, 1991)

Different Arrangements (New Rivers Press, 1982)

Chapter book: 

Stranger in Her House (Poetry Harbor, 1990) -- contact author through www.sharonchmielarz.com to purchase

Children’s:

Pied Piper of Hamelin  (Stemmer House, 1990) (out of print)

The End of Winter  (Crown, 1992) (out of print)

Down at Angel’s (Ticknor & Field/ Houghton Mifflin, 1994)

PUBLISHER
Loonfeather Press
www.loonfeatherpress.com

Meaning Beyond Reason - Anthony Caponi

Meaning Beyond Reason

by Anthony Caponi

Meaning Beyond Reason explores the relationship between reason and intuition as it relates to art, education, religion, rhetoric and science. The ideas presented in Meaning Beyond Reason are artist and educator Anthony Caponi’s insights on man and God, beauty, and nature. The book argues that verbal concepts often create false gods, obscure understanding and impinge upon the vital engagement in life. The book explores the ideas that, since he was a young child in Italy, have guided the creation of his artwork and everyday living.

BIOGRAPHY
An artist, philosopher, poet, civic leader and environmentalist, Anthony Caponi is also an educator and professor emeritus of Macalester College, Saint Paul, Minn., where he taught and chaired the art department for more than 40 years. He has brought his wealth of experience and artistic skill together in the creation of Caponi Art Park, a 60 acre outdoor sculpture garden and cultural center in Eagan, Minn.

At the age of 90, Anthony Caponi is the creator and artistic director of Caponi Art Park and Learning Center, a nonprofit sculpture garden and outdoor performance venue in Eagan, Minnesota dedicated to making art accessible to people of all ages and backgrounds. Located on 60 acres of rolling wooded hills, Caponi Art Park and Learning Center is a distinctive cultural center offering free programs and educational experiences in an inviting, natural setting that seamlessly blends art and nature.

SIGNINGS
Anthony Caponi does sign books at Caponi Art Park during scheduled artistic and cultural programs.

WEBSITE
www.caponiartpark.org/meaningbeyondreason

PURCHASE
Amazon

OTHER BOOKS PUBLISHED
Voice from the Mountains: A Memoir
Boulders and Pebbles of Poetry and Prose

PUBLISHER
Nodin Press
http://www.nodinpress.com

The Shadow Loom Poems - Mary Willette Hughes

The Shadow Loom Poems

by Mary Willette Hughes

In her third book of poetry, The Shadow Loom Poems, Hughes weaves poems around five central themes: Love, Sorrow, Poetry, Pain, and Joy. With each theme, the poet designs a tapestry of her life experiences and events which may resonate with readers, offering a universal application to their own lives.



CRITICAL ACCLAIM
“Like a gentle wave, Mary Willette Hughes’s poems glide over the jagged rocks of grief and pain, carrying readers to a welcoming shore of healing.” -Bill Meissner, author of American Compass,
winner of the Midwest Book Award for Spirits in the Grass

“This third collection of poetry shows Hughes at the height of her powers to appreciate the munificence of a long and well-lived life. Her voice is warm and wise in the knowledge that, as Walt Whitman wrote, “Every moment of light and dark is a miracle.” - Margaret Haase, author of Milk and Tides, winner of the Midwest Book Award for Poetry in 2009

“Mary Willette Hughes’s poems are filled with close observation of the things that matter most in life. She writes with urgency and such deep clarity that she makes us see again, too.” - Mark Conway, author of Dreaming man, Face Down

“These poems, using Hughes’ own words, are “pilgrims of hope,” sent out into a dangerous but dearly loved world.” Mara Faulkner, O.S.B., author of Going Blind: A Memoir, finalist for the 2010 Minnesota Book Award

BIOGRAPHY

Mary Willette Hughes, married to Mark, is a musician, teacher, poet, mother of seven, grandmother of twenty-two, and now great-grandmother of three. She has had three books of poetry published, Quilt Pieces, Flight on New Wings, and The Shadow Loom Poems. During the last eleven years, she has worked part-time for the Saint Cloud Hospital’s Recovery Plus program for addiction and recovery as a facilitator of poetry therapy and has given numerous presentations about poetry as therapy both locally and at national venues. In 2010, the National Association of Poetry Therapy presented her with a Public Service Award for her work at Recovery Plus. She has received two monetary Individual Artist Awards for her poetry, which were granted by the Central Minnesota Arts Board, the first in 1998, and again in 2010. She also has received the Mother Benedicta Riepp Award from the Monastery of St. Benedict in 2010 for “striving to exemplify Benedictine and Gospel values” in her life.

It wasn’t until 1989, when her children were on their own, that Mary discovered the world of writing poetry. After careers as a music teacher and working as an instructor for eighteen years at the Family Life Bureau in Saint Cloud, Minnesota, a new vocation arrived. Poetry writing entered her world, bringing a new passion and zest to her life as she attended creative writing classes and worked at learning how to write, to speak, and to sing in this new voice.

PURCHASE

North Star Press

PUBLISHER

North Star Press

Once upon a Neighborhood - Evelyn Klein

Once upon a Neighborhood

by Evelyn Klein

Once upon a Neighborhood depicts the changing nature of Neighborhood in the Twin Cities. Neighborhood can be an important place of home and nurture, the pivotal point from which we embark on daily demands, responsibilities, adventures, and diversions of our lives. But the every-day stories that shape neighborhoods often remain unsung, unrecorded, become lost in storms of sensationalism. This book aims to depict the reality of ordinary living, “moments of being,” as it moves from Saint Paul to Minneapolis and areas in-between. Only some people’s names were changed for privacy. Told in prose and poetry, meant to be easily accessible, the stories combine memoir, history, and observation.

Because neighborhood and community are not only about people but about places as well and because words are not always enough, I sat in my car to draw pictures of places where the stories occurred. To represent unity, at least in the social sense, I designed a montage of skylines, Saint Paul at sunrise, Minneapolis at sunset, joined by a historic view of Fort Snelling. Inside the book, each of the five sections is also introduced by a drawing. The book was recently added to the Minnesota Historical Society’s permanent library collection.

BIOGRAPHY

Having lived in various parts of the Twin Cities most of her life, Evelyn Klein is a freelance writer, author, teacher, and visual artist as well as a frequent writing judge and editor. She holds a B.S. in Secondary Education from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and an M.S. in the Teaching of English from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. She taught in the public schools, at the Loft Literary Center and currently teaches at Century College. Her articles and poetry appear in numerous newspapers, journals and other publications, including the Saint Paul Almanac. She published the poetry anthology, Stage Two: Poetic Lives, in 1994. Sine 2005 her prizewinning poem, A Place Called Home, is still touring the Twin Cities area in the Home Sweet Home Again exhibit of poetry and art with the Minneapolis Family Housing Fund. She published the poetry memoir, From Here Across the Bridge, illustrated by her father, Wolfgang Klein, in 2006 with Nodin Press, winning a cover award. Her latest book of prose, poetry and her own art, Once upon a Neighborhood, was published in 2009 with North Star Press. Evelyn Klein’s upcoming events are regularly published in her newsletter, The Write Connection.

PURCHASE
Amazon.com

UPCOMING EVENTS
Classes and Workshops

Century College
3300 Century Ave. North
White Bear Lake, MN 55110
651-779-3341

Getting Started Writing: Short Shorts
Thursday, June 23, 2011, 6:00-9:00 p.m., 1 session

Finding Voice in Memoir
Thursday, July 21, 2011, 6:00-9:00 p.m., 1 session

Speaking and Reading
Minnesota Independent Scholars Forum
Hosmer Public Library
36th Street at 4th Ave.
Minneapolis, MN 55408
612-630-6950
Poetry Reading and Discussion Featured are Morgan Grayce Willow and Evelyn Klein
Saturday, April 16, 2011, 10:30-12:00 noon

Pilgrim House Church
1212 W. Highway 96
Arden Hills, MN 55112
Finding Neighborhood and Community in Changing Times, Evelyn Klein guest speaker
Sunday, May 8, 2011, 10:15 a.m.

Mississippi Valley Poets and Writers
Venue to be announced
Spirit of the Muses
Saturday, May 21, 12:30-3:00 p.m.

River Falls Area Retired Educators Association
The West Wind Restaurant
Main Street, River Falls, WI 54022
715-425-8100
Publishing Your Manuscript

Wednesday, October 19, 2011, ll:45 a.m.

For more information see www.evelynkleinauthor.com

See also: Nodin Press at http://www.nodinpress.com

North Star Press of St. Cloud, Inc. at info@northstarpress.com

In the final stages of completion – are Evelyn Klein’s next two books. Power Behind Your Writing, a writer’s reference book in three parts, including historical background on language, an easy-to-understand parts of speech section, and a sentence structure section, all designed to give writers of all backgrounds a better grasp of language as it relates to writing. It is presently in the final stages of editing. Seasons of Dreams, a book of prose, poetry and her own visual art deals with hope, renewal, spiritual growth and development. The author is currently working on illustrations to round out the reading experience. www.evelynkleinauthor.com

The Right Place - Dana Yost

The Right Place

by Dana Yost

The Right Place is a collection of essays and poems, largely about people and places in the rural Midwest, mostly southwest Minnesota — exploring and explaining how rural residents struggle to sustain amid rural decline. It includes essays on authors Bill Holm, Howard Mohr and Adrian Louis, essays on a small-town mayor, the Minnesota Machinery Museum, and on local veterans, among other topics. Most of the poems were published within the past year (one will be forthcoming) in literary journals and other magazines around the country. There are heroes and there are casualties in this book, and sometimes it may not be easy to tell them apart. At other times, both labels may fit the same person. Some of the essays and poems in the book may be uplifting or inspiring. Others may not. I write about accomplishments, artists, friends, nature, and faith, but I also write about death, illness, and economic failure.

“Why can't I pick one or the other— happy or downbeat? The reason is simple enough; life itself isn't about one or the other...A wholly engaged life is going to bring us all sorts of emotions, experiences, and lessons. What we make of them, and what they make of us, is what our lives end up being about." – DanaYost

"The Right Place shows how life is never easy in the Upper Midwest, and how there are people committed to the area."--Marshall Independent

"Dana has written a very nice, insightful book. Lee [Eggerstrom] and I are both struck by his understanding of people and place."--John Van Hecke, Minnesota 2020

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 mid-western 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 themselves,” 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.

WEBSITE

www.ellispress.com

BIOGRAPHY

Dana Yost is the author of two books, 2008’s poetry collection Grace, and 2010’s collection of essays and poems The Right Place. For 29 years, he was an award-winning daily newspaper reporter and editor. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in such publications as Wolf Head Quarterly, Awakenings Review, Relief, Open Minds Quarterly, Turtle Quarterly, Time of Singing, South Dakota Magazine, Stone’s Throw Magazine and online on Minnesota Public Radio. Minnesota 2020 posted three excerpts from The Right Place, along with on-camera interviews of Yost, in February on its Web site http://www.mn2020.org/

PUBLISHER

Ellis Press

www.ellispress.com

Echo & Lightning - Sheila Packa

Echo & Lightning

by Sheila Packa

Wildwood River Press announces the publication of Echo & Lightning (expanded edition) by Sheila Packa. It is both a love story and an exploration of bird migration and change. The cover painting is titled “Dawn” and is by visual artist Cecilia Ramon.

Kirsten Dierking, author of One Red Eye and Northern Oracle, writes: “So many poems in Echo & Lightning reveal what has to be given away in order to be filled with something greater--a more intense spiritual awareness, a fuller connection with the landscape, a more generous and all-encompassing love. Echo & Lighting transforms us into something freer, wilder, more given to loving, while reminding us that to fly is to risk leaving the old behind....”

Ellie Schoenfeld, author of The Dark Honey, writes: “These poems are the story of following one’s own instincts to, in one way or another, migrate. They bring us to the exact moment when we surrender to our truest selves, when we allow ourselves to be transported, transformed, resurrected.”

BIOGRAPHY
The granddaughter of Finnish immigrants, she grew up on Minnesota’s Iron Range. Her work, influenced by the Finnish language, explores the theme of migrations (of birds, grandmothers, and desire) and the natural world. Sheila has published poetry, short stories and essays in several literary magazines, including Ploughshares. Her poems have been in several anthologies, including Good Poems, American Places, edited by Garrison Keillor, (Viking Penguin, scheduled for publication April 2011), Finnish-North American Literature in English (Mellen Press, 2009) Beloved of the Earth: Poems of Grief and Gratitude (Holy Cow Press, 2008) and To Sing Along the Way: Minnesota Women Poets from Pre-Territorial Days to the Present (New Rivers Press, 2006). She has received a Loft Mentor Award in poetry, two Arrowhead Regional Arts Council fellowships for poetry, a Career Opportunity grant, and two Loft McKnight Awards (in both poetry and prose).

Previous books: Poetry Harbor published her first chapbook, Always Saying Good-bye. Her book of poems, The Mother Tongue (Calyx Press, 2007) received recognition at the Northeast Minnesota Book Awards.

WEBSITE
www.sheilapacka.com

BLOG
www.sheilapacka.blogspot.com

Sheila Packa is the Poet Laureate of Duluth, MN 2010-2012.

PUBLISHER
Wildwood River Press
www.wildwoodriver.com

UPCOMING EVENTS
April 19, 2011: Carol Connolly Reading Series, at the University Club on Summit Avenue, St. Paul: featured readers are Connie Wanek, Sheila Packa, Ellie Schoenfeld and Deb Cooper

April 26, 2011: Sheila Packa, Poet Laureate at the Empty Bowl-- Join Sheila Packa at this annual fundraising event at the Depot in Duluth for the Northern Food Bank. She will be presenting free placemats with a selection of poems from her upcoming anthology, Poems for Life Transitions.

June 2, 2011: Sheila Packa & Kathy McTavish, poetry / cello performance and Patchouli at 8 pm at Terrapin Station in Walker, MN

Check out the calendar on her website for other upcoming events

Blameless Mouth - Jessica Fox-Wilson

Blameless Mouth

by Jessica Fox-Wilson

Can we teeter together, on the knife’s edge of having and wanting? In Blameless Mouth, Jessica Fox-Wilson asks this question, by exploring the cycle of hunger, consumption and satiety. The collection traces the poet’s relationship with hunger from childhood to womanhood, uncovering what it means to feel forever wanting. Her work also considers the cultural legacy of hunger, through stories of starving children and hungry women, like Hansel and Gretel, Persephone, Eve, and others. Blameless Mouth illuminates the struggle of living daily with the contradictory pressures to want less but take more and searches for satiety in a culture that encourages insatiability.


Praise for Jessica Fox-Wilson and Blameless Mouth

Using retellings of the familiar stories – Grimm’s fairy tales, Adam and Eve – Fox-Wilson investigates the female body, its appetites and injuries, the relations between fathers and daughters and between a woman and her own image. Obsessed with violence and its repercussions, these poems imagine an alternate creation myth in which a woman struggles to take control of her own destiny. –Jeannine Hall Gailey, author of Becoming the Villainess

Jessica Fox-Wilson’s poetry casts seasons of light on what it means to be human. She elevates plain spoken story to elegance, seamlessly weaving narratives to create a lovely kaleidoscopic image. – Darci Schummer, whose fiction has appeared in Conclave: A Journal of Character, Paper Darts, and Volume One

Jessica Fox-Wilson has written a ferocious, elegant, tough-minded collection of poems. Her exploration of what it means to be hungry, of what the culture asks of its girls and women, compels the reader’s attention and a kind of allegiance with the fierce voice of the narrator. Braiding myths, tales, and sacred texts with her own compelling present-time narratives, we travel with a poet unafraid to speak truth to power, wherever that power resides, however evident or hidden. In the poem where she explores the definition of the word, lacuna, the poet gives us this definition: an empty space, a missing portion, in something which is otherwise continuous. I think of the deep and continuous traditions of poetry, and I think Jessica Fox-Wilson has filled an empty space, a missing portion, with her exceptional, beautifully crafted poems. Buy this book. Consider it food, a full portion which will leave you satisfied and inspired by her gifts as poet. – Deborah Keenan, author, most recently, of Willow Room, Green Door: New and Selected Poems, Milkweed Edition

BIOGRAPHY
Jessica Fox-Wilson is a part-time poet and a full-time educator. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing and Middle-Secondary Education at Beloit College in Beloit, WI and a Master of Fine Arts in Writing at Hamline University, in St. Paul, MN. Throughout her career, she has pursued her twin vocations of unraveling poems and serving college students, with varying degrees of balance, luck and success. She writes about this balancing act at her blog, Everything Feeds Process (http://everythingfeedsprocess.com). Some of her poems have appeared in several journals, including Gin Bender, Blind Man’s Rainbow and qarrtsiluni and her articles about poetry and literature have appeared in Read Write Poem and the Uptown Neighborhood News. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband.

WEBSITE
http://everythingfeedsprocess.com

FACEBOOK
http://www.facebook.com/BlamelessMouth

PURCHASE
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/fox_jessica

Milkweed Editions - A Literary Publisher

MILKWEED EDITIONS

An Independent Literary Press

DANIEL SLAGER
Publisher

Milkweed Editions publishes literary fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and novels for young readers.

Works of fiction (novels, novellas, and short story collections) between 150 and 400 pages. We do not publish genre fiction, by which we mean we are not interested in romance, science fiction, mystery, crime, or westerns.

Works of literary nonfiction that often focus on the relationships between human and natural communities. We are not interested in manuscripts written for an academic or scientific audience.

Collections of poetry (single-author collections only, please) that are at least 60 pages long. Please review our previous poetry titles to get a sense for what we’re looking for in a poetry collection.

Books for young readers (readers between the ages of 8 and 13) that are full-length novels between 90 and 200 pages. We do not consider picture books or poetry collections for young readers.

For submissions guidelines and more information, please visit our website.

COMPANY HISTORY
Milkweed Editions is a nonprofit literary press, publishing between 15 and 20 books a year. Founded in 1979, we have published over 200 titles and are dedicated to keeping our books in print. We read each manuscript we receive and consider it for publication according to our mission statement. We believe that literature is a transformative art, and that each book bears a responsibility to convey the essential experiences of the human heart and spirit.

MOST RECENT RELEASES

Driftless by David Rhodes

With Driftless, Rhodes returns to the midwestern landscape he knows so well, offering a fascinating, unsentimental portrait of a town left behind by the march of time. Home to a few hundred people yet absent from state maps, Words, Wisconsin, comes richly to life by way of an extraordinary cast of characters. Among them, a middle-aged couple guards the family farm from the mendacious schemes of their milk co-operative; a lifelong paraplegic suddenly regains the use of her legs, only to find herself crippled by fury at her sister and caretaker; a woman of conflicting impulses and pastor of the local Friends church stumbles upon an enlightenment she never expected; a cantankerous retiree discovers a cougar living in his haymow, haunting him like a childhood memory; and a former drifter forever alters the ties that bind a community together.

David Rhodes Bio

As a young man, David Rhodes worked in fields, hospitals, and factories across Iowa. After receiving an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop in 1971, he published three novels in rapid succession: The Last Fair Deal Going Down (Atlantic/Little, Brown, 1972), The Easter House (Harper & Row, 1974), and Rock Island Line (Harper & Row, 1975). A motorcycle accident in 1976 left him paralyzed from the waist down, since which time he continued writing but stopped publishing. He lives with his wife, Edna, in Wonewoc, Wisconsin.

Orion You Came and You Took All My Marbles by Kira Henehan

Welcome to the off-kilter world of Finley, an investigator of indiscernible origins and prowess. Her assignment: the mysterious Professor Uppal and his puppets. The objective: impossible to say. But Finley is unassailable. She forges ahead with occasional assistance and hindrance from her colleagues Murphy, The Lamb, and Binelli, as well as the professor’s beautiful daughter and her sinister artiste boyfriend. In her meticulous and completely unbiased report, Finley tracks the investigation’s slow spiral back upon itself, as the clues she uncovers reveal questions that lead directly back to her own forgotten past.

Captivating and whimsical, idiosyncratic and deeply funny, Orion You Came and You Took All My Marbles finds inspiration in hard-boiled noir and the tortured quest of an existential inquiry. This novel marks the debut of a powerful, original voice.

Kira Henehan Bio

Kira Henehan was born in New York and grew up around the U.S., Canada, and the Carribbean. Her work has been published in Fence, jubilat, Chelsea, Conjunctions, and the Denver Quarterly, among others. The recipient of a Pushcart Prize, Henehan is a graduate of San Francisco State University and Columbia University’s MFA program, Henehan lives in New York City. This is her first novel.

The Chain Letter of the Soul by Bill Holm

Collecting the best and the newest poems from Bill Holm’s oeuvre, The Chain Letter of the Soul paints a portrait of a man of great heart, broad vision, and startling prescience. Fans will recognize many of their favorites from Boxelder Bug Variations, The Dead Get By with Everything, and Playing the Black Piano, and new readers will be introduced to an enduring voice of American literature with collections

Poet, musician, wit, and polemicist—Bill Holm is one of a kind. A Minnesotan of Icelandic ancestry, his travels have taken him all over the world, providing material for his rich and memorable verse. Readers will discover Bill Holm’s eminent sensitivity to musical, natural, and personal truths won through keen poetic observation. Humanist, humble, and sometimes humorous, his work celebrates the waywardness and promise of the human species.

Bill Holm Bio

Born in 1943, Bill Holm studied English at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota, and the University of Kansas, where he earned his MA in English. His books include Eccentric Islands, The Heart Can Be Filled Anywhere on Earth, Coming Home Crazy, The Windows of Brimnes, and poetry collections including, most recently, Playing the Black Piano. He was the recipient of numerous awards, including a Fulbright scholarship and the 2008 McKnight Distinguished Artist Award. An avid traveler, he regularly spent summers at his house on a North Iceland fjord in Hofsós, Iceland. He spent the rest of the year living in Minneota, Minnesota and teaching at Southwest Minnesota State University before passing away at the age of 65 in the spring of 2009.

Fancy Beasts by Alex Lemon

Scorching away the false distinctions between body, mind, and spirit, this exhilarating new collection of poems gives brilliant expression to the turning point in an extraordinary life. Set primarily in California, and riffing on the 2008 election, plastic surgery, Larry Craig, wildfires, Wal-Mart, and rampant commercialism, these poems are a workout—vigorous and raw. Yet they are also composed and controlled, pared down and sculpted, with a disarming narrative simplicity and directness. Taken together, they offer a frank, funny, and inimitably frenetic vision of post-millennial America.

Alex Lemon Bio

Alex Lemon is the author of the poetry collections Hallelujah Blackout, Mosquito, and the memoir Happy. His writing has appeared in numerous magazines, including Esquire, BOMB, and AGNI, jubilat, Kenyon Review, New England Review, and Pleiades. He was awarded a 2005 Literature Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts and a 2006 Minnesota Arts Board Grant. He lives in Fort Worth, Texas, and teaches at Texas Christian University.

UPCOMING RELEASES
-Vestments
-Extra Indians
-Nature of College
-Letters to a Young Madman
-The Hole in the Wall
-The Crepe Makers’ Bond

(Check out our online 2010 catalogue for more info on these upcoming releases)

WEBSITE and ORDERING

www.milkweed.org

Blake Hoena - Cosmic Bounty Hunter

Cosmic Bounty Hunter

(08/01/10)

Intergalactic bounty hunter Lobo has a new job. The evil aliens Kalibak and Desaad have hired him to capture Superman — dead or alive! When Lobo finally wrangles the Man of Steel, the aliens aren't far behind. But they don't trust the bounty hunter and trap him beneath a force field with Superman. Lobo and the Last Son of Krypton must set aside their difference in order to escape or be imprisoned forever on the distant planet of Arkropolis.


Spotlight Striker

(08/01/10)

Carlos's uncle, a professional soccer player, is in the stands watching Carlos play. Normally, he has nerves of steel and lightning fast reflexes, but playing in front of his super-skilled uncle has Carlos tripping over his own feet. Will he succumb to the pressure or shine in the spotlight?


BIOGRAPHY
Blake A. Hoena grew up in central Wisconsin, where, in his youth, he wrote stories about robots conquering the Moon and trolls lumbering around in the woods behind his parents house, and the fact that the trolls were hunting for little boys had nothing to do with Blake’s pesky, younger brothers. His continuing desire to tell stories led him to Minnesota, where he pursued a Masters of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from Minnesota State University, Mankato.

A selection of Blake’s writing won the 2000 Robert Wright Award and his poetry has appeared in several literary journals. He’s also written more than thirty books for children, including graphic novel retellings of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Jack and the Beanstalk, and the Perseus and Medusa myth. Most recently, he’s been working on a series of graphic novels about two space alien brothers, Eek and Ack, who are determined to conquer our big blue home.

WEB ADDRESS
bahoena.com

FACEBOOK FAN PAGE
http://www.facebook.com/pages/manage/#!/pages/Blake-Hoena/178901759154

OTHER TITLES

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
"Smith’s full-color illustrations and Hoena’s narration rejuvenate the famously spooky legend of the 1800s.”—School Library Journal

Perseus of Medusa
"A must read for mythology fans!”—Back to Books

Eek and Ack vs the Wolfman
"There’s an underpants scene, vomit, a washing machine spaceship, and two goofy looking aliens. How could kids not love this book?" —The Graphic Classroom

Jack and the Beanstalk
“With just a dash of slapstick humor and the tale’s inherent suspense, this is a grand opportunity to introduce young kids to the graphic format through a story they are already familiar with.”— Booklist

PUBLISHER LINK
www.capstonepub.com

UPCOMING EVENTS
Presenting "Creating Graphic Novels"
Young Writers' Conference
Winona, Minnesota
May 13th and 14th.

Presenting "Creating Graphic Novels"
Young Authors' /Young Artists' Conference
Rochester, Minnesota
May 19th and 20th.

Connie Colwell Miller - Bodywearers

BODYWEARERS

By Connie Colwell Miller

Whether Miller speaks of a red-tailed hawk hunting for mice or a lover’s underwear crumpled up on the bedroom floor, her voice is filled with a revealing breath of candor, drawing our attention to the small details in nature and of the body, often showing us beauty where we may not have expected it..


BODYWEARERS BLURB:
“If we were angels, bodiless and pure, we would sing for all eternity. Connie Colwell Miller’s poems wonder how the body, with its baggy wardrobe of needs, could ever permit such music. But the body is a means. And Miller’s poems are less about leaving the flesh behind and more about discovering how the flaws and desires of daily living operate to bring a second life out into the open.”—Richard Robbins, author of The Untested Hand and Other Americas

BODYWEARERS REVIEW EXCERPTS:
"Miller's poems illuminate those ordinary moments which, taken together, compose a life. . . . reminding us of the joys, as well as the aches, of our physicality." — Minneapolis StarTribune

"Miller's poems open a sense of wonderment toward the world." — The Corresponder

BIOGRAPHY:
Connie Colwell Miller is a professional editor, freelance writer, and sometimes English teacher from Cottage Grove, Minnesota. Her published poetry has appeared in a handful of literary journals, including Potato Eyes, Artisan, and The Briar Cliff Review. She received her Master of Fine Arts degree from Minnesota State University, Mankato, where her graduate thesis won the Toy Blethen Award for Distinguished Poetry in 2002.

Currently she lives in Mankato, Minnesota, with her husband and two children: one feisty, the other feistier.

CONNIE 'S WEB ADDRESS:
http://conniecolwellmiller.com/

OTHER TITLES BY CONNIE:
The Deadliest Places on Earth
Bermuda Triangle : The Unsolved Mystery

PUBLISHER LINK:
http://solbooks.com

Scott R. Walvaert - Poet

PACIFIC

By Scott R. Welvaert

SOL Books

Star-crossed lovers, David and Marti, set out to fulfill their dying wish: see the Pacific Ocean. They begin in Minnesota, where they meet at an AIDS clinic, and Pacific chronicles their journey through the Black Hills, past Devil’s Tower, and to Cannon Beach. Before reaching their final destination, they must first accept their fates and the past choices that have led them down this tragic road.

"Welvaert’s characters rush toward their fate even as they seem to evade it, in poems tender and elegiac, poems full of clear-eyed detail and music informed by compassion, gravity, and grace." —Richard Robbins, author of The Untested Hand and Other Americas

"Welvaert’s road trip West makes us want to do as its young and desperate protagonists and take off our shoes “to feel the world again, to step on the jagged rock.” —Richard Terrill, author of Coming Late to Rachmaninoff and Fakebook: Improvisations on a Journey Back to Jazz

BIOGRAPHY
Scott R. Welvaert lives in Chaska, Minnesota, with his wife, two daughters, and a dog named Sparrow. His poetry has been previously published in the Rockhurst Review, Chiron Review, Rockford Review, Cold Mountain Review, Jabberwock Review, Rosebud, Birmingham Poetry Review, Valaparaiso Poetry Review, and numerous other magazines and journals across the country. His published children’s novels include The Curse of the Wendigo and The Mosquito King, the former title being recently nominated for a 2009 Pennsylvania Young Reader’s Choice Award. Pacific is his first full-length collection of poetry.

WEBSITE
http://solbooks.com/authors/scottrwelvaert.html

BLOG
http://scotchowashere.blogspot.com/

OTHER TITLES BY SCOTT
The Curse of the Wendigo
The Mosquito King

PACIFIC LAUNCH DATE
03/01/10

PUBLISHER LINK
http://solbooks.com/

Wendy Brown-Baez - Poet

Ceremonies of the Spirit

by Wendy Brown-Baez

Plain View Press

Ceremonies of the Spirit is a collection of love poems that travels a spiral from infatuation to consecration, from the romantic to the mystical. Ceremonies has been called "gorgeous", "exquisite", "flirty", and "joyous work that should be celebrated.” Michael Parker’s review in the summer issue of Oranges and Sardines called Ceremonies of the Spirit poetry that heals and transforms: “Here are poems that are living, breathing things; that invite us into them, welcome us into their elegant, ethereal dance, and walk us across the threshold into sanctuary where we look inward, feed the soul's spark, commune with enlightenment, and transform.”

“That’s what Wendy does, she connects us with words and wraps us in the safety of a shawl so we can fall in love with poetry once again.”--Gary Glazner, Founder of the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project.

Riddle

This is a love that has burned me,
consumed me, harvested me like a
wild bracket of grapes
to be trampled into wine. I am the wine,
I am the goblet blown from the crystalline
fire, I am the fire kindled from root,
I am the mouth that speaks in these riddles.
This is the love that cast me to my knees,
breathless and blackened like a tree
limb burnt on the hearth. I am the hearth,
the ash consummation, the warming of
bones, the coming of light. This is the love
that cast me into silver, molten pledge of illusive
grace, destined for beauty, destined for breath,
found in a treasure box of memory. I am the memory,
I am the song that pierces the twilight
and calls to the sky, I am the flute,
I am the river, I am the love that
weaves its way home.

from Ceremonies of the Spirit by Wendy Brown-Baez © 2009

BIOGRAPHY
Wendy Brown-Báez is renowned for her signature style as a performance poet. She takes you into her vibrant, colorful world with sensual imagery, elegant rhythms and poignant stories to celebrate the relentless quest of the human spirit for connection and joy. In 2004, Wendy released her poetry CD Longing for Home and since then, has performed poetry nationally, and in Mexico, in unique venues such as cafes, bars, galleries, schools, women’s retreats, parking lots, and cultural centers, solo and in collaborations.

She has published poetry and creative non-fiction in numerous literary journals, including Borderlands, Out of Line, Mizna, Minnetonka Review, The Awakenings Review, The Chrysalis Reader, Mississippi Crow, and Wising Up Press. Wendy was the recipient of 2008 and 2009 McKnight grants through COMPAS to teach writing workshops with at risk youth. She has performed locally in Minneapolis at Patrick’s Cabaret, The Loft, Magers and Quinn Booksellers, Stevens Square Center for the Arts, Altered Esthetics Gallery, Northeast Community Lutheran Church, Homewood Studios, and Banfill-Lock Center for the Arts.

Wendy has lived a dozen lives, it seems. She has managed shelters for the homeless, lived in Mexico and Israel, been a hospice volunteer, a preschool teacher, and has lost a son and a husband. Becoming a performance poet was a surprise, but her passion is to bring poetry to audiences that don’t usually attend poetry readings, such as at art festivals and women’s retreats. She dresses in costume and acts out her poems theatrically. Ceremonies of the Spirit has created a bridge from stage poetry to page poetry.

UP-COMING EVENTS
February 5 at 3:00 PM CST
Blogtalkradio interview
Nadia Giordana, author of Thinking Skinny and editor of Misissippi Crow literary journal will interview Wendy Brown-Baez on her blogtalkradio show called Extraordinary Women
www.blogtalkradio.com/extraordinarywomen

February 10 at 7:00 pm
Birchbark Reading Series
Birchbark Books
2115 West 21st St
Minneapolis, MN

WEBSITE
www.wendybrownbaez.com

BLOG
http://www.wendysmuse.blogspot.com

PURCHASE BOOK
amazon.com
Magers and Quinn Booksellers
Micawbers Books in St Paul

Ott Lukk - Poet

Love Or Lust

by Ott Lukk

Two Harbors Press

“A volatile mixture full of passions both requited and unrequited; that is the poetry of Love Or Lust.”

It’s one of the oldest dilemmas of all time: love versus lust. Sometimes the two elements are one and the same, sometimes they are not, and sometimes it doesn’t matter, as you find yourself enveloped in one, the other, or both of these intoxicating, powerful emotions. In Love Or Lust, author Ott Lukk takes you on a literary journey that passionately explores these familiar concepts in a magnificently rendered work.

In this volume of poetry, themes ranging from how to discern the ethereal nuances of love or lust, to how these two oftentimes dueling emotions merge seamlessly and unexpectedly into one, are brought to the surface in an achingly beautiful voice, filled with desire and yearning in every carefully chosen word.

The essence of beauty, the concept of death, the fleeting nature of time, gods, goddesses, and religion. The simple joys of childhood and parenthood. Lukk’s poetry brilliantly weaves through all of these themes and beyond to make this truly an extraordinary and unforgettable collection to be treasured and contemplated by all who come across it.

The twin themes of passion—love or lust—transcend the written word beautifully, flowing into lyrical song, another avenue through which Lukk’s creative voice can be heard. The sweetness of love and the boldness of lust—at times they both frame the romantic parameters of our richly complex and intertwined hearts and spirits.

BIOGRAPHY

Ott Lukk was born in Tübingen, Germany, shortly after the close of World War II to Estonian parents. He immigrated to the United States when he was three years old, and he and his family eventually settled in Minnesota. Ott has a Bachelor of Arts in English from St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN, and a Bachelor of Science in Business from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN.

Ott writes both poetry and songs, and his songs have won awards such as the Billboard World Songwriting Contest, the Great American Songwriting Contest, and the Song of the Year Contest. Some of these lyrics are included in Love Or Lust, used with permission of his publishing firm, "Suspended Spider Songs." An artist also, Ott's original artwork appears on the book's front cover.

Ott lives in Minneapolis with his wife, Emily, daughter, Tiffany, and two Ragdoll cats, Fluffy and Ruby.

WEBSITE

http://www.ottlukk.com/

South of Contrary - Poetry by Larry Christianson

SOUTH OF CONTRARY

by Larry Christianson

North Star Press

ISBN: 13:978-0-87839-337-4




“South of Contrary” is a companion to “Beyond Time: Poems from North of the Tension Line” – with poems telling stories about interesting people and intriguing places from up north to the tropics. A down-to-earth and real style of relaxing reflections on mellow edges south of contrary.

BIOGRAPHY
I am a Minnesota poet living in Waconia in the west metro area of the Twin Cities – and describe myself as an early retiree pastor now refiring as a nursing home chaplain, and author in search of honestly making meanings and keeping memories alive. Writing in public hangouts feels more than natural to me and enhances my folksy, down to earth, straightforward style of simplicity in playing with words, images and metaphors in poetic expressions of the experiences and relationships of life. All for the creative purpose of being real and more real. For me, poetry is about paying attention as life rolls along. Observation and reflection. Insight and vision. Storytelling and self-discovery – all the while giving voice to memories and meanings in a stripped-down style that aims to open many doors for readers to enter into their own stories and hopes and dreams.

PURCHASE LINKS:

North Star Press
Amazon.com

OTHER BOOKS PUBLISHED
Obama Rising: Realtime Reflections from the Heart of a Poet, North Star Press of St.
Cloud, 2009. ISBN 13: 978-0-87839-315-2

Beyond Time: Poems from North of the Tension Line, North Star Press of St.
Cloud, 2008. ISBN 13: 978-0-87839-292-6

WEBSITE
http://www.larrychristianson.com/

BOOK SIGNINGS

September 12, 2009: Noon
Signing and Reading
Apple Days Festival
Excelsior Bay Books
36 Water Street
Excelsior, MN

September 17, 2009: 6:30 p.m. Signing and 7:30 p.m. Reading
The Mocha Monkey
115 S. Olive St.
Waconia, MN

October 10, 2009: 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Signing and Reading
Twin Cities Book Festival
Minneapolis Community and Technical College
Minneapolis, MN