Coffee With the Authors is a live, conversational interview with local and regional authors about the craft and process of writing. On Sept. 14 Traverse City poet and teacher Teresa Scallon talks about To Embroider The Ground With Prayer, a collection of poems considering her father’s illness, death, and the Michigan farming community in which she was raised. Sarah Bearup-Neal, GAAC gallery manager, leads the conversation. The interview begins at 1 pm.
One Friday afternoon last July, Tim Mulherin’s wife, Janet, suggested they go down to Good Harbor Bay Beach CR 651 (Good Harbor Trail) for a few blissful hours of relaxation. That favorite Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore location is conveniently located about two miles from our home in Cedar. Janet had the right idea: It was a glorious northern Michigan summer day, the kind that makes you want to drop what you’re doing and report to the nearest Lake Michigan beach. “Sounds good,” Tim said, “with one exception: It’s July and the beach will be packed.” Mulherin, a self-described curmudgeon, writes here about accepting “packed beaches” at the height of summer.
Empire writer Anne-Marie Oomen has received the 2024 Michigan Author Award, an award given by the State Library of Michigan to a Michigan author for lifetime achievement. In celebration of this honor, the Empire Area Community Center and Glen Lake Community Library Friends of the Library will hold a reception in honor of her award and to celebrate her books on Sunday, Sept. 8, from 4-7 pm at the Empire Town Hall. Oomen is author of eight nonfiction books, editor of two anthologies, and co-author of two tales of fiction for young people. She has won numerous awards over the years. The Michigan Author Award is given through a nomination process from librarians and others, and David Diller of the Glen Lake Community Library was one of the nominators this year. “I’m so grateful to the librarians I’ve worked with over the years, but our local library has become particularly special to me,” said Oomen.
The Empire Asparagus Festival’s “Ode to Asparagus Poetry Competition” on June 1 attracted 25 entries and 100 attendees at the Glen Lake Community Library. The winning poem, as selected by the audience, was “Astrological Asparagus” by Joseph Povolo. Meanwhile, one Empire family swept the Asparagus Recipe Contest held at the Town Hall. Don Cunningham won the People’s Choice Grand Prize for his “Asparagus Benedict” recipe. Carol Cunningham finished second for her “Spargelsalat” (German asparagus salad). Carol’s brother Duane Schmidt won third place for his “Asparagus Peppers” recipe.
As family tradition dictates, my youngest brother, Chris, and I drove from Indianapolis to the cabin my wife and I have owned in Cedar for the past 15 years for the trout opener on the last Saturday in April, writes author Tim Mulherin. And as usual, we spent some long-anticipated quality time on a picturesque stream in northern Michigan. I knew it would be a great outing; we even managed to catch some nice trout. Of course, a few days before we spooled new line on our spinning reels, pulled on our hip waders, and tried our luck, we had to see to another annual ritual: opening our chalet for the season.
A-spear-ing poets are invited to come share their asparagus themed verse at the Ode to Asparagus, the Glen Lake Community Library’s contribution to the annual Empire Asparagus Festival, which will be held on Saturday, June 1 at 2 pm. Poems of all styles are welcome—sonnets, haiku, epic, even limericks. Submit your poems to the library by Friday, May 31, via mail, email, or drop them off at the library directly. The Glen Lake Library will also host Jane Elder, author or “Wilderness, Water & Rust” on May 30.
“Are you sexually active?” The young woman asking does not look up from her note pad, writes Leelanau author Kathleen Stocking. I’m not sure in what capacity the questioner is asking. Is this my doctor, a physician’s assistant, a nurse, an aide. I am there for my eyes. The question catches me off-guard. I’m in a neck brace, walk with a walker, and part of my right leg is a prosthetic. I’m almost 80 years old, but look older.
“I Awaken In October: Poems of Folk Horror and Halloween” is the debut speculative poetry collection from Leelanau County author Scott J. Couturier, published last October by Jackanapes Press. Couturier is a Rhysling-nominated poet and prose writer of the strange, liminal, and darkly fantastic, whose work has appeared in numerous venues. He will sign copies at Horizon Books in Traverse City on October 28, from 1-3 p.m.
One rainy October day, about a decade ago while visiting Horizon Books in downtown Traverse City, Tim Mulherin surrendered to his nagging curiosity about Harrison’s work and purchased “The Woman Lit by Fireflies,” one of his novella collections. That evening, he began reading the first novella, “Brown Dog.” It only took a few pages for him to become a fan of BD, the protagonist who would appear repeatedly in novellas to come as one of Harrison’s central characters. The middle-aged half Finn/half Michigan Chippewa Indian lives by impulse, finds utter joy in trout fishing and six packs of cheap beer, is easily entranced by the opposite sex, and has a nonnegotiable moral compass. For this former warhorse of the white-collar workplace, who would occasionally daydream from his desk of casting for trout in a crystalline northern Michigan river, Brown Dog’s exploits gave him vital comic relief.
Eaters of corn we are in this August golden heat. Lined up at picnic tables, our teeth move horizontally, carving a path across long corn ears—like a prolific typewriter always moving the paper right to left as the keys punch out letters, words, subliminal messages.