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Pastiche: a memoir in poetry and prose by Marjorie Pagel
Marjorie Pagel’s beautifully-written collection of insights, images, and striking moments of spirituality comes as a welcome gift to all of us who are seeking respite from the world’s prevailing despair.
—MARILYN L. TAYLOR, Wisconsin Poet Laureate, 2009-2010
As I read the stories in this collection, I kept looking up expecting to see Marjorie herself sitting across from me, asking if I’d like a little more coffee, then taking a breath before breaking into another story. Yes to more coffee, I’d say, and yes to more stories because you can’t read just one without wanting to hear more.
—LAURIE WAGNER, writer and host of 27powers.org
Bone Broth by Lyndsey Ellis — The Audio Book!
Bone Broth turned three in June 2024, but this novel continues to spark important conversations.
From the author, Lyndsey Ellis: The release of this audio book on Friday, August 9th, comes at a time when American democracy is at its most vulnerable point, and the value of intergenerational resiliency remains at the forefront of national discourse. August 9, 2024 was also the 10th-year anniversary of Michael Brown’s tragic killing and the concurrent rise of unrest in Ferguson, Missouri that sent global shock waves in 2014.
Read by Wisconsin’s first Black Poet Laureate Dasha Kelly Hamilton and produced by Tymeless Studios in Milwaukee, the audio book brings the Bone Broth characters to life in a whole new way. Available on all your favorite audio book platforms and through Hoopla.
If you are a reviewer, contact us for complimentary access to the book on Spotify.
It Didn’t Start Out That Way by Judy Bridges
“Beautifully wrought and richly detailed, a story of love, loss, and resilience …. this is memoir at its finest.” — JEANNÉE SACKEN, Award-Winning Author of the Annie Hawkins Series: Behind the Lens, Double Exposure, The Rule of Thirds
These stories are told with candor, heart, and humor when appropriate; quiet rage when deserved. This memoir is layered. On the one hand, it is a recollection and reflection of a life. Bridges makes you see people you have never met, yet feel you have. — SHARON NESBIT-DAVIS, Author of Intended: A Marriage in Black & White, Writing Coach, Facilitator of Creative Recharge Workshops.
Nanaboozhoo Babaamosed: Nanaboozhoo Went Walking & Other Stories from Grand Portage
Nanaboozhoo Babaamosed offers readers a bilingual treasured text for language and culture education. A special project, Nanaboozhoo Babaamosed brings together several traditional Ojibwe stories as first told and published in the late 1970s under the directorship of Billy Blackwell for the Bilingual Reading Series. This 2nd edition, published in Ojibwemowin and English and transcribed into the double vowel writing system, includes original artwork created for the first printing of individual stories, as well as an epilogue offering the reader more about the context and methodology of this project.
Most important, as these traditional Ojibwe stories have been collected from the Anishinaabeg, we ask readers to keep with Ojibwe customs: Nanaboozhoo stories can only be told when there is snow on the ground and the thunders have gone south. They cannot be read in summertime or late spring or early fall.
Nenookaasi Mawadishiwe: Hummingbird Visits by Erin Leary
In this vibrant, beautiful children’s book, readers will learn about hummingbirds and their yearly migratory patterns while also being exposed to Ojibwemowin, a beautiful language spoken by the indigenous tribes in parts of Michigan, Ontario, northern Minnesota and Wisconsin, and Alberta.
From Summer to spring, readers will follow a single male hummingbird as he transforms from a nestling to a fully grown male ready to welcome his own nestlings to the world. Read, learn, and make some of your own sugar water to help feed the hummingbirds!
Bebikaan-ezhiwebiziwinan Nimkii: The Adventures of Nimkii
by Stacie Sheldon
In this beautifully illustrated children’s book, readers will experience the world in a new way as they see the seasons through the joyful eyes of Nimkii, a fun, nature-loving dog who will teach them a whole new language: Ojibwemowin, a language spoken by the indigenous tribes in parts of Michigan, Ontario, northern Minnesota and Wisconsin, and Alberta.
Whether hunting for maple trees in the fall, playing in the snow in the winter, enjoying the spring showers, or swimming in the summer, Nimkii seeks out activities that allow her to enjoy her natural surroundings. Fun and inspiring, this bilingual book helps children and adults communicate in new ways while exploring different elements of culture.
BONE BROTH, a novel by Lyndsey Ellis
BONE BROTH, centers on an African-American family navigating the Midwest’s convoluted history and social landscape. Justine Holmes, a widow and former activist, mourns her husband’s death during the aftermath of the Ferguson unrest in St. Louis, Missouri.
As family tensions deepen between Justine and her three grown children–an unemployed former Bay Area activist at odds with her hometown’s customs, a social climbing realtor stifled by the loss of her only child, and a disillusioned politician struggling with his sexual identity, the matriarch is forced to face her grief head-on by reconciling a past tied to her secret involvement in civil rights activism during the early 1970’s in St. Louis. Justine quickly learns the more she attempts to make peace with her history, the more skeletons continue to rise to the surface.
*cover image by Jade Burel
The Adventures of a Sparrow Named Stanley
Smash!Crash! Chirp! Splash!
Who is making all that noise? Can it be a lonely little bird?
In The Adventures of a Sparrow Named Stanley (April, 2016), we meet a young sparrow wants to be famous and have friends, but doesn’t know how. A wise gray owl eventually gives Stanley the advice he needs.
This book is the first publication by author Betty Sydow and Illustrator Carolou Nelsen, who were 88 and 89 at the time of release, proving that you’re never too old to fulfill your dream.
In Family Stories from the Attic (May, 2017), editors Christi Craig and Lisa Rivero bring together nearly two dozen works of prose and poetry inspired by letters, diaries, photographs, and other family papers and artifacts. Both experienced and new writers share their stories in ways that reflect universal themes of migration, time, history, family, love, and change.
Authors include: Kristine D. Adams, JoAnne Bennett, Aleta Chossek, Sally Cissna, Gloria T. DiFulvio, Julia Gimbel, Myles Hopper, Margaret Krell, Amy Wang Manning, Nancy Martin, Patricia Ann McNair, Carolou Nelsen, Joanne Nelson, Annilee Newton, Pam Parker, Ramona M. Payne, Valerie Reynolds, Jessica Schnur, Meagan Schultz, Yvonne Stephens, Kim Suhr, Julie Anne Thorndyke.
In The Collected Stories (November, 2017), Carol Wobig writes with unfailing sensitivity and empathy and in language that rings clear and true.
In these seventeen stories and monologues, Wobig introduces us to grieving widows and questioning nuns, daughters intent on saving their mothers and mothers unsure how to save their children, each of whom faces the question we all must ultimately ask: how to save ourselves. Her characters and their experiences will live in the minds and hearts of readers long after the last page is turned.
“Carol Wobig is a wonder! Don’t be deceived by her plainspoken, straightforward style. In only a few pages she’s able to locate the emotional depth of her characters and reveal the complexity of their lives. She deserves comparison to Grace Paley and Alice Munro, but Carol Wobig is a true original.”
~ Larry Watson, author of Montana 1948 & As Good As Gone
In her bold debut collection of poems, The Salt Before It Shakes (December, 2017), Yvonne Stephens writes about nature, loss, change, hope, motherhood, and family with honesty, courage, sensitivity, and moments of keen existential humor.
Stephens’ poetry offers a welcome respite from and insight into what it means to live well and with authenticity in the 21st century.
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