Emotionally riveting memoir from Jennifer Flatt

 

Ungrieving, a memoir of emotional abuse, loss, and relief
Jennifer Stolpa Flatt
Memoir, 281 pp.
2024, Mission Point Press
 
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$.7.95 ebook
$16.95 print
 
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About the Book
In Ungrieving, a memoir about family dysfunction and estrangement, religious doubt, and complex relationships, Jennifer Stolpa Flatt provides others with the book she needed but couldn’t find. The insights will resonate with those who have experienced family divisions or who support those who do, and those who struggle to let go of the relationships they wanted but never had.

After a lifetime of emotional abuse, verbal attacks, and controlling behaviors, including a four-year estrangement from a man she called “Daddy,” despite not feeling the warmth the nickname implies, her father’s death left her struggling to make sense of their fractured relationship.

She felt both a sense of relief and a profound sadness: "I don’t miss him and I feel guilty admitting that. Sometimes I do miss him. And that confuses me."
 
My Review
Ungrieving is a memoir as much as a journey to healing. Told early on in past and present events that set off her father’s instability during the author’s childhood and post-funeral reminiscences as an adult, Jennifer Flatt tells her story of growing up in an abusive environment. I lost my father a couple of years ago and can’t help comparing my own journey through emotional abuse, loss, and relief, although maybe not exactly in that order. You put yourself in a peculiarly vulnerable position when you share memories, your truth as you know it. Flatt’s relationship with her sister Karen and friends who support her story make her story relevant. Flatt shares that her father had mental health issues that were mostly untreated. Her childhood memories of Dad and Mom fighting in front of and sometimes with the kids are carefully couched within her belief that he wanted to protect and nurture his children and family but couldn’t separate his inner child. Later in his adult life he did try therapy and medication, but it didn’t last. He couldn’t move past his personal feeling and accused others of being considering him a failure, or “dumb”; words he might have had ingrained from a childhood he never chose to share.
 
Jennifer and Karen grew up trying to keep peace at all costs. Particularly memorable for me is an afternoon when Jennifer is eight years old and Dad insists on having family game afternoon…but with games that are long and difficult to play in which he tends to defeat everyone. When the girls would rather play after one such game, Dad melts down with grievances about everything. While Mom and Karen take turns standing up to him and apologizing and attempting to appease, the whole thing ends in all the girls crying and Dad demanding a group hug stating that the family who fights together makes them stronger and more blessed. It’s hard not to be horrified. On the flipside Flatt shares many moments of empathy when Dad practiced as a lay minister and supported Flatt’s questioning church doctrine. She is able to express resentment when others knew her dad as a helpful and positive influence, without being aware of his damaging side. She realizes his problems were only one aspect of his personality and recognizes her father was in between a hero and a villain.
 
“One of my talents is post-conversational paranoia,” she says. As a child she developed fears of encroaching on her father’s space, fear of revealing a medical condition due to financial issues, fear for her mother’s health, fear of the future, struggling to be a better person, falling into the darkness of the soul. A diagnosis of clinical depression and treatment made a difference but it took decades. Flatt entertained wishes her mom would have taken the girls and left. Later, her mother admits the same, though the marriage was not a total failure or complete nightmare. The passing of Flatt’s father to cancer also sparked an interest in getting to know her mother in a different way.
 
Ungrieving is a great, helpful memoir especially for those who need to work through the trauma of being parented by people who tried, couldn’t help themselves, didn’t know better, were damaged themselves, and loved us even while hurting us. When Flatt finds her father’s words of relief at his own father’s death, she says, “I can’t help but think how alike we are, how similar our paths. I understand this ungrieving of a parent. He understands mine for him. My inheritance includes this understanding of grief that isn’t.” And it’s okay. Highly recommended.
 
 About the Author
Jennifer Stolpa Flatt is an educator, writer, and church singer and musician with decades of experience playing the organ, piano, and trumpet. Although baptized and confirmed as a Catholic, Jennifer has been a practicing member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) since 2004. Previously a professor of English and Spanish, Jennifer currently serves as the vice president of student services for a technical college in Wisconsin. Jennifer is also a reader, baseball fan, and mom to two boys, Anton and Edward. She lives in Marinette, Wisconsin, with her husband, Jason, in the Victorian home they are restoring.

Frank Dravis epic sci fi Dianis a world in turmoil

 

The Citadel Book three of Dianis, A World In Turmoil chronicles

Frank Dravis

Six Factors Publishing, LLC, July 31, 2024

382 pp

Paperback: $18.50

Ebook: $4.29

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About the Series: The Dianis, A World in Turmoil chronicles, follows the struggles of a forgotten colony of humans on their pre-steam world as they strive to survive in a galactic war between starfaring powers bent on stealing all that Dianis offers. The colony, and why it was founded four hundred years ago, is rediscovered and the power struggles begin, but with Humanity's survival as the outcome. Can that goal be accomplished without the colonists ground into the dust of history?

About the Book: The Citadel, a bastion on the protected planet of Dianis, is the third chronicle in the Dianis, A World In Turmoil series. Achelous, the architect and orchestrator of the planet's defense against extrasolars, has been abducted by the Paleowrights, a powerful religious order. Chained, tortured, and carried off to the Empire of Nak Drakas, Achelous's fate is unknown.

After the mayhem and outrage of Achelous's kidnapping, Marisa, his mistress and a trader princess, embarks on a mission of restitution. To rescue Achelous, she must go to the heart of her enemy, the Drakan Empire, and save him from Viscount Helprig. The Paleowright clergyman does not care what Achelous may know, just that he has blasphemed the Diunesis faith and shall be hung before the archbishop. However, the commandant of the Drakas secret service is not so quick to execute. He suspects Achelous is an Avarian, an agent of a galactic federation, the very people the Paleowrights worship as gods.

Amidst the fight against corsairs raiding the planet, attacks by Paleowright armies, and the intervention of the Avaria Federation, Marisa must rescue Achelous, and if successful, can trigger a global war on Dianis. Can one man be worth that outcome? The answer lies in what he knows.

 

My Review:

Our favorite intrepid band of heroes is back to rescue one of their own, chief inspector Archelous. Archelous, gone rogue from the federation of planets and its prime directive, the Universal Law of Unclaimed Planets, has done the unthinkable: fallen in love with a Class F (protected from outside interference of its natural development) leader, and even worse, fathered a child, a symbol of change and love for another. He’s been kidnapped by a rival faction on backwater Dianis, home to a rare mineral critical to interstellar travel, and his friends, both extraterrestrial and native, have gathered quietly to liberate him. The rival faction, The Drakan Empire, view extraterrestrials as gods, and so a great rift begins that may result in tearing apart the once stable and protected world.

An excavated mountain holdout proves Dianis was once an outpost of a galactic primordial race mysteriously vanished thousands of years earlier after seeding life on habitable planets in the galaxy. When a deep secret identity is revealed through genetic testing, any case for extraterrestrial mining rights could become moot, let alone the truth of their Nemesis. Though exonerated, Archelous has broken so many interplanetary non-interference laws that will affect Dianis, and maybe even the Federation, forever. However, his knowledge of the truth of the real enemy is worth killing—or dying—for. Will the secret of the future, given by the matriarch to the Draken lord, unite or destroy Dianis?

Dravis’s memorable characters, both humanoid and tech, face crises of every emotion with aplomb, adaptation, fury, astonishment as befitting every change and advancement. It’s a huge cast with a cast list provided, that even those who’ve read Dravis’s previous novels will need to take a little time to sort through. The story really grabbed me by the time the rescue was in planning, as well as the discoveries made inside the mountain. After fifteen hundred years, the message left there still resonates: “She said they still had hope,” Lettern says of the messenger. Fans of epic sci fi will appreciate the parallels to favorite science fiction shows, and our own society.

About the Author: Frank lives along the Mississippi River in Wisconsin and has leveraged his many life experiences to write the Dianis, A World In Turmoil chronicles. He was born in Detroit, Michigan, and spent six years in the US Navy chasing Soviet submarines. His love of the sea is reflected in chronicles, a love he has shared with his wife and two girls. He has two degrees, a Bachelor of Computer Science and a Master of Business Administration. Those degrees have been integral to his careers as a writer, software engineer, marketing executive, and chief information officer.

Mark your calendar for September 7

                             

The Oak Creek Public Library is set to hold the Meg Jones Author Fest on Saturday, September 7, 2023 from 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. in the Multi-purpose Room of the Oak Creek Civic Center.

Discover “new to you” local Wisconsin authors and get a head start on your holiday shopping. Meet a variety of local authors as they showcase their work. Books will be available for purchase and signing. Available titles suit all age levels and a variety of interests.

Meg Jones was an Oak Creek resident, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Reporter, published author, and public library advocate. This Author Fest is dedicated to her memory.

Check the library’s events calendar often to see a list of the authors who will be attending this event.

All ages are welcome to attend. Children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult at all library programs. Registration is not required. For more information, email library@oakcreekwi.org or call (414) 766-7900.

BlindSpot thriller by Maggie Smith

 

BlindSpot
Maggie Smith
May 21, 2024
Puzzle Box Press, 320 pp
$4.99 Ebook
$18.95 Print

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About the Book:

Every move she makes, someone’s watching.

From the author of the award-winning Truth and Other Lies comes a gripping suspense novel about an ambitious prosecutor on the hunt for her sadistic stalker . . . only to be framed for murder when he turns up dead. 

Rachel Matthews is used to stress—from the cutthroat world of the district attorney’s office to her escalating clashes with her teenage daughter. So when a stranger sends a lavish bouquet with a macabre message and leaves a disturbing video on her doorstep, she’s quick to act. Teaming up with an old classmate turned private investigator, she wades through old case files, searching for someone harboring a grudge. But before she has time to pinpoint a suspect, her stalker issues a demand—he wants money, lots of it, or he’ll hurt her daughter. 

Desperate to protect her child, Rachel agrees but soon finds herself fleeing a bloody crime scene, fearful for her life. Suddenly she’s in the crosshairs of a dangerous and clever enemy, someone who’s manipulated her since Day One, someone who knows her long-buried secrets, someone who’s framing her for murder. Can she solve the puzzle of who wants to destroy her and beat them at their own game before she’s convicted of murder?

Fans of Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent,  Julie Clark’s The Lies I Tell and Heather Chavez’ Before She Finds Me will embrace this taut tale of long-simmering revenge right up to its surprising and twisty climax.

A Brief Interview with the Author

What do you love about your book? It’s a solid psychological suspense which is fast-paced and has lots of twists and turns but at the same time, the central characters of the mother and her daughter have a lot in common with literary/book club fiction. The two plot lines intersect in interesting ways and I like the character arc that my protagonist goes through.

Share something you learned while writing it. I write best when I have an outline (for me, it’s the Save the Cat Method). It saves me time and seems to result in a more cohesive story. Also, that I can’t write stick figures – I always find myself digging into their psyches. I’m an ex-psychologist and I guess my training always comes to the surface. Some suspense books I read have quite wooden, almost caricatures for their “cast” but that’s just not me. Also, that interesting coincidences will occur as you write that seem to be “magic” and greatly add to the story, yet are nothing you planned out ahead of time.

What do you hope readers will talk about? I hope readers will be delighted in the ending – that they will be surprised but also satisfied when they know the whole story. And I’d like them to think about both how much women are at risk for violence and how sometimes the criminal justice system lets us down.

What are you reading now? I read a lot in this suspense genre and the husband-and-wife team of Nicci French is one of my favorites. I just finished their newest one, set in Britain, called Has Anyone Seen Caroline Salter? And I would also recommend Just Another Missing Person by Gillian McAllister. And I’m looking forward to reading Christi Clancy’s new book out early next year called The Snow Birds.

What's next for you? I’m working on my third novel tentatively called All In The Family. It’s the story of a family torn apart when the youngest daughter and her new husband are kidnapped on their honeymoon and held for ransom and her wealthy step-mother, who’s in the midst of divorcing the girl’s father, is put in an untenable situation.

About the Author:

In a career that’s included work as a journalist, a psychologist, and the founder of a national art
consulting company, Maggie Smith added novelist to her resume with the publication of her debut, Truth and Other Lies, a women’s fiction novel set in Chicago and released in March 2022 by Ten16 Press. It won NIEA’s Juror Grand Prize, the Star Award for Debut Fiction from Women’s Fiction Writers Association, Foreword INDIES Gold Metal for General Fiction, and was selected for the Women’s Book Association Great Group Reads. Her second novel, a psychological suspense called Blindspot, releases in May 2024.

In addition to her writing, Maggie hosts the weekly podcast Hear Us Roar (225+ episodes), blogs monthly for Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and is Managing Editor for Chicago Writer’s Association Write City E-Zine.  She resides in Milwaukee WI with her husband and her aging but still adorable sheltie. Find more at: https://maggiesmithwriter.com/

Restoring Prairie by Margaret Rozga

 

Restoring Prairie

Margaret Rozga
Poetry, 94 pp
May 6, 2024, Cornerstone Press
$21.95 paper
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About the Book

"Restoring Prairie, a beautifully unified collection of new poems by Margaret Rozga,  addresses ecological and cultural history based on personal engagement with farmland being restored with prairie species. The poet’s emotional, philosophical and spiritual engagement with the place lend tremendous depth. Contemplating the pendulum of destruction and renewal, she juxtaposes poems of hope with laments for the extent of centuries of development, leaving a mere shadow of historic natural bounty. Other forms of grief are intertwined including the loss of loved ones as well as relentless warfare and the ongoing pandemic. Each adds moral complexity while heightening the impact of the collection. This book can be read as a hymn and prayer for healing, an act of conscience and a journey of the heart, calling above all for the courage to hope."

~ Dr. Christian Knoeller, Professor Emeritus of English, Purdue University Author of Reimagining Environmental History: Ecological Memory in the Wake of Landscape Change

 My Review

Former Wisconsin Poet Laureate Margaret Rozga invites us to join her in a poignant, sensual, visceral year writing at a prairie restoration project. In celebrating the past and present, emotion, acceptance and forgiveness, she teaches us be at home in our own company. These eighty-plus poems in five sections are a plein-air experience using nature for prompts in the appearance of a yellow jacket stopping on a page, a maple wildly flinging seeds, the perfect rendition of a sandhill crane call and onomatopoetry of others, as the author walks and sits and journals on the prairie.

Mining every sense from the touch of ancient tree bark to the taste of yesterday’s coffee, with a nod to punctuation in “where on the prairie,” Rozga’s luscious comingling of words such as “then and then-ner…ephemeral then-ness” add a piquant melody to her lyricism in “English Sparrow.” Clever spacing and staccato rhythm controls the reader’s breath in poems like “Power.”

Mostly prose poetry, stories shaped through imagery, some very short form observances in the delight of the moment, Restoring Prairie is also a call to action. Rozga says in her introduction, “Restoring what was lost may start small, but start all the same. On the unfarmed old railroad bed, look carefully. Find enduring prairie grass and wildflower seeds. Gather them. Plant them. Each fall more seeds. The prairie the settlers broke begins slowly to take root again.”

Rozga’s activism shows in the second grouping of poems about protecting land, protecting memories, an ode to Robert Parris Moses, and reluctant protest not-poems; the ebb and flow of “Remembering Beauty”: a time before settlement when visitors were rare and awed by the land of prairie and river.

Hope is one the major themes woven throughout the book; hope in renewal of the blooming prairie when the rest of life was caught up in the pandemic; hope for the future, for moving on and forgiving, and listening. Hope is in the realization that one can find a comfortable place when life changes: “I am the…person speaking…as well, the one spoken to” in “You Are Not Here,” and growth in “Field Staton in April.”

Spend a year with the beauty of the prairie, reflecting on the seasons of emergence, growth, sleep, rebirth. Restoring Prairie is a magical journey through time and memory outside of ourselves using mindfulness (underrated), nostalgia, hope, and the music of the created.

About the Author

University of Wisconsin - Waukesha Professor of English Emerita Dr. Margaret Rozga creates poetry from her ongoing concern for social justice issues. She was a participant in Milwaukee’s marches for fair housing and later married civil rights leader, Father James Groppi. As part of the 50th anniversary projects honoring Milwaukee’s fair housing marches, Dr. Rozga served as editor of a poetry chapbook anthology, Where I Want to Live: Poems for Fair and Affordable Housing. Also as part of the 50th anniversary events, she convened a housing task force that supported the successful initiative to close a loophole in Milwaukee County’s fair housing law so that it now covers people with rent assistance vouchers. She writes monthly columns for the Los Angeles Art News and Milwaukee Neighborhood News. She leads poetry and journaling workshops and serves as a civil rights consultant to community organizations.

 

Fun New Mystery

                              

Model Suspect

TK Sheffield
Cozy Mystery
Making Hay Press, November 2023, 302pp ebbok
$17.95 paper
$ .99 Kindle deal

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About the Book:

A frugal fashion model hangs up her second-hand stilettos and returns to her small town to open a business—but then she's forced into the role of amateur sleuth after becoming a suspect in a murder.

Melanie Tower is done with the drama of New York City and returns to her Wisconsin hometown to open an art mall. At the start of the holiday season—her jewelers', bakers', and crafters' busiest time—a social media influencer is found dead, pinned under a vintage door. Mel immediately becomes a suspect in the holiday mystery because the victim had been recruiting her best artists to open a competing store! Mel embraces her feisty inner Midwesterner to find the "poser" while polka-ing at the Cheese Ball, judging entries in the Devil's vs. Angels Bake-off, and starring in a hilarious readers' theater at Midwinter's Night at the Library.

Model Suspect is The Devil Wears Prada meets a Wisconsin supper club. It's a Midwest whodunnit, a holiday cozy, a humorous small-town mystery served with a brandy old-fashioned sweet and a side of cheese curds.

My Review:

Sheffield’s delightful debut mystery introduces a snarky and witty former model turned accidental sleuth. Filled with every imaginable Wisconsin-ism, this fun read hits all the high points of a perfect cozy.

Small town, check; pet, check; amateur sleuth, check, offstage crime, check. Supper club, bonus, library-double bonus; every type of Wisconsin-themed fun character and lore? Triple bonus! Where else besides Cinnamon, Wisconsin, can you find a yacht club on a small lake? A rescue horse farm, a cousin Lou who supports and pushes you, the local loveable delivery guy with a secret, a construction crew that doesn’t have a three-month wait list, and a fresh twist of revolving victim/suspect keeps the reader in stitches and turning pages into the wee hours.

Nicely done. Readers of witty repartee with a side of murder mystery will love Model Suspect. First in a planned series, but stand alone, leaving you hoping for the next addition.

About the Author:

TK Sheffield writes books for readers who want to laugh and escape. She is a former public relations professional and educator who now writes mysteries, romantic comedies, children's horse stories, and screenplays from her home in rural Wisconsin.

Her debut mystery, Model Suspect, won the Southwest Writer's award for opening chapters and Honorable Mention for Excellence in Mystery in RWA's Daphne du Maurier awards. Her debut screenplay has been nominated for awards in Austin, Houston, Chicago, and Florida film festivals.

TK has degrees from UW-Madison (BA) and Mt. Mary University (MA), and is building audiences on Instagram and TT. She is a contributor to Valerie Biel's popular writing blog and a member of the events committee of Wisconsin Writers Association.

She also is a fierce advocate for older women who have had families and careers--and now seek to write their first novel. On social media, she offers book reviews, writing tips, and encourages aspiring authors.

Wonderful new book of slices of American life, twenty-first century

 

Aluminum Currents

Rodney Schroeter

Compilation

March, 2024

Silver Creek Press, 392 pp

$49.99

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About the Book:

A selection of articles from The Plymouth Review Current, from 2014 to 2024. Rodney Schroeter edited this monthly publication during that time. This anthology includes articles on movies; individual liberty; illustration art in America; Wisconsin history; pulp fiction. Full color photos and graphics.

My Review:

Rodney Schroeter's work in a small Wisconsin town is showcased in his monthly edition of the Current, an add-on publication to Plymouth's newspaper, The Plymouth Review. Over the course of ten years, read and reflect on changing times not related just to eastern Wisconsin. Schroeter showcases films, literature, events both historical and present, besides the usual ads, puzzles and games, community calendars and editorials. In this book, Schroeter has chosen tidbits from each edition, reflected through his colorful covers. Readers of Americana, no matter where you live, will find much to love in this volume. Vibrant and entertaining. Worth the price.

About the Author:

Rodney Schroeter grew up in Sheboygan County, wanting to be a writer. He graduated from Random Lake High School and from the University of Wisconsin­ Parkside in Kenosha, where he majored in English, took classes from Wisconsin writer Herbert Kubly and earned a teaching certificate.

After graduating, he taught middle school science in North Dakota. He wrote and drew comics as a hobby. Seven years of teaching was enough, so he went to a tech school to learn computer programming. That career lasted more than 25 years, ending with the recent economic recession.

Rodney picked up several part­-time writing jobs, reporting local government meetings and other projects. Learning to design books for the Wisconsin Writers Association led to additional work. Among other things, he now edits a monthly newspaper called The Current.

Wisconsin for Kennedy by BJ Hollars

 

Wisconsin for Kennedy

The Primary That Launched a President and Changed the Course of History
BJ Hollars
 
Wisconsin Historical Society Press
March, 2024, 256 pp
Paper: $24.95
Ebook: $11.99

Buy on Amazon
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WHS Press

 

About the Book

The behind-the-scenes story of JFK’s 1960 Wisconsin primary campaign

When John F. Kennedy ran for president in 1960, he did something no candidate had done before: he leveraged the power of state primaries to win his party’s nomination. Kennedy’s first battleground state? Wisconsin—a state that would prove more arduous, more exhausting, and more crucial to winning the presidency than any other. 

Wisconsin for Kennedy brings to life the stories behind JFK’s history-making 1960 Wisconsin primary campaign, and how Kennedy’s team managed to outmaneuver his politically seasoned opponent, Hubert Humphrey. From Jackie Kennedy commandeering a supermarket loudspeaker in Kenosha, to the Wisconsin forklift driver who planned President Kennedy’s final trip to Dallas, this captivating book places readers at the heart of the action.

Author B.J. Hollars chronicles JFK’s nail-biting Wisconsin win by drawing on rarely cited oral histories from the eclectic team of people who worked together to make it happen: a cranberry farmer, a union leader, a mayor, an architect, and others. Wisconsin for Kennedy explores how Wisconsin helped propel JFK all the way to the White House in a riveting historical account that reads like a work of rollicking, page-turning fiction. 

 

My Review

Using detailed records, interviews, a little creativity, and lots of images, BJ Hollars crafts a descriptive and unique rise to office through the eyes of several players for President John F. Kennedy. The author carefully sets the stage for Kennedy’s dizzying primary campaign in Wisconsin decades before the campaign by introducing his important future players via Democratic Convention dates and highlight events leading up to the 1960 convention: Philleo Nash, special assistant to President Truman, later chair of the WDNC, and lieutenant governor; future governor Pat Lucey, Ivan Nestingan, mayor of Madison, William Proxmire’s aide, Jerry Bruno, and Milwaukee’s Vel Phillips, recently elected to the Common Council. Each of these people were introduced to Kennedy prior to 1960, whether to help on another campaign, or simply because of the office held, and each became an important influence in Kennedy’s campaign for the White House.

Hollars’ style of setting down historical facts with storytelling charm create an easy-flowing tale of political intrigue around the JFK era, from McCarthyism, marital mishaps, and civil unrest in all its ugliest forms, to the magnetism that Jack Kennedy exuded wherever he went, will resonate with readers of popular history. The book is filled with images, casual conversation from the records, and even little-known tidbits about Jackie Kennedy was reading while reluctantly on the campaign trail, and the drama of her early miscarriages.

It's a story for the Wisconsinites who came alongside Kennedy, Hollars says in his introductory note, where he also acknowledges valuable contributions made by Wisconsin women; roles that were not as well documented. I’m glad he was able to include a great deal of material about Vel Phillips. The book doesn’t end with the Wisconsin primary. Told in three parts, the last part is the aftermath of the election, the lessons learned from dealing with people across the nation, convincing them to support Kennedy’s election. There is a story of going for the personal touch in West Virginia with Jerry Bruno as one of the advance scouts where the candidate got a real taste of poverty. The key players attended the inauguration in January of 1961, where stories about Robert Frost bring the story to relatable level. Hollars finishes the work with another the story of the president’s reasons and route that final fatal day in Dallas, Texas, in 1963. Jerry Bruno remained one of the president’s advance scouts, and had been heavily involved in setting up the stops and the parade route. He was bothered by the outcome ever afterward.

 Included is a lengthy bibliography, notes, and index. The book is a great addition to Wisconsin lore.

About the Author

B.J. Hollars is a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and the founder and director of the Chippewa Valley Writers Guild. His books include Year of Plenty: A Family’s Season of Grief; Go West Young Man: A Father and Son Rediscover America on the Oregon Trail; The Road South: Personal Stories of the Freedom Riders; and Hope Is the Thing: Wisconsinites on Perseverance in a Pandemic. Hollars is the recipient of the Truman Capote Prize for Literary Nonfiction, the Anne B. and James B. McMillan Prize, and the Council of Wisconsin Writers' Blei/Derleth Nonfiction Book Award. His work has been featured in the Washington Post and on NPR.

The Breakfast Jury by Kenneth B Humprey

 

The Breakfast Jury

Kenneth B Humphrey
https://www.kenhumphrey.com/ 
January 17, 2024 by Wheatland House Publishing, 483 pages
 
Paper $14.99
Ebook $7.00
Buy on Amazon

About the Book

In 1999, a jury of misfits is thrust into the case of the century. A man stands accused of poisoning his wife with antifreeze and they are charged to deliver judgment. During the longest trial in state history, they unwittingly form bonds stronger than anyone could have predicted and come to realize their differences are not so great after all. One year later, a reunion turns deadly when they fall victim to poison. Is this targeted retribution for their verdict or simply forewarning of something darker to come? Enter disgraced detective Aramis "Arch" White and his penchant for finding trouble. As he digs into the shadows, skepticism plays a third wheel, blurring the line between duty and vendetta. Can he unmask the puppeteer orchestrating this retribution tango? The clock is ticking and as time winds down he finds that vengeance possesses a wicked sense of irony.

My Review

        This is a fast-paced who-dun-it set in turn-of-the-century (twenty-first, that is) Wisconsin, bouncing between a criminal murder trial and some of the aftermath a year later. Humphrey’s main protagonist, Arch White, returns in a quest to redeem himself after his police career bottoms out. A friendly referral that was supposed to be a pat on the back turns into a serious case when Arch untangles threads that lead back to a jury of the murder trial, and apparently the members of the jury are now targets of a copycat killer.

Peeling back the evidence through flashes between the trial in 1999 and the case Arch is investigating, the reader slowly sees the suspects, means, and motive coming into play. The action was twisty enough that, although I followed the trail, I’d read the story again because there were so many moving parts and people that I’d see something new each time I read it. Skillfully played with a wide cast, detailed and nuanced in all the right placed, The Breakfast Jury is a fun read. The title is a riff on the high school comedy which is mentioned frequently. Those who enjoy detective stories with some humor and parallel action between near past and present will enjoy The Breakfast Jury. I’m also checking out Arch White in the previous series.

About the Author

My story really isn't all that different than other writers. I grew up loving books. I spent a lot of time daydreaming. I wondered how everyone else in class seemed to know what to do when I didn't even remember the teacher saying anything. 

And there were many voices in my head.

Apparently, I also lean to the left when taking pictures.

Jade Ring Writing Competition opens March 1

ANNOUNCING THE KICK-OFF OF

CELEBRATING 75 YEARS IN 2024

Get ready, Get set …

Submit your best work beginning MARCH 1

Submissions close on JUNE 15

In honor of the Jade Ring Writing Contest’s 75th Anniversary, we will reinstate an elegant tradition when winners were announced and honored at the WWA Fall Conference.

Thus, the 2024 Jade Ring Award winners will be revealed on October 25 at a banquet in La Crosse held in conjunction with the conference.

Judges

Short Fiction - Christina Marrocco, author, editor and college instructor

Non-Fiction - Maggie Ginsberg, author and senior managing editor at Madison Magazine

Poetry - Max Garland, former Wisconsin poet laureate

Open -  “What Wisconsin Means to Me” - Jerry Apps, author and UW emeritus instructor (new category in honor of the contest’s 75th anniversary)

Prizes
In addition to glory, cash, and a Jade Ring, first-place winners in each category will also receive a one-week residency at Write On, Door County.

Guidelines
Be sure to follow all entry requirements! Account at Duosuma required.

Dates to Note

March 1 – Submissions open.

June 15 – Submissions close.

August 15 (est.) – Paid critiques are returned.

August 15 – Winners in all categories will be notified of placing in the contest (exact placement will not be revealed until the Jade Ring Banquet).

October 25 – Winners are notified of their winning placement at the Jade Ring Banquet.

Learn more and enter at https://wiwrite.org/Jade-Ring-2024

  

New Memoir about hiking the Ice Age Trail

 

Squatter: One Woman’s Journey to Reclaim her Spirit on the Ice Age Trail
Yolanda DeLoach
Memoir
Cornerstone Press, January 31, 2024, 288 pages
Print $28.95
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About the Book

“I’m emotionally not in a good place.”

So begins Yolanda DeLoach’s raw and redemptive Squatter, a tale of trails, trekking, and overcoming trauma. Between heartache and the realization that a relationship was never as it seemed, DeLoach pushes herself toward Wisconsin’s historic Ice Age Trail, a place of friendship and, ultimately, forgiveness. But the forgiving starts from within, as she makes her way, section by section, along the trail’s storied footways. 

Honest, heartfelt, and told with a survivor’s grace, Squatter inspires, encourages, and listens, like a good friend on the trail.

My Review

DeLoach’s memoir about using time on Wisconsin’s Ice Age Trail to work through an abusive relationship is a harrowing but restorative read. The author spends the first several chapters explaining her situation in gritty detail, inviting the reader into her chaotic and emotional life. She lays out her need for balance in order to get away from not only the personal torture of a relationship gone badly wrong, but also the trauma of the Sars-Covid 19 epidemic in the life of a nurse. The outdoors was a haven to many during this time.

The story seems both too short and yet deep as DeLoach shares her very recent journey to learn more about herself. The lessons are valuable for anyone struggling with problematic decision-making issues. Professional therapy and general support can only go so far to help people who have a deep-seated need to seek fulfillment in personally damaging ways. DeLoach takes her time showing us her angst and trauma; readers who are sensitive to psychological abuse should be cautious. By the time the author shares her adventures on the trail, we’re invested in her commitment to take control of her addictive behavior and to conquer the trail. After 800 miles, DeLoach finds her trail name, “Squatter,” when she invites herself to share the warmth of a fellow hiker’s heated tent instead of her own solo tent.

DeLoach replaces adrenalin highs of demanding people with physically and emotionally demanding elements of hiking all the trail segments she could between work and home life, through all seasons, over the course of a year. From making new trail buddy friends, to staying in friends’ garages while hiking sections, to campgrounds, to elegant homes, to monasteries, the author completes goals she sets for herself. “This time was different,” she says after completing the northern route. “This time, I had the trail. And the trail was magic.”

DeLoach is candid in admitting that she didn’t want her adult and teen children involved in her problems, but that she needed to work on being more open. I was relieved to read that, because she had teen daughters at home while practicing risky behavior and the mom in me had concerns. She listens to podcasts along the way to learn more about herself and toxic relationships and concludes, “The human spirit is resilient. Even when reduced to smoldering ash, the spirit is able to spark back to life with the right conditions. I found those conditions in nature’s touch and the hearts of others along Wisconsin’s Ice Age Trail.”

I lived near and walked segments of the southeastern part of the trail during the years it was developed and worked on in the 1990s. I appreciated this in-depth journey of nature’s healing power. Readers of true adventure stories, nature hiking, and memoirs will find much to appreciate in Squatter: One Woman’s Journey to Reclaim her Spirit on the Ice Age Trail.

About the Author

Yolanda DeLoach is an avid section hiker and outdoors advocate, having become a “1,000-miler” on the Ice Age Trail in 2021. She lives in Central Wisconsin, where she works as a palliative care/hospice registered nurse.