Action Into Words memoir with Peggy Rozga

Action Into Words: A memoir of activism
Margaret Rozga
October 1, 2026
WWA Press, 220 pp
Memoir
 
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About the Book

Discover the inspiring journey of Margaret "Peggy" Rozga in this captivating memoir, Action Into Words, brought to life by the Wisconsin Writers Association. A poet, activist, and Wisconsin's 2019-2020 Poet Laureate, Rozga's story unfolds against the backdrop of the 1960s civil rights movement, where she marched for fair housing in Milwaukee and stood alongside icons like Father James Groppi. Through personal triumphs and tragedies-including the loss of her husband and raising three young children-she found solace and strength in poetry. Her words, infused with a passion for social justice and the beauty of everyday life, have touched hearts and sparked change. This memoir is a testament to a woman who turned struggle into song, offering readers a profound exploration of courage, creativity, and community. Join us in celebrating a Wisconsin treasure whose voice continues to resonate. Available from the Wisconsin Writers Association Press.

My Review

Filled with up close and personal views of icons in the Open Housing and Civil Rights movements, Margaret Rozga's frank look at the push for equity from the 1960s voting rights marches with Dr. King in Alabama to Milwaukee, Wisconsin is an eye-opening and sometimes sorry look at how American treat each other. Readers gain special insight into America as Peggy Rozga sets out to make a difference for equal housing opportunities, voting rights, and social justice. Join Peggy as she marches and speaks through poetry and action in this powerful memoir.

About the Author

Margaret Rozga, emeritus professor of English at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee - Waukesha campus, served as the 2019-2020 Wisconsin Poet Laureate and the 2021 inaugural artist/scholar in residence at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee at Waukesha Field Station. She is the author of six books of poetry, most recently Restoring Prairie and Holding My Selves Together. She has also co-edited four poetry anthologies with Madison poet Angela Trudell Vasquez. She is a member of the Wisconsin Writers Association, the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, and the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature, an organization that honored her with their 2026 Mark Twain award. She lives in Milwaukee.

 

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.

 

Review of Resist by Margot McMahon

 

Resist! A Visual History of Protest
Margot McMahon
Memoir, 50 pp
December 13, 2022, Aquarius Press LLC
16.99 print

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About the Book:
Resist: A Visual History is the true story of the later years of Franklin McMahon, artist-reporter for many powerful moments in U.S. History, from the Emmett Till Trial to the Apollo missions. McMahon was a WWII Army Air Corps veteran and former prisoner of war in Germany who made it back home to Chicago to his sweetheart Irene. McMahon became an award-winning presidential artist, among numerous additional honors. This book is the final in a series by Franklin's daughter, Margot McMahon. This book is part of the RESIST! exhibitions in museums nationwide.


My Review:
“Stop examining your belly button…get out there and make a change!” was William Franklin “Mac” McMahon’s lasting advice to all of us. Mac’s daughter, sculpturer Margot McMahon, devotedly shares decades of his work to make a difference in social justice across our world.

Through these short pages, Margot portrays her father as a POW in WWII, a family man, a reporter and an artist who became dedicated to the cause of creating a better society. The book opens as Mac is taken prisoner in Germany during his Army Air Corps service in World War II, missing one boot. Margot shares the story of his resolve to say nothing during the frequent interrogations. With his imagination to keep him company, Mac spent time “mind drawing” his surroundings: “ Insights into gestures and expressions kept him observing intently. The drawing gave a purpose to this unearthly hell.” Later in Stalag III he was able to draw with donated YMCA art supplies and was even able to send ideas for cartoons back to a Chicago magazine. He also met Tuskegee Airmen survivors.

We move next to the 1950s where McMahon has press credentials from Life Magazine as a reporter and cartoonist/artist. He’s in Mississippi to cover the Emmett Till trial, with copy and art. Mac’s daughter recounts her father’s emotions and doodles during the brief atrocity dangerously called a trial. A brief sentence sums up the disposition of the community: At the coffee shop door they (reporters) were surrounded, closely, by a few white male citizens, “You Northerners go back home and leave us Sumner folks alone.”

That trial and article showed McMahon “that art could effectuate social change.” In the next decade, the author takes her place around the family table, as seventh of nine children, growing up the 1960s. Conversation was lively with her journalist father and Irene, her mother, who was also an author. The turbulence of social justice protests during this time—women’s rights, worker’s rights, racial justice, gay rights, all were freely discussed. The McMahons encouraged the family to learn about world news, raise questions about politics and culture, all spurring Margaret to use her talent and carry on speaking out for change of inward and small-thinking injustices around the world. Franklin McMahon continued to capture the times in his art, and with his wife Irene, created award-winning films.

In 1995, at the age of seventy-five, McMahon participated in the Million Man march at the National Mall in Washington D.C. to protest systemic racism and call for revitalization of communities of color. Franklin McMahon passed in 2012 at the age of 90, having left a legacy of encouragement toward social justice. In his eulogy, Margot said, “With his art, he illumed awareness to nudge the world in a fairer direction, watched the change erase justice with presidential strokes of a pen and captured the protests again as people took to the streets with handmade signs to express their rights and wrongs.”

This powerful short book is filled with the late McMahon’s art and advice, the story of what it’s like to fight for a change both on the world stage and in our own neighborhoods. The book a good read for discussion; it’s an actionable book for families, for book clubs, and anyone who wants to see conscionable shifts in action and learn where to take a stand themselves.

 
About the Author:
A lifelong environmentalist, internationally-awarded Margot McMahon sculpts, writes, and paints human, plant, and animal forms to say, through art, her hope that decisions be made to support life on earth. Margot earned an MFA from Yale University then taught sculpture and drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, DePaul University and Yale University’s Norfolk Summer School as well as Oak Park's District 97. Margot has created documentary movies to explain and share the insights she has gained from her background and explorations in art. Cinema Guild in New York City represents her videos. https://www.margotmcmahon.com/

**This review originally appeared at wiwrite.org

Wisconsin Olympic Athlete Memoir Gwen Jorgensen

 

Gwen Jorgensen, USA’s First Gold Medal Triathlete

by Gwen Jorgensen, Elizabeth Jorgensen, Nancy Jorgensen

Young Reader Memoir, 175 pp

October, 2022, Meyer & Meyer Sport (UK) Ltd.

paperback, $16.95

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 This memoir of USA Olympic Triathlete from Wisconsin, Gwen Jorgensen, is a lovely book geared toward young readers, encouraging them to reach for their dreams. Gwen competed in triathlon in the 2012 Olympics in London and the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. The book is an account of her years of training, and overcoming challenges to become a professional athlete on her way to the world stage and a gold medal.

Gwen had big dreams of being an Olympian as a child, working hard to become a competitive swimmer. She learned about swim meets through school, and her parents supported swim lessons at a local high school. There she met friends who encouraged each other at practices and in competitions.

Eventually she earned a walk-on collegiate swimming spot at UW-Madison, added running to her repertoire, and then finally when learning about the triathlon, bicycling. She met her husband while training for triathlon events and competing in Europe, Mexico, Canada, Japan, and Australia. The book intertwines her preparations for Rio with elementary years, upper grades and college. Along the way she dealt with bone breaks and fractures and other lessons of difficult training situations, including heartbreaking setbacks and losses. Gwen shares what it was like to prepare for the triathlon in Rio, from packing for the journey with her husband, to what each moment of the journey, of being in Brazil, including recipes for healthy meals, such as her overnight oatmeal. 

A personal letter from Gwen which includes an invitation to engage with young readers who can post their goals on her social media pages sets the stage. Tips and lessons, such as how to learn swim strokes, self-advice about patience and dedication, personal essays, and excerpts from newsclips.

The book is nicely laid out and easy to read, embellished with art work, personal quotes, and numerous photos, giving it a scrapbook feel. The book also includes goal-setting advice and a worksheet. Gwen Jorgensen is a positive, encouraging read and would make a wonderful gift for the young reader in your life.

Get Out and GREET AUTHORS July authorfest Lake Geneva

 Lake Geneva Welcomes Authors back in person for Beachfront Authorfest

Michelle Caffrey writes: "Marketing and promoting ourselves is often a struggle for many authors who generally spend a lot of time alone with our stories. You’ve been attending a special Book Festival in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin."

Tell us how you learned about this festival?

I learned of Beachfront Authorfest in Lake Geneva from a friend at the library. I find festivals by following the libraries in my area on their websites and Facebook pages. Now I am on their email list for upcoming events.

Pre-pandemic, I went in to local bookstores and libraries and donated copies of my books, and asked if I might make presentations and signings. I’ve done several.

What’s your strategy for talking to festival attendees?

Always have large stacks of books and have a copy upside down so they can read the back. I say “hi” but try not to be pushy with a hard sell. I suggest having a short “elevator speech” prepared. Mine is “The book is about my friend’s dog who was lost in Yellowstone for 44 days.” If they respond, I tell them a little more. Otherwise, if they move on I wish them a nice day.

I also believe in props. I have a life-sized stuffed “Jadette” who draws considerable attention. At one event, Cookies with Santa, a toddler dog-napped Jade’s body double. We all had quite the chuckle…and I did sell all of the books I brought.

                                         

What is your favorite aspect of participating in Authorfest?

Where to begin? I love the location, with beautiful Geneva Lake in view. There’s lots of foot traffic, and people are there to have fun and usually in a good mood. Meeting other authors and fans is great…as long as they don’t dog-nap Jadette.

Tell us where and when we can find you at the festival.

Under a big blue canopy with a "Bring Jade Home" banner and a large stuffed black and white dog.

The Friends of the Lake Geneva Library and Breadloaf Books invite area authors to Beachside Authorfest 2021!

 Saturday, July 10, 2021
10:00 AM – 4:00 PM

Surrounding the Lake Geneva Public Library
918 W Main Street, Lake Geneva, WI
RAIN OR SHINE!

Click here for more info and the sign up form.

About Michelle Caffrey:
After years in the software industry, my husband Paul and I abandoned our successful careers and

bought a converted 1906 Dutch barge, Imagine. We established a boat charter business, Barge and Breakfast, and cruised the European waterways for ten adventure-filled years. I wrote and indie published Just Imagine: A New Life on an Old Boat, the true story of our first-year adventures—and misadventures—as we journeyed from Holland to Burgundy, France.

I’ve written two of my three-novel Dairyland Series. I recently completed Sconnie, which was a finalist in the RWA SWFL Joyce Henderson contest in the Romantic Suspense category.

Bring Jade Home: The True Story of a Dog Lost in Yellowstone, published by Farcountry Press, was my first narrative non-fiction book. My picture book, Jade—Lost in Yellowstone, received the Creative Child Magazine 2020 Book of the Year Award and is the recipient of The Dog Writer’s Association First Place Award for Children’s Early Reader 2020. I recently completed a young reader chapter book for the 8-12-year-old reading level in the series.

I am a member of RWA, the Wisconsin Writer’s Association, former attendee of the Writer’s Institute of the UW, and take part annually in Lake Geneva Library’s Authorfest by the Beach.

My husband Paul and I currently live in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. When not on the water, I enjoy reading and am addicted to knitting. Both of us love to cook, especially French food.

www.BringJadeHome.com
www.MichelleCaffrey.com
https://bringjadehome.blogspot.com/
 
Book links:

Just Imagine: New Life on an Old Boat

Bring Jade Home

Jade: Lost in Yellowstone

 

This is How We Leave memoir by Joanne Nelson

 This is How We Leave

by Joanne Nelson

Memoir, 180 pages

Published August 11, 2020, Vine Leaves Press

Reviewed by Bill Mathis, http://www.billmathiswriteretc.com

$2.99 ebook

$14.99 Print

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About the Book

Against a background of family runaways, award-winning memoirist Joanne Nelson explores what it takes to stay when the going begins to dazzle and the staying seems way too ordinary. With a great grandfather who disappears, a grandfather who strays, and a father who walks away, she’s lived a life liable to give way at any time. In unflinching prose that is by turns intimate and humorous, she dives deep into her own role (and even culpability) in a childhood marked by disruption, emotional abuse, and parental alcoholism.

Nelson’s working-class roots and catholic schoolgirl upbringing, experimentation with all things negative, and hopeful creation of a new family life all serve a passionate story that examines the many ways we leave our communities, our families, and even ourselves. It will surprise no one that she became a psychotherapist—working with families, children, and in schools to help others on a similar journey. Her innovative observations and careful attention to detail create an engaging narrative of just how quickly our pasts become the now—and just what we’re going to do about it!

 Bill's Review:

Throwing out her mother’s empty booze bottles found in the breezeway attic, eating a sandwich at her deathbed, and recalling how well her mother danced only hint at the gamut of emotions and truth so elegantly expressed by Joanne Nelson in her memoir This is How We Leave.

There are many ways to leave relationships: leave a note and walk out; meander away and never return; drink enough that one’s children don’t want to be around them; drink oneself to an early death; or experiment with risky practices trying to kill the pain. The bottom line, however, is that you can never truly leave family. In one manner or another, family is always with you. The times you leave and come back, how you cope with the loss—those missed opportunities—and how you make sense of the leaving is what I gained from this excellent book.

Beautifully written, Joanne Nelson explores her family and herself in scenes written from her life of growing up with an alcoholic mother who, even when physically present wasn’t there; a father who left the family and connected with Joanne through the window of his car parked along the street as she walked to school; and her knowledge of a great-grandfather who abandoned his family.

She contrasts the uncertainty and pain of her homelife with being able to visit her grandparents. Her snuff-dipping and spitting grandfather took her kite flying and played games with her. Her grandmother created a homey, cooking, crafting environment in their modest trailer home. It was a space of peace and certainty.

The book begins with Nelson in her home office describing a photo of her family taken when she was young at her brother’s birthday party. “We stand close together and take our cues from those on the other side of the table, the adults waiting for just one decent shot without all that goofing around so they can eat before the coffee gets cold or the candles burn down the house.”

How long do we take our cues from those on the other side of the table? At what age do we stop?

Joanne ends this scene by writing, “Those bookshelves hold the answers to why I’m down here: the manuscripts recounting stories of escape or return and the mementos that tell their own suspended, yet scripted tales. It’s the dual perspective of the little girl held close by her brothers in a corner of the kitchen, safe behind glowing candles of the woman at her desk in a basement office—the soft hum of the dryer in the background, pictures of her family surrounding her—who just wants to tell about it.”

After reading This is How We Leave, I’m not sure we ever quit taking our cues from those on the other side of the table. But how we leave, why we leave, how we come back to say goodbye—even while eating a sandwich—is critically important. Joanne Nelson goes deep in the gut to reveal truth and honesty like few other authors I’ve read.

I highly recommend this book. 5 Stars.

About the Author

 

Joanne Nelson’s writing appears in literary journals such as Brevity, Midwestern Gothic, the museum of americana, Consequence, and Redivider. In addition, she is a contributor to Lake Effect on 89.7 WUWM, her NPR affiliate based in Wisconsin. Nelson lives in Hartland, Wisconsin, where she develops and leads community programs, maintains a psychotherapy practice, and adjuncts. More information is at wakeupthewriterwithin.com

Photo credit: Jia Oak Baker

Nancer the Dancer beats crippling disease

Nancer the Dancer: myosititis and me
Memoir
Judith Gwinn Adrian

HENSCHELhaus publisher
March 2020

$9.98 eBook
$16.95 paperback
Buy on Amazon

About the Book:

The inspired 1960’s phantasmagoria called Nancy’s name. She smiled and joined. Why not? She was part of the summers of love, and the winters; dancing the light fantastic.

Unique to Nancy’s story, however, is that she took this youthful swashbuckler chutzpah and used it to confront her dermatomyositis; the rare crippling autoimmune disease that attacked her skeletal muscles, her being AND her physical beauty. Evil trio.

Nancy believed that there are many ways to be crippled and some of them are physical. She focused her energy on “attitude.”

It took her twenty years to squelch Reuben (the name she gave the disease to separate it from who she was). In final measure the only way to slay Reuben was for Nancy to die. By dying, she beat him – turned him to ash.

Toward the end, she wrote: “Let’s get one thing straight – if I never go anywhere or do anything else again in my life, I suspect I’ve had one of the best times of anyone I know.  It’s been mostly fun and I’ve had entertaining company. I got to cherish the fat arms of the babies, the silly laughter between friends, spontaneity, respect, comfy laps and the touch of his hand.”

About the Author:

After retiring from twenty-five years of college teaching, I am currently mid-stride, co-writing biographies with two Milwaukee men. The processes are captivating as I learn about their Puerto Rican cultures, life experiences, and success stories. I am proud to have three published books: Because I Am Jackie Millar (2007 & 2010), In Warm Blood: Prison & Privilege, Hurt & Heart (2014), and Tera’s Tale: Rebel on the River (2019). Book #4, Nancer the Dancer: Myositis and Me, will be published in early 2020.

Web: Judithadrian.com

**Adrian, Judith Gwinn (March 2020) Nancer the Dancer: Myositis and Me. Milwaukee: HenschelHAUS. (Chronic illness)

**Adrian, Judith Gwinn (February 1, 2019) Tera’s Tale Milwaukee: HenschelHAUS (March 2019 Finalist, Eric Hoffer/Montaigne Metal)  (Hoarding and mental health)

**Adrian, Judith Gwinn & DarRen Morris (2014). In Warm Blood: Prison & Privilege, Hurt & Heart. Milwaukee: HenschelHAUS. (USA BOOK AWARDS: 2015 finalist in non-fiction Multi-cultural and True Crime categories) (Incarceration and abuse)

**Millar, Jackie & Judith Gwinn Adrian (2007 & 2010). Because I Am Jackie Millar. Los Angeles: Golden: The Press. (Forgiveness and restorative justice)

**Colon, Hector & Judith Gwinn Adrian, “From the Boxing Ring to the Boardroom” (working title) (Summer, 2020) Milwaukee: HenschelHAUS. (Personal courage and success)

Reviewed by:  Jan Jenson (Janet Kay) www.novelsbyjanetkay.com

It’s all about attitude – equal amounts of optimism and realistic expectations.

That was Nancy Gwinn Dell Nee’s mantra and her secret to successfully coping, later in life, with chronic illness, disability, and eventually a premature death. 

A free spirit with an adventurous streak, her journey in life began as a rebellious wild child of the 1960s. Nancer the Dancer, as she was affectionately called by all who knew and loved her, knew how to dance, how to have fun, how to play pranks and break all the rules. Her love of life and sense of humor were infectious.  

Throughout her life, she maintained a close, loving relationship with her sister, Judith Gwinn Adrian, the author of this personal biography. The sisters shared everything – the highs, the lows, the everyday moments of their lives. Together, they struggled and supported each other through Nancy’s ordeal with the ravaging disease of myositis. Much of this is documented through their letters, emails, and Nancy’s spontaneous journal entries which are shared in this book.

Nancer The Dancer is a heart-warming, yet heart-wrenching story that draws the reader into another world, opening our hearts to those who struggle with chronic illness. Written through Nancy’s eyes by her beloved sister, this is a must read – especially for those suffering with chronic illness, and for their loved ones.

One of Nancy’s favorite quotes, a Chinese proverb, sums it up: “You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair.”

You can’t help but love Nancy the Dancer. May her spirit live on through the pages of this loving tribute written by her beloved sister.

Author Jan Jenson writes from northern Wisconsin. Her books include Waters of the Dancing Sky; Amelia, 1868; and Sisters.