Poetry at an Indie!

 

What better way to celebrate Indie Bookstore Day (always the last Saturday in April--and April is National Poetry Month!) than with a Michigan poet as my bookstore guest? We will convene at noon and sit in a congenial circle, which worked so well for Fleda's last visit to Dog Ears Books that I'm doing it again. Please join us!

Mark Your Calendar: Saturday, April 25

 

Fleda Brown, former poet laureate of the state of Delaware, back home in Michigan now for several years, will give a reading of her new work in person in Northport on Indie Bookstore Day, Saturday, April 25! We will convene at noon, but anyone is welcome to come as early as my 11 a.m. bookshop opening to be sure of a good seat and/or to spend time browsing.

And here's another idea: A few months ago a group of women in my shop told me they had decided to make a switch from wine tasting to book shopping. They came north for a weekend to visit every bookshop in Traverse City and Leelanau County, each of them buying at least one book in each shop. Road trip with friends! What a great way to celebrate Indie Day!

Leelanau Indies: Photos by Karen Mulvahill

The last Saturday in April is always Indie Bookstore Day. For several years, I was away from my shop on that day, and the last couple of years I just didn't get on the ball soon enough to do anything special. This year, for once, I'm ahead of the curve--and pleased as punch, too, about my literary guest for the day.

Fleda Brown was my guest last May, also.

Our Special November Guest Author

 

Author Chuck Collins

Chuck Collins of the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive organization based in Washington, D.C., will present his new new book, Burned by Billionaires: How Concentrated Wealth and Power Are Ruining Our Lives and Planet, at Dog Ears Books in Northport (Michigan!) on Wednesday, November 12, at 4 p.m.

His new book

Collins is Director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the IPS and has authored and co-authored over ten books and dozens of reports about inequality, climate disruption, philanthropy, the racial wealth divide, affordable housing, and billionaire wealth dynasties. 

It was his 2016 book, Born on Third Base: A One Percenter Makes the Case for Tackling Inequality, Bringing Wealth Home, and Committing to the Common Good, that caught my attention. (You can read my review of that Born on Third Base here.) I was also intrigued by the fact that Chuck's late father, Ed Collins, and his wife, Bobbie, were founders of the Leelanau Conservancy, so Chuck has a strong connection to Leelanau County.

I am trying out the 4 p.m. time slot to avoid conflicts with evening meetings and dinner plans, and I'll be posting more about this event on my "Books in Northport" blog soon, but mark your calendar now so you won't miss Chuck on Nov. 12. I predict a very lively discussion! And if you want to familiarize yourself somewhat with the speaker ahead of his appearance in Northport, check out some of what he's written on Substack.

Once again, that's 4 p.m., Wednesday, November 12 (the day after Veterans Day) in the David Grath Gallery at Dog Ears Books, 106 Waukazoo Street in Northport.

The Topic Will Be CHANGES!

 

It’s next Wednesday, August 13, that Tim Mulherin will be at Dog Ears Books with his presentation on This Magnetic North: Candid Conversations on a Changing Northern Michigan. See my Books in Northport post for July 11 to learn more about the book between now and next week.

We will convene at 7 p.m., and I hope you will be able to join us then for a diversity of views and what it bound to be stimulating conversation.

As always, this is a free bookstore event, but you may want to get here a little early to be sure of a good seat.

Sumer is icumen in

First, a reminder: Fleda Brown will be at Dog Ears Books on Friday, May 23, reading from her new chapbook, Doctor of the World, beginning around noon. We are gathering informally, and since it will be lunch time I’m inviting people to bring a sack lunch. (I’ll have some nonalcoholic punch to quench your thirst.) How often do you have a chance to meet a poet laureate? Fleda held that position in Delaware. Poetry and conversation will take place in the newly rearranged gallery next to the bookstore. 

Then, an announcement: On Memorial Day, the following Monday, children’s author and retired elementary school teacher Kathy Groth will be here for an hour or two, beginning around midday, to inscribe her new book for purchasers. Sunken --  Shipwrecks of Lake Michigan takes two young children with a magic map on an underwater adventure into history and mystery. If you’ve only got five minutes, that’s time enough to stop by to have the author write a personal note in a copy of her book for the inquiring and adventurous young people in your life (with lots of information for adults, as well).

 

Finally, a preview: We will be having a book launch on Tuesday, June 10, from 5 to 7 p.m. for Marilyn Zimmerman’s In Defense of Good Women. That will be exciting! There’s another poetry reading in the works, also, with guest poets Teresa Scollon and Jennifer Clark. As soon as I have a date for that, I'll let you know. 

We always have a good time with Lynne Rae Perkins!

 

Lynne Rae at Dog Ears Books, August 2012

She has been here before, and now she's coming again, and I couldn't be more pleased. I hope you'll be able to join us on Saturday, October 1st, when Lynne Rae Perkins will be signing her new book for Dog Ears Books customers from 12 noon to 2 p.m. And this one is a mouse story! 

In the spirit of her squirrel book, Nuts to You!, this new one, Violet & Jobie in the Wild, takes a pair of house mice on a series of adventures, beginning when they are caught and transported to the wild. It wasn't a life they chose, but Violet and Jobie learn there is much more to the world than traps baited with cheese and peanut butter. 

Violet & Jobie in the Wild is an illustrated chapter book, perfect for middle-grade readers but too good not to share with the whole family!

Hardcover with dust jacket, $16.99

The Author Is Coming! The Author Is Coming (Again)!

Actually, Lynne Rae Perkins made a special trip up to Northport on Saturday, November 2, to sign a few copies of her new book for me, but she will come back for an official signing on Saturday, Nov. 16. Our official starting time for that event is 2 p.m., and we’ll see how long we can keep her here. I guarantee it will be until 3 p.m., at least.

Since she was here today (as I post this), I do have a few signed copies on hand already, for customers who can’t wait two weeks to get their new Perkins book. While here, Lynne also signed copies of her other books I had in stock, and I’ll restock those for the official mid-November signing. 

Lynne Rae Perkins is such a charming, delightful guest that she brightens the bookstore any day she walks in the door, so please join us if you can on November 16. You’ll have a good time, I promise! And we will probably have cookies, too.

Michigan Historian to Visit This Saturday

I met Larry Massie a few decades ago, when he was Assistant Director of the Michigan Regional Archives, housed in the library of Western Michigan University, and I was a lowly, aging undergraduate research assistant. The professor for whom I worked was studying farm ownership and rental patterns in the lower tier of townships (four altogether) in Kalamazoo County. The U.S. population census and agriculture census, county tax rolls, and plat maps were the tools I learned to use, becoming familiar enough that I was able to do a little personal sleuthing relative to the Barry County farmhouse where I lived at the time. (Often my son would be with me, sitting under my desk and reading Greek tragedy. Precocious little fellow, he was!) None of that has anything to do with this weekend's book signing, but looking forward to having Larry Massie at Dog Ears Books brings back a lot of memories for me.

Back to my visiting author:

In the intervening years since those old Kalamazoo days, Larry Massie launched himself as an independent historian, making his home in Allegan County. He is the author of 20 books of Michigan history and the first-ever recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award given by the Historical Society of Michigan. His personal collection of Michigan books grew so large that he is now a bookseller -- by appointment only.

So I'm looking forward to this Saturday! An author, a bookseller, a book collector, and someone from the "old days" in Kalamazoo. I hope you will be able to join us on Saturday. Larry will be happy to sign his books when you buy them here, too.

Clear Your Head and Lighten Your Heart

You have probably heard Karen Anderson on Interlochen Public Radio, and maybe you remember her column in the Traverse City Record-Eagle, too. Now we have a collection of 155 of Karen’s short essays in book form. 

Casual dipping into Gradual Clearing: Weather Reports From the Heart is irresistible, as no piece in it is more than a page in length, and themes are simple and generally positive in tone — but never sappy. The author’s light offerings feel important without feeling heavy. We are grateful for her reminders and insights. 

Karen Anderson will be our TEA guest at Dog Ears Books on August 9, 7 p.m. This week’s guests (July 19) are Lynne Rae Perkins, Anne-Marie Oomen, and Linda Nemec-Foster, with Dennis Turner on July 26 and Virginia Johnson on August 2.

Gradual Clearing: Weather Reports From the Heart

Traverse City: Arbutus Press, 2018

Paper, 160pp., $16.95

Bookstore Plans as Summer Gets Underway

June Days and Hours

Dog Ears Books will be open Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. during the month of June. (In July we will go to our 7-day-a-week schedule.) Beginning on June 21, we will also be open Thursday evenings from 6:30 to 9 p.m. See below for more about Thursday evenings at Dog Ears.

Our Summer Plan

Dog Ears Books will be celebrating its 25th anniversary this summer of 2018 with a special guest series called Thursday Evening Authors. Our first scheduled guest in the series is Rachel May, on June 21, to be followed by Fleda Brown on June 28. All TEA guest appearances will begin at 7 p.m. 

Rachel May is the author of An American Quilt: Unfolding a Story of Family and Slavery. Presently on the faculty of Northern Michigan University in Marquette, Michigan, May will be making her first visit to Dog Ears Books in June, and we look forward to introducing her to our Northport and visiting bookstore customers. Her research into the background of a 200-year-old quilt took her deep inside the history of the United States (and beyond) and challenged some of her own long-held assumptions about roles played by the North and South in the slave trade. If you are at all interested in American history, fascinated by quilts, or just love people's life stories, you won’t want to miss Rachel May’s appearance on June 21.

Fleda Brown of Traverse City, former poet laureate of Delaware, is an accomplished essayist as well as a brilliant poet, and we are honored to have her once more as a guest at Dog Ears Books. Fleda’s latest book of poetry, The Woods Are On Fire, is a collection of some new poems and others from her previously published works. If you are a listener to Interlochen Public Radio or a reader of the Traverse City Record-Eagle, it’s very likely you have encountered Fleda Brown’s voice and recognize her own poetry as direct and striking. On the other hand, if you are new to Brown’s work — even if you’re a little afraid of poetry or “don’t understand” it — this is an opportunity for you to make a very memorable acquaintance, so please join us on June 28.

Guests for Thursday Evening Authors in July and August will be announced here as the schedule grows and will be announced on my blogs, “Books in Northport and “Northport Bookstore News,” as well. For further information, you may call Dog Ears Books, 231-386-7209.

Introducing TEA at Dog Ears Books

First TEA guest - June 21

As we celebrate our 25th bookstore anniversary this summer, Dog Ears Books will offer a new feature called Thursday Evening Authors, or TEA. Our "tea" will probably be iced and served from a punch bowl, or it may be punch, and we’re not planning china-cup formality in other ways, either, but we hope that holding TEA as a regular weekly event will make it easier for our friends to remember. 

Each Thursday, beginning on June 21, the bookstore will be open from 6:30 to 9 p.m., with each evening’s author scheduled from 7 to 9 p.m. Presentation format will probably vary from simple conversation and book signings to prepared talks. If we have a Thursday in July or August with no author scheduled, we’ll still be open from 6:30 to 9. So remember -- 

TEA stands for -- 

Thursday Evening Authors 

at Dog Ears Books,

106 Waukazoo Street 

Northport, Michigan

beginning June 21, 2018

First TEA guest, on Thursday, June 21, will be Rachel May, author of An American Quilt. That's from 7 - 9 p.m.

An American Quilt: Unfolding a Story of Family and Slavery, by Rachel May. New York: Pegasus Books, hardcover release May 2018, $27.95

More about this book and the Marquette, Michigan, author soon!

Author to Speak on Fascinating New View of Audubon

AUTHOR PRESENTATION

DOG EARS BOOKS

Gregory Nobles on John James Audubon

Thursday, Aug. 3

7 p.m.

Free, fun, informative!

Please join us!

(You may learn a few new things

about our America's foremost bird artist.)

Kilcherman Apple Book Coming Very Soon!

Antique Apples from Kilcherman’s Christmas Cove Farm explores a very special farm the rolling hills of Leelanau Township. Phyllis and John Kilcherman grow 250 varieties of heirloom apples, varieties in danger of disappearing from our modern food supply. The book, coming soon from Arbutus Press, features Kilcherman family and farm history dating from the land's public offering by the U.S. Government in 1851. Color photos of the orchard in three seasons, photographed by Dianne Carroll Burdick, capture the living apple community from the bee’s pollination to apple harvest. Phyllis also shares recipes both traditional and creative uses of apples in meatloaf, coleslaw, and baked beans, as well as her most prized and sought-after recipe for apple pie from her grandmother. You’ll find folklore, poems, and the apple histories in these colorful pages.

We will launch this book at Dog Ears Books in Northport on Saturday evening, September 3, with a signing beginning at 7 p.m. The public is cordially invited.

Antique Apples from Kilcherman’s Christmas Cove Farm

by Phyllis and John P. Kilcherman

Photography by Dianne Carroll Burdick

Traverse City, MI: Arbutus Press

144pp/color

$25.00

In Focus on Waukazoo Street

This year the posters in my window are focusing on BOOKS!

The mostly white flier in the window has Friday, July 22, circled, because tomorrow is the date of L. E. Kimball's bookstore appearance (1-3 p.m.) with her book of fiction, Seasonal Roads. I don't have a poster for Lynne Rae Perkins, but she will be here on Saturday (3-5 p.m.) to read from and sign Frank and Lucky Get Schooled. Hint to parents and grandparents: The latter will definitely be a kid-friendly event!