Over forty fine photographs and forty pages of poems that get to the heart of working lives in the Midwest. // With a focused and indefatigable passion, Bruce Selyem has been photographing the simple elegance of grain elevators within the context of austere rural landscapes for fifteen years. Grain elevators remain fascinating and treasured landmarks in many Western communities, arousing contemplation and even reverence as historic and aesthetic icons. These qualities are readily apparent in the quiet beauty and studied compositions of Selyem's photographs. - Ellen Ornitz, Visual Arts Director, The Emerson &amp; Beall Park, Bozeman //These are poems that spring from the ground like fresh seed, but never without human references. And it is the human references, in country circumstances, that make them familiar and understandable to everyone�.Whether he is writing about giving his father a haircut or questioning him about the Great Depression, Jon Volkmer knows farm-people intimately and describes them with bedrock wisdom in a world of tarpaper, boxcars, corn, propane tanks, drill bits, wooden elevators, concrete silos, flour mills, rats, ferrets and barn ladders. -Samuel Hazo

The Art of Country Grain Elevators (Working Lives Series)

Arts & Photography

Volkmer, Jon

Painting

Bottom Dog Press

For anyone involved in creative writing workshops and the writing of fiction. 
Presented with style by a veteran workshop leader, this book will save you time, inspire you, and head you off from the common miscues which bedevil beginning writers (and some experienced ones, too). 
Inside this book, you will find: A discussion of the popularity of creative writing, its place in our culture and in your life; a look at the nature of fiction, and how you might best tap the stories within you; guidance on the mechanics of re-writing, shaping, and changing your stories; a wealth of information and advice about the workshop process, including the Ten Commandments of Workshop Criticism, and other suggestions to help make your workshop a productive time; The Parts Warehouse: A detailed summary, with examples, of literary terms and concepts; some wonderful short stories -- none by famous writers, all by very good beginning writers. Each story illustrates techniques you might employ to advantage in your writing. 
The main texts of your workshop will be the stories you write. This book will serve as a valuable sub-text and a trusty companion. Companion, as in friend, coach, helpful advisor.

Fiction Workshop Companion

Politics & Social Sciences

Sociology

Bendall Books

Literary Nonfiction. Travel Writing. EATING EUROPE is travel writing in its most hilarious, poignant, and consequential form. It is the year 2000, and Jon has a grant to write about "the Euro-transitional era." From Amsterdam to Alsace, the tourist life is good. He and Janet eat and drink and spar with breezy affection while Jon pays scant attention to his project. As they drive on toward southern France, it becomes clear that something has gone very wrong--both in the journey itself, and in the telling of the journey. Jon the author steps in to explain that he had stopped writing for three years. In the meantime, the tragedy of 9/11 and the drumbeat of war have changed everything.

Eating Europe: A Meta-Nonfiction Love Story (Writing Travel)

Engineering & Transportation

Transportation

Parlor Press

EATING EUROPE: A META-NONFICTION LOVE STORY is travel writing in its most hilarious, poignant, and consequential form. It is the year 2000, and Jon has a grant to write about "the Euro-transitional era." From Amsterdam to Alsace, the tourist life is good. He and Janet eat and drink and spar with breezy affection while Jon pays scant attention to his project. As they drive on toward southern France, it becomes clear that something has gone very wrong-both in the journey itself, and in the telling of the journey. Jon the author steps in to explain that he had stopped writing for three years. In the meantime, the tragedy of 9/11 and the drum-beat of war have changed everything. Janet has launched into peace activism and spiraled into depression. In the very month of the Iraq invasion, at the height of America's anti-French hysteria, Jon goes to France to try to the finish the book. But the ground beneath his story has shifted. The gloom of the real world bleeds into his writing-where it finds parallels in the pain of personal relationship and in the lies of every claim of "nonfiction." In the end, EATING EUROPE strives for reconciliations: the author to his wife, the wife to her character, the author to his work, the work to its genre, America to France. About the Author JON VOLKMER has written numerous travel features for newspapers and magazines. He is director of creative writing at Ursinus College, where he teaches travel writing and travel literature. He is an award-winning fiction writer, essayist and poet, with publications in such journals as PARNASSUS, PRAIRIE SCHOONER, TEXAS REVIEW, and PAINTED BRIDE QUARTERLY. He is the author of THE ART OF COUNTRY GRAIN ELEVATORS, a poetry collection with photographs by Bruce Selyem (Bottom Dog Press.) He holds an MA in Creative Writing from Denver University, and a PhD in English from the University of Nebraska.

Eating Europe: A Meta-nonfiction Love Story (Writing Travel)

Travel

Parlor Pr

Brave in Season: A Novel of Race, Railroads, and Baseball

Literature & Fiction

United States

Milford House Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Volkmer, Jon. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Volkmer, Jon