In this collection of essays, poems, and drawings from his own personal journals, Bruce Hopkins reflects on the truth and beauty in nature, concentrating on how important it is to listen to the voices of nature, and to live our lives accordingly, from the moment of our arrival to the moment of our departure. With the relentless process of decay bringing not dying, but hope and renewal, and even familiarity. His keen observations about all forms of nature, and about people of all ages, vividly demonstrate his compassion and understanding of the universality and connectedness of our shared experiences to a common good that embraces learning, and leads us on a path to self awareness and acceptance. The wonder of children, the wisdom of elders, the stillness and sacredness of the forest, the joyfulness of splashing water, and honking geese, the inevitability of the changing seasons and tattered leaves, are all artfully brought together by Dr. Hopkins, to give us a sense of community and continuity, along with the endless possibilities that only perseverance and nature can adequately provide.

The Art of Decay

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Bruce Hopkins

Mental Health

Ice Cube Press, LLC

The Midwest Oil Fields are full of stories. Crude is a manifesto for people battling issues of environmental devastation, Taylor Brorby's Crude explores what it means to be from and of a place. Through natural history, personal experience, and a sense of awe, these poems explore the northern Great Plains its troubled history, extractive economies, and what roots us to the places we call home. In this determined collection, these poems examine everything from the pallid sturgeon and General Custer, to prostitutes and wildcatters. Through his love of the land, Brorby unearths and wrestles with the complicated place that he calls home.

Crude: Poems About Place, Energy, and Politics

Literature & Fiction

Taylor Brorby

Poetry

Imagine a combination of THE LOVELY BONES and THE PRINCE OF TIDES. You then have Larry Baker s FROM A DISTANCE. Bobby Beaumont is a dying man with a secret. Her name is Ellie. She has been his secret for over thirty years, ever since he caught her stealing books at a Charleston store. He was sixteen; she was thirteen. His parents raised him in a world of Southern gentility. She was raised by a white-trash step-father and uncle who sexually abused her soon after her mother died and never stopped until they were confronted by Bobby. That confrontation leaves Bobby physically and emotionally scarred. It leaves Ellie in a mental institution. To escape Ellie s world, Bobby flees to New York City, to eventually become the most successful book publisher in America, leaving Charleston and his past behind. But he does not forget Ellie. How could he? She won't let him, even after she is dead. Weeks before his own death, he receives a final manuscript to edit...Ellie s version of their life and love together. The manuscript is incoherent, told from the point of view of an insane child who becomes an insane woman. A dead woman. Thirty years of private journals and cryptic diary entries. In alternating chapters of FROM A DISTANCE, Ellie tells her story. Her private life is juxtaposed with chapters telling the public history of Bobby Beaumont. Two different worlds. Those two versions of a shared experience will force a reader to decide which is fact, which is fiction.

From A Distance

Larry Baker

In his memoir, Life on the Mississippi, Mark Twain writes: The Mississippi is well worth reading about. It is not a commonplace river, but on the contrary is in all ways remarkable. In this memoir, the author presents us with a book well worth reading. With subdued passion, clarity of memory, attention to detail, and careful selection of twenty topics of inviting river interest, he offers the reader a fascinating description of life within the Driftless Area. When the last page is turned, the eyes and imagination will have had an experience truly remarkable. --Gary F. Krapfl, D.Min., Retired Pastor &amp; Professor

Riverin'

Richard L. DeGowin

In 'Coming Alive' Taylor Brorby overcomes his trepidations and embraces the most powerful action of all standing by his words. He commits to what he values most family, home, the arts, the earth and becomes a role-model for how we can all learn to take a stand. With an introduction by Bill McKibben, an afterword by Kathleen Dean Moore, and photography by Paul Anderson, 'Coming Alive' is an intimate account of place and community: flares in North Dakota, pipeline protests, and the value of local action. 'Coming Alive' explores the wisdom in the phrase: A thousand mile journey starts with the first step. Taylor Brorby reveals a way to hope during uncertain times.

Coming Alive

Science & Math

Kathleen Dean Moore

bill-mckibben

Paul Anderson

Nature & Ecology

There is a very real, center-of-the-world spot lurking in an unknown valley of northeastern Kansas, where chalky old growth trunks of sycamore trees and a slow moving stream exist alongside the nests, the souls, and the lives of great blue herons. This is a book of both fact and fiction, of myth, sense-ofplace, spirit, and magic. Reader s will embark on a literary and visual journey unlike any other; will (re)discover a wild and captivating realm full of lore, hearsay, myth, and spirit. The late, environmental book reviewer with Orion magazine, Peter Sauer, commented on this book s earliest version in a beautiful and in sightful way: I ve been becoming more and more impatient wondering where nature writing might go next, this book has helped me think about this with what feels like greater clarity. Mythological natural history is at least as useful and perhaps a lot more useful than scientifically derived natural history for writing about another species. Soul External is a combined effort of author and artist seeking to express their mutual sense of the significance and sacred in the natural world. Through a narrative centered upon the great blue heron scripted words play with graphic arrangements punctuated by drawings. All culminate in producing a fuller meditation having semiotic and aesthetic significance regarding this perfect circle of life.

Soul External - Rediscovering The Great Blue Heron

Politics & Social Sciences

Steven H. Semken

Andrew R. Driscoll

Social Sciences

Legendary bookseller at Prairie Lights Bookstore in Iowa City, Iowa, Paul Ingram has found what he feared was long lost--his collection of humorous, intelligent, rollicking, and witty clerihews. This collection will be a big hit with readers of all sorts: fans of poetry, of humor, the literary arts, political cartoons, as well as readers of history and current affairs. These clerihews and the illustrations are positively a match made in heaven. Well-known author Jane Hamilton declares: To complete the perfect dinner party you need only to whip out your copy of The Lost Clerihews of Paul Ingram. Everyone will then be joyful.

The Lost Clerihews of Paul Ingram

Humor & Entertainment

Paul Ingram

Humor

The American Midwest provides the ideal landscape for literature exploring the intricate evolution of American ideology and culture from the earliest frontiersmen and settlers to present day citizens. In celebration of this region's inherent importance to American identity, Prairie Gold: An Anthology of the American Heartland presents a myriad of Midwestern-focused literature in three sections of literary styles: fiction, nonfiction, and poetry with introductions contributed by admired and award-winning Midwestern authors: Dean Bakopoulos, Debra Marquart, and Iowa State Poet Laureate, Mary Swander. With an extensive roster of sixty-eight highly talented writers, this anthology presents an eclectic mix of short stories, flash fiction, lyric essays, autobiographies, and formal and experimental poems that delve into the nuances of Midwestern identity. Each writer herein investigates, challenges, and redefines the varied perceptions of the Midwest, and, most importantly, their literary art invites us to gaze with renewed appreciation on the environmental beauty, nourishing agriculture, and innovative and creative people of the American Heartland.

Prairie Gold: An Anthology of the American Heartland

Mary Swander

Stefanie Brook Trout

Debra Marquart

Xavier Cavazos

Lance M. Sacknoff

Dean Bakopoulos

United States

The sky is made of rivers before and after they became rivers,... (Caryn writes in Chasing Weather. Weather) ... subtly shapes our days, infuses our moods and interactions, and at times, completely re-orients our lives. Catching moments of stunning beauty and surprising shifts in the sky helps make the vibrant and variable world more visible to us, and shows us how to truly see where and who we are. This fascinating book merges storm chasing photos of Stephen Locke, and the poetry Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg.

Chasing Weather: Tornadoes, Tempests, and Thunderous Skies in Word & Image

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg

Stephen Locke

Mystery Fiction set in the Quad Cities along the Mississippi River. There is no crime that Private Detective Mike Scofield can not crack. Acclaimed Midwest author Patrick Irelan s first novel is set along the Mississippi River in the Quad Cities of Iowa and Illinois. Life in these river towns can be gritty and rough. Written with a touch of Raymond Chandler, this rollicking, wisecracking, crime novel is full of a wide range of characters you will both enjoy and despise. Packed with love, mystery, and wit you will be guessing Whodunit all the way to the final page.

The Big Drugstore

Patrick Irelan

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