“Darn good writing: word-smart, heartfelt, compassionate, and witty. Always true to . . . → Read More: Praise for Possum Trot]]> “Wickedly funny, the stories expose the prairie imposter’s comfortable nostalgia. At the same time, they evince enormous affection for a passing way of life. Take note, literary readers. Possum Trot is a fabulous book.” —Ralph Savarese, author, Reasonable People: A Memoir of Autism and Adoption

“Darn good writing: word-smart, heartfelt, compassionate, and witty. Always true to the Iowa earth and the quirky, star-gazing folks who cajole it to bloom, worship in its barns, and strum their songs to the vaulted sky.” —David Campbell, author & Lannan Literary Award winner, A Land of Ghosts: The Braided Lives of People and the Forest in Far Western Amazonia

“Harley McIlrath’s Possum Trot never plays dead. His stories dance to the true-side of good Midwest living!” —Mary Swander, Iowa Poet Laureate

“J. Harley McIlrath knows the landscape, physical and emotional, of the family farm and the small town. But these finely sculpted stories tap into the essence of a broader, wider country. These stories tap into what’s real in all of us.” —Steven Horwitz, editor, Twin Cities Noir and Amplified

“Harley McIlrath’s new stories are as wicked and disarming as prose by H. L. Mencken but with an added twist: they show how hope for the discouraged can be found in places no sane person would go. This is a humorous, biting, rattling collection of stories that promises to become an instant classic.”  —Stephen Kuusisto, author, Planet of the Blind

“Iowa is fertile ground for writers… Add to that illustrious and blessed list of native sons, J. Harley McIlrath, an author who knows the soil and the toil of craft become art. Possum Trot is a bountiful harvest of delights, true to the rhythms of nature, of home, and of the human heart. —Robert F. Gish, author, West Bound: Stories of Providence

“These are compelling stories by a gifted Iowa writer intimately in touch with the language, humor and emotional currents of life’s ironies.  Possum Trot is a warm and beautiful book.”
—Loree Rackstraw, author, Love as Always, Kurt; Vonnegut as I Knew Him

“Possum Trot is as Americana as the National Resonator guitars the title story is based on.” —Joe Price, Iowa Blues Hall of Fame, and Independent Music Award Winner

“Fiction that reads like memoir, each piece capturing the essence of places, people, time, and emotions. Readers will know these people and want more.”
—Carol Bodensteiner, author, Growing Up Country: Memories of an Iowa Farm Girl

“These are strong stories that capture the humor, the reward and the darkness of late 20th century midwestern rural life. It’s easy to sense that Harley McIlrath grew up very near the hayfields and small towns of these tales. His realistic but warm fiction brightens for me the  dreariness of today’s now endless corn and soybean landscape. These stories are what I’d call moonbeams on a lively  little pasture creek.” —Timothy Fay, editor, Wapsipinicon Almanac

“Possum Trot is one of the sweetest, most refreshing glasses of strychnine-laced prose you’re likely to drink all year. At once elegiac and acerbic, it presents an Iowa full of affecting characters presented as they should be, with love and severity. McIlrath’s debut is an entertaining, timeless book that can and should be consumed in one sitting.”
—Josh Emmons, author, The Loss of Leon Meed

“J. Harley McIlrath’s short stories and essays remind us of a time when we still did much of our farm work by hand, and we still used tractors and cultivators instead of poison. McIlrath writes with precision and energy. You won’t find any covered bridges or lonely farmwives in Possum Trot, but the reader may want to learn why Danny Weaver and an unnamed girl parked along a dirt road on a hot afternoon. There’s real sweat in this book, and it never smelled so good.”
—Patrick Irelan, author, Central Standard

“Let me put this book in your hands. There’s a read-out-loud beauty to the stark vernacular of McIlrath’s hard-bitten stories. Ribald, poignant, elegiac: they are about farm communities in the Midwest and a way of life that we know exists but fear is vanishing. Please, take it. You’ll love it.”
—Joseph G. Peterson, author, Beautiful Piece

Iowa fiction writer and memoirist Patrick Irelan will be touring the Midwest to promote his collection of short stories, Reruns. Come one, come all to hear these entertaining stories!

April 29th, 8 pm, Final Thursday Reading at University of Northern Iowa, Hearst Center for the Arts

May 15th, Main Street Books, St. . . . → Read More: Patrick Irelan Spring Tour for Reruns]]> Patrick Irelan Spring Tour for Reruns

Iowa fiction writer and memoirist Patrick Irelan will be touring the Midwest to promote his collection of short stories, Reruns.
Come one, come all to hear these entertaining stories!

April 29th, 8 pm, Final Thursday Reading at University of Northern Iowa, Hearst Center for the Arts

May 15th, Main Street Books, St. Charles (St Louis Metro area),

May 27th, Boswell Books, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

June 19th, The Next Chapter, Knoxville, Iowa

June 26th, Beaverdale Books, Des Moines, Iowa, 2 pm

Fri., Jan. 15: 7 p.m. at the Silverbell Trading Company, 7119 N. Oracle Rd. : A reading from The Sky Begins At Your Feet, Her Memoir on Cancer, Community and Coming Home to the Body. Dr. Goldberg will . . . → Read More: Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg Events in Tuscon, Arizona]]> Ice Cube Book author Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg will be touring in Arizona To read more go here.

Fri., Jan. 15: 7 p.m. at the Silverbell Trading Company, 7119 N. Oracle Rd. : A reading from The Sky Begins At Your Feet, Her Memoir on Cancer, Community and Coming Home to the Body. Dr. Goldberg will be available for book-siging following the reading. The Sky Begins At Your Feet. For more information call 520/797-6852.

Sat., Jan. 16: 6 p.m., a reading from The Sky Begins At Your Feet :Finding the Sky That Begins At Our Feet As We Change and Age: Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg Reading From Her Memoir on Cancer, Community and Coming Home to the Body, following the Havdallah Service, Temple Emanu-El, 225 N. Country Club Road. The Sky Begins at Your Feet is a story of finding strength and beauty through our connections with each other, the earth and sky, and our own bodies. Come to a reading by the Poet Laureate of Kansas followed by an opportunity to write what holds light for each of us (reading aloud optional). 520/327-4501.

Sun., Jan. 17: 10 a.m. followed by a reception, Temple Emanu-El, 225 N. Country Club Road. “Landed: Poetry, Wonder, and the Power of the Word to Land Us in the Center of Our Own Hearts: A Reading with Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg.

Sunday, Jan. 17: 2 p.m., Historic Y Courtyard (5th Ave. and University) “Coming Home to Earth, Sky, Body and Community: A Reading with Kansas Poet Laureate Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg and Special Guest Jefferson Carter” sponsored by Sky Island Alliance. Jefferson Carter is the author of eight collections of poetry, most recently My Kind of Animal.