Featured (tertiary section)

On Common Ground

Posted on March 17, 2023 by Steve Semken

An exciting multidisciplinary, multimodal project and partnership between the arts and sciences. This convergence of writers, naturalists, artists, and various –ologists took place in the fall of 2021 in the northern Loess Hills. […]

Marrying Kind

Posted on November 22, 2022 by Steve Semken

K. L. Cook | ISBN 9781948509114 | 302p | $21.95 | Short Stories “The collection ends with a definitive bang, and demonstrates how, in an excellently crafted story collection, the whole is always more than the sum of its parts. Cook’s Marrying Kind delivers just as much complexity and nuance as any novel, while providing […]

The Art of Disobedience

Posted on November 14, 2022 by Steve Semken

The Art of Disobedience: Essays on Form, Fiction, and Influence. | 21.95 | ISBN 9781948509145 | Essays On Writing | Available NOW The best art is always disobedient. The creative works that move us, compel us, provoke us, haunt us, and transform us—the works that matter most to us and that we cherish—break the rules […]

Brother’s Blood

Posted on April 16, 2022 by Steve Semken

Update: Ice Cube Press true life murder mystery book Brother’s Blood: A Heartland Cain and Abel has been optioned by USA network’s Sirens star Michael Mosley. The book that is featured on Discovery Investigation’s television channel watch on YouTube Book available direct or through amazon.com, kindle, or nook A real-life crime drama recounted by Scott […]

The Land Remains

Posted on February 22, 2022 by Steve Semken

Blends personal memoir, a history of Iowa land conservation, an analysis of contemporary issues of soil health, water quality, public lands, and future challenges to tell how land shapes our lives. A family farmer and expert agricultural lawyer delivers a dedicated conservationist’s assessment of the past, present and future of American soil. […]

The Long Way Home

Posted on February 20, 2022 by Steve Semken

In a world of shortcuts, a book that embraces the long way. Here are detours of discovery, a spiritual wayfinding through the wilderness of time and memory. […]

Slippery Steps

Posted on February 19, 2022 by Steve Semken

Slippery Steps isn’t your typical, hell-and-back recovery memoir. I never intended to quit drinking, rarely gave it a thought. I’d spent decades as a successful and productive journalist. I was a loving husband and father. My life worked, and worked well. Until it didn’t. Freedom from drinking has enriched my life in ways I’d never imagined. […]

Bach and the Blues

Posted on December 6, 2021 by Steve Semken

Cellomaster Pablo Casals and ‘King of the Delta Blues’ Robert Johnson recorded iconic albums the very same week in history. Late November 1936. In Spain, Pablo was dealing with an erupting World War II. While in America’s ‘Jim Crow’ South, Robert was dealing with racism and the ‘Great Depression.’ […]

Sneezing Coyotes

Posted on October 22, 2021 by Steve Semken

Sneezing Coyotes | Salvatore Marici | $19.99 | 9781948509312 | Poetry | Travel | Interview with Writer’s Voices Read the Toasted Cheese piece Read book review Review at Toasted Cheese Engaging interview on WVIK-NPR on Talking Art A short interesting interview with the author on Des Moines’ Culture Buzz Show Watch this interview with the […]

A Playbill for Sunset

Posted on October 1, 2021 by Steve Semken

Post-Modern Blues

Posted on September 20, 2021 by Steve Semken

Post-Modern Blues: love, lost loves, mortality, time, death, sex, connection, a soupçon of politics, the weather, and the vicissitudes of daily distraction—and yet more love, because obsessions do not change. […]

The History of Orthodontics Through Time & Space

Posted on August 12, 2021 by Steve Semken

Long time Midwest artists Craig Campbell and Priscilla Steele give us a unique, entertaining, colorful, and fascinating take on a seemingly everyday topic—devising a fully transformed adventure full of magic and charm. There are stories all around us and this one moves from the heart of creativity … […]

Moon of the Snow Blind

Posted on August 3, 2021 by Steve Semken

The Spirit Lake Incident in March of 1857 was a dark moment in Midwestern History, incited by indigenous resistance to their loss of homeland culture, and people. A number of white settlers in northwest Iowa’s lakes region were killed. Four female survivors were taken by lnkpaduta and his band of Dakota Sioux. […]

Our Friend Sitting Bull

Posted on July 13, 2021 by Steve Semken

A long journey to homestead and in pioneer spirit the Dell’s moved from Iowa to the Dakota territory. Travel, food, children and hardships awaited them as they worked to achieve their dreams. Along the way, a friendship developed with well-known Lakota Chief Sitting Bull. A humble and educational story. […]

Birds In The Morning

Posted on April 9, 2021 by Steve Semken

Lyrical meditations on rural life braided with observations from her global public health and medical practice with struggles raising an autistic son and all the beauty and challenges brought by the creatures that surround her wild Iowa home. An instant environmental classic. An updated Leopold Land Ethics book. […]

The White Man Who Stayed

Posted on December 22, 2020 by Steve Semken

A timely and useful look at race in US History by James Autry with an introduction by well-known author/media host Bill Moyers […]