Featured (tertiary section)

Soul External

Posted on February 6, 2014 by Steve Semken

Read the fanstastic review by Boria Sax. 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 […]

Prairie Gold Anthology

Posted on May 17, 2013 by Steve Semken

The Book: 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 […]

Dodge & Scramble

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Steve Semken

“In Dodge & Scramble Morgan Grayce Willow becomes the poet-cantor of the prairie. Through the music and poetry in “Sorghum and sugar beets./ Northrup King. DeKalb./ Archer Daniels Midland” she examines memory, place, and time set on the prairie, the essence of infinity. Willow intones, “…wither us backwards into time” and “…place/that remembers itself as […]

For The Love of Pete

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Steve Semken

News stories on the book. Praise of For The Love of Pete A captivating historical novel for both children and adults. A well woven story of historical fact and adventure. Following the unlikely murder of their mother, Iris and her sister Rosie flee a New York tenement and begin their struggle to survive on the […]

The Sky Begins At Your Feet

Posted on March 2, 2011 by Steve Semken

Starred Review Library Journal A memoir on cancer, community, and coming home to the body. “I cannot figure out who I am as a body these days,” writes Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg in this powerful, tender and humorous memoir about resiliency and love in the face of cancer. Mirriam-Goldberg braves breast cancer, the breast cancer genetic mutation […]

Grace of Grass and Water

Posted on March 2, 2011 by Steve Semken

The late Minnesota author Paul Gruchow was often described as beautifully intense, bard-like and prophetic. While plying his talents as seer and naturalist, Gruchow was also a master of trenchant insight into the right ways of living, as well as the foibles and hypocrisies of modern society. This collection honors the memory of Paul Gruchow through the words of […]

Letters To A Young Iowan

Posted on March 2, 2011 by Steve Semken

A perfect gift for a graduate in your life. A homesick relative. A welcome home coming or house warming gift. Insert your own letter inside the front cover. What’s the single most important piece of advice you would share with a young Iowan growing up, or coming of age in the Hawkeye state? Editor and […]

The Desert Pilgrim

Posted on March 2, 2011 by Steve Semken

9781888160338, 296pgs This re-release of a classic includes a new Afterword, a new icon cover just for the book, as well as improved design. All in order to keep this vital and important exploration of mysticism and miracles alive and well. Injured in a car accident, Swander made a pilgrimage to New Mexico where she […]

The Liberation of the Concentration Camps

Posted on March 2, 2011 by Steve Semken

A captivating, exceptional, and rational collection of accounts from concentration camp survivors who eventually ended up living in Des Moines, Iowa, following World War II. Interviews performed by Adele Anolik. Adele was commended by Elie Wiesel for her interviews and work on this book. […]

The Day Our World Changed

Posted on March 2, 2011 by Steve Semken

The Day Our World Changed: Punahou ’52 Remembers Pearl Harbor. This collection of eighty-four stories is written by classmates of Punahou school in Hawai`i, who, although living in various places, were primary students on December 7, 1941, when Pearl Harbor was attacked. This day changed all their lives. These shared memories and vivid recollections […]

Train To Nowhere

Posted on March 1, 2011 by Steve Semken

As Seen On Iowa Public Television! This event was widely covered by national news media, major television news networks as well as The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune. Now find out what really happened! Eleven undocumented immigrants are locked inside a baking railcar by smugglers and left to die a horrific death […]

An Endless Skyway

Posted on February 24, 2011 by Steve Semken

$21.95 | More Copies On Order Ted Kooser, former US Poet Laureate, on An Endless Sky: Poetry from the State Poets Laureate: “Each poet adds a unique style to the anthology and a unique slant on what it means to write … this book is made for everyone to roam and ramble within. Open these pages […]