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The Swine Republic

Posted on April 10, 2023 by Steve Semken

Takes a long hard look at the science, politics, culture, and economics of Iowa agriculture and the state’s degraded waters and connects the dots for everyone who wonders why progress toward improvement is so maddeningly slow in Iowa and the rest of the farmed Midwest. […]

Saved By Schindler

Posted on June 19, 2022 by Steve Semken

Celina Karp Biniaz was just eight years old when the Germans invaded her homeland of Poland in 1939. Over the next six years, the child from Krakow endured the Holocaust as the Nazis took away her schooling and civil rights, then herded her and her family into a ghetto. Life grew worse when the ghetto was liquidated, […]

The Ghost Of Craven Snuggs

Posted on June 15, 2022 by Steve Semken

A novel with a serious critique of the destruction caused by modern corporate agriculture and large-scale meat production. In the tradition of greats like Carl Hiaasen and Elmore Leonard. Mystery, CAFOs, and adventure in the Heartland. […]

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. […]

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. […]

The Long Way Home

Posted on February 18, 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. […]

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.’ […]

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. […]

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. […]

Creation of an Artist

Posted on May 17, 2020 by Steve Semken

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 […]

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 […]