Um, in which we lie in bed and discuss the books we are reading, Christopher making a political commercial, alarms, and my new book, The Spirits, which comes out October 13 (pre-order now from your favorite bookstore).

Shirley Clay Scott is a scholar of literary romanticism, and she was the former head of the Western Michigan University English Department--that is where I knew her. She later became Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Southern Illinois University and then Hunter College. She kindly joined a group of us at H House to share some stories about loving and living with literature and its writers.

Shirley read us a Ruth Stone poem called "Emily Dickinson."

In attendance at the recording were some of Shirley's students and former WMU faculty and graduates, whom you will hear asking her questions or making comments. including: Prof. Lisa Durose, Prof. Thomas Bailey, Prof. Katherine Joslin, and fiction writers Lisa Lenzo and Tamara Skidmore. Also on the recording are fiction writer Andy Mozina and naturalist Sass Havilar.

Shirley was born in 1939, and she currently lives with her son near Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Michigan Author Joe Heywood is the author of 28 books of fiction, including the Woods Cop Mystery series, and he is full of curiosity, wisdom, and plain good advice for writers. Unfortunately I started taping in the middle of his 5-minute master class in writing, so you only get half of it plus the thirty second summary. Listen to the end to hear his harrowing tale of going through a culvert and paying a price for it while "researching" with conservation officers in the U.P. I could talk with this guy all day!

I just read aloud the Constitution. There are a few hiccups, and I mention a few times where there are amendments, and also I left out the word "male" in one spot, but otherwise, this is me reading the Constitution of the United States of America.

Dawn Burns had a book release party at Everybody Reads in Lansing, Michigan, for her new creation from Cornerstone Press:

A Green Glow on the Horizon: Tales from the National Association of Tourist Attraction SurvivorsFor those of you could not attend, you can be a part of the joy by listening to this podcast! Scott Harris introduces Dawn!

Dawn's website is here: Dawn Burns – Writer. Connector. Creative Community Builder.

Now you can buy the book at your favorite independent bookstore and/or request you local library add the book to their collection. Below is some praise for the book from yours truly and others:

"A circus sideshow of small-town roadside attractions . . . tender, funny, and masterful narrative."

-Bonnie Jo Campbell, National Book Award Finalist

"With delicious humor and a masterful perception of the strangeness of the human condition, Dawn Burns writes characters you will never forget because they will haunt your dreams and follow you on road trips."

-Cait West, author of Rift

"These stories-testaments to joy and love, testimonies of insecurity and fear-ask you to bear witness to a great sewing together of threads into a perfectly unique, odd, unsettling-yet-comforting quilt of humanity."

-RS Deeren, author of Enough to Lose

"As daring as a high-wire act, and Dawn Burns walks that wire with no pauses and no missed steps. . . . wildly inventive, serenely wise, and delightfully zany.

-Valerie Sayers, author of The Age of Infidelity

"This book is a Matryoshka of Defamiliarized Detours. Turns out there is a there there, and you can get there from here."

-Michael Martone, author of Plain Air: Dispatches from Winesburg, Indiana

"No writer I know of captures the essential surrealism of childhood and adolescence better than Dawn Burns. . . . A Green Glow on the Horizon is a compelling concoction of reality and compassionate, shimmering imagination, breathed into life on the page by a master storyteller."

After a long struggle with a very cold snowy winter, Chris and I chat about chickens and eggs and more.

It was great to sit with my friend Andy Mozina at H House and talk about writing and the writing life on the eve of his retirement from teaching at K College. He's quite funny!

Born and raised in Milwaukee, Andy Mozina majored in economics at Northwestern, then dropped out of Harvard Law School to study literature and write. He’s published fiction in Tin House, Ecotone, McSweeney’s, The Southern Review, and elsewhere. His first story collection, The Women Were Leaving the Men, won the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award. Quality Snacks, his second collection, was a finalist for the Flannery O’Connor Prize. His first novel, Contrary Motion, was published by Spiegel & Grau/Penguin Random House. His fiction has received special citations in Best American Short Stories, Pushcart Prize, and New Stories from the Midwest.

What a pleasure to spend an hour talking with Kathi McGookey, a prose poet, introvert, mom, and all around great Michigan person. Here's her official bio: Kathleen McGookey has published five books and fourchapbooks of prose poems, most recently Paper Sky (Press 53) and Cloud Reports (Celery City Chapbooks). Her work hasappeared recently in journals including Copper Nickel, Epoch, Field, Los Angeles Review, North American Review, Prairie Schooner, and The Southern Review. It has also been featured on American Life in Poetry, Poetry Daily, and SWWIM Every Day. She lives in Middleville, Michigan.