UP Reader -- Volume #7 - Bringing Upper Michigan Literature to the World

Mikel B Classen, Deborah K Frontiera

Summary

Michigan's Upper Peninsula is blessed with a treasure trove of storytellers, poets, and historians, all seeking to capture a sense of Yooper Life from settler's days to the far-flung future. Since 2017, the U.P. Reader offers a rich collection of their voices that embraces the U.P.'s natural beauty and way of life, along with a few surprises. The sixty short works in this 7th annual volume take readers on U.P. road and boat trips from the Keweenaw to the Soo. Every page is rich with descriptions of the characters and culture that make the Upper Peninsula worth living in and writing about. U.P. writers span genres from humor to history and from science fiction to poetry. This issue also includes imaginative fiction from the Dandelion Cottage Short Story Award winners, honoring the amazing young writers enrolled in all of the U.P.'s schools. Featuring the words of Mikel B Classen, Sharon Kennedy, Ellen Lord, Deborah K Frontiera, Bill Sproule, Maria Vezzetti Matson, Tamara Lauder, Tyler R Tichelaar, Emilie Lancour, M Kelly Peach, Richard Hill, Roslyn McGrath, Becky Ross Michael, Julie Dickerson, John Adamcik, August Whitney, Tricia Carr, Elizabeth Fust,Ninie Gaspariani Syarikin, Mack Hassler, Donna Searight Simons, Leigh Mills, Raymond Luczak,J L Hagen, Nina Craig,Art Curtis, Brandy Thomas,Kathleen Carlton Johnson, Chris Kent, Ben Bohnsack, Edd Tury, Allan Koski,Jaclyn Jukkala, Lilli Gast, Miah Billie, Halle Wakkuri, Serah Oommen, and Betty Harriman. "Funny, wise, or speculative, the essays, memoirs, and poems found in the pages of these profusely illustrated annuals are windows to the history, soul, and spirit of both the exceptional land and people found in Michigan's remarkable U.P. If you seek some great writing about the northernmost of the state's two peninsulas look around for copies of the U.P. Reader. --Tom Powers, Michigan in Books "U.P. Reader offers a wonderful mix of storytelling, poetry, and Yooper culture. Here's to many future volumes!" --Sonny Longtine, author of Murder in Michigan's Upper Peninsula "As readers embark upon this storied landscape, they learn that the people of Michigan's Upper Peninsula offer a unique voice, a tribute to a timeless place too long silent." --Sue Harrison, international bestselling author of Mother Earth Father Sky The U.P. Reader is sponsored by the Upper Peninsula Publishers and Authors Association (UPPAA) a non-profit corporation. A portion of proceeds from each copy sold will be donated to the UPPAA for its educational programming.

Available since: 04/01/2023.

Print length: 172 pages.

Other books that might interest you

Book summary & analysis of...

Briefly Summaries

This is a concise summary and analysis of Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer. It is not the original book and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Ideal for those seeking a quick and insightful overview.
 
Braiding Sweetgrass is a meditative exploration of the intersection between science, culture, and the natural world. Blending Indigenous wisdom with ecological knowledge, the book invites readers to reimagine their relationship with nature through stories, reflections, and lessons grounded in reciprocity and respect. Through the lens of botany and personal experience, it portrays plants not just as resources, but as teachers and relatives—offering a poetic call to heal the human connection with the Earth.

Show book

Fastovski's Tales of Hampstead -...

Wallace Fields

Imagine that Isaac Babel’s Cossacks wassail together with Runyonesque Liverpool Jews outside the plate-glass window of a Hampstead café where a Klezmer band is playing to a packed and tea-drinking congregation of jazzmen, Hasidic scholars, surrealists, old soldiers, and retired 
strippers; and you have the tone and temperature of this unique and unclassifiable memoir – no, not memoir, more a stream-of-consciousness novella – no, not a novella but a piece of autobiographical fiction – no, not autobiography but a picaresque drama conquered from the 
unreliable and fertile brain of the eponymous Fastovski.And who is Fastovski? Is he real or invented? Is he perhaps the alter-ego of real-life jazz pianist, Klezmer swinger, big band leader and flaneur, Wallace Fields, who stares at us from the book’s frontispiece in shades, Diaghilev coat and moustache, over a cup of strong black coffee? 
Fastovski’s not telling and anyway, who cares.This is a book to be devoured, disseminated, denounced, and delighted in. It belongs to all who think art and life are one and that the Arch-Savant of Canterbury, Issy Bonn, Rashid the Manic Berber Chef of NW3, and Mrs Karl Popper, have an equal claim on history. I haven’t had such a good time since I shared Sir Ralph Richardson’s motorbike with a parrot and a striking grandmother clock.Piers PlowrightAugust 2008

Show book

Biscuit Days - A Business...

Chew Soo Beng

Thirty years ago, a fully operational biscuit factory was available in China as a joint venture at a fraction of the cost of building a new one. My two brothers and a sister thought the prospect exciting and, above all, a bargain. Within a few months we were China-bound. A band of siblings embarking on an enterprise with only the skimpiest of business plan, but full of determination and enthusiasm. Together, we faced the travails of biscuit making and the guile of business ways.

Show book

Russian Short Story The - Volume...

Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev,...

The Russian novel has a reputation that is immense, both in narrative and in length.  Unquestionably though the ideas, themes and characters make many novels rightly revered as world class, as icons of literature. 
 
Perhaps an easier way to enjoy a wider selection of the Russian heritage, with its varied and glorious literary talents, is with the short story.  These gems sparkle and beguile the mind with their characters and narrative, exploring facets of society and the human condition that more Western authors somehow find more difficult to navigate, or to explore, explain and relate to.   
 
The Russian short story is, in many respects, in a genre of its own.  It is at its captivating best whether it’s an exploration of real-life experiences, through fantasy and fables and on to total absurdity. 
 
In a land so vast it is unsurprising that it is a world almost unto itself. Cultures and landscapes of differing hues are packed together bound only by the wilful bonds and force of Empire. 
 
The stories in this collection traverse the decades where one might be a serf under an absolute monarch, and the reality of that was pretty near to slavery, into an emancipation of sorts in the fields, or towns under the despotic will of landowners and the rich into the upheavals of Empire and then the overthrow of the ruling class and its replacement by the communists, who promised equality for all and delivered a society where the down-trodden remained the lowest yet vital cog of the state machine and its will.  
 
Whilst Tolstoy, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Pushkin and Chekhov are a given in any Russian collection we also explore and include Andreyev, Korolenko, Turgenev, Blavatsky and many others to create a world rich and dense across a sprawling landscape of diverse people, riddled with the class and unfairness in perhaps some of the most turbulent times that Russia has ever experienced. 
 
01 - The Russian Short Story - Volume 2 - An Introduction 
02 - Diary of a Madman by Nikolai Gogol 
03 - Taman by Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov 
04 - The Jew by Ivan Turgenev 
05 - The Rendezvous by Ivan Turgenev 
06 - A Strange Story by Ivan Turgenev 
07 - Mumu by Ivan Turgenev 
08 - The District Doctor by Ivan Turgenev 
09 - The Dream of a Ridiculous Man by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 
10 - The Beggar Boy at Christ's Christmas Tree by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Show book

Self-Reliance - Embrace Your...

Ralph Waldo Emerson

What if you could trust yourself fully, embrace your individuality, and unlock the power of true independence? 
Self-Reliance: Embrace Your Individuality and Unlock True Independence brings you the timeless wisdom of Ralph Waldo Emerson, carefully adapted for today’s readers. Originally written in the 19th century, Self-Reliance remains a powerful guide to authenticity, confidence, and purpose. Emerson urges us to trust our inner voice, break free from conformity, and live life on our own terms.What You’ll Discover:The Power of Self-Trust – Build confidence by listening to your inner voice.Breaking Free from Conformity – Embrace individuality and rise above societal pressures.A Roadmap to True Independence – Live authentically, make bold decisions, and find fulfillment.Clear, Modernized Language – Experience Emerson’s wisdom in an accessible and practical style. 
For over a century, Emerson’s message has inspired individuals to trust themselves, think independently, and create a life of purpose. Now, it’s your turn. 
Think boldly, act with conviction, and live authentically. 
Get your copy today and start your journey toward true independence.

Show book

Time And The Gods - The Book...

Lord Dunsany

Lord Dunsany was the most influential writer in the genre that came to be known as fantasy, of which his stories set trends for that continue to this day.He was an influence on Tolkien, Lovecraft, Gaiman, Borges, Clarke, Moorcock, Yeats, Le Guin and many more besides. Worlds of monsters and magic, of strange names and stranger tales, were all born in Dunsany’s work. Before him, the closest thing to fantasy that existed was folktales; after him, people built worlds beyond imagining and epic stories in the lands he first explored.

Show book