A PATHWAY TO PUBLISHING When I was a kid I loathed reading.  Couldn’t understand how anyone could have the patience to read two hundred or a thousand pages of . . .  words.  My minimally schooled parents each bore the emblem of being readers—namely, excellent grammar and usage, and familiarity with a wide range of topics.  But I didn’t get it.  To me life was roaming the fields and woods with a rifle or fishing rod, playing baseball, or building model airplanes and radios.  I did whatever reading was required for school (almost nothing in those days), but basically books … Continue reading Guest Blog: Kevin H. Siepel

Well bloggers it hotter than … (well, you know) outside. So to try and get our minds out of the heat this week’s Tuesday Trivia is going to take a look at UNP’s new book, Authentic Alaska II: Voices of the Far North, edited by Susan B. Andrews and John Creed.  Showcasing writers from the Arctic Ocean to the Southeast Alaska rainforests, their stories account for the diverse and unique culture this state has to offer. Their sometimes intimate pieces touch on everything from Global Warming to a mothers fight for her son to go to college. This sequel to … Continue reading Tuesday Trivia: July 21, 2007

Reaching for the Brass Ring

By Beth Boosalis Davis, author of Mayor Helen Boosalis: My Mother’s Life in Politics

Flat on my back and sick as I’d ever been, I managed to write on the back of a nearby dental reminder card a specific timetable to do something I’d never before considered – write a book about my mother, Helen Boosalis, and her political life. Days later, after I recovered, I studied my scratchy bedside notes expecting to dismiss them as some delusional sickbed rant. Instead, I realized writing my mother’s story had not come out-of-the-blue but rather from a desire buried deep within. Perhaps my illness had knocked me into a rare state of stillness, a state where something deeper than the next to-do item on my list could command my attention.

Even with clarity of purpose I still had practical matters to consider, such as the fact that I knew nothing about what was involved in writing a book.  I may not have doubted the goal but I certainly doubted my ability to achieve it. That’s when I recalled advice my mother was given when she hesitated to jump into her first race for mayor:  “the brass ring may not come round again.”  I had my timetable, I had my parents still with me, I had my husband’s support.  Time to reach for the brass ring.

I didn’t presume to think I could just sit down and type out a book, no matter how familiar the subject.  First I converted a little-used 8 X 9 feet space to a “room of my own” for writing.  I started journaling, and on my daily walks along Lake Michigan I practiced by writing three descriptions of the lake each day. I bought several books on writing and even read a few, hoping the rest would be absorbed through osmosis. 

Continue reading “Author Guest Blog: Beth Boosalis Davis”

                                                    Linking the Bases!       New this month from the University of Nebraska Press, is Clearing the Bases: The Greatest Baseball Debates of the Last Century by Allen Barra. I know at one time or another we have all asked ourselves who the greatest baseball player is in the last century? Ok, may not ALL of us (such as myself), but we cannot deny that someone, somewhere, has probably asked this at some time.  We also cannot deny the pervasive influence sports … Continue reading Lincoln in Linking: July 17, 2008

                                                         IT’S A REBEL TUESDAY! New from the University of Nebraska Press is Rebel: The Life and Times of John Singleton Mosby by Kevin H. Siepel. Rebel is the first complete biography of the Confederacy’s best-known partisan commander, John Singleton Mosby, the “Gray Ghost.” A practicing attorney in Virginia and at first a reluctant soldier, in 1861 Mosby took to soldiering with a vengeance, becoming one of the Confederate army’s highest-profile officers, known especially for his cavalry battalion’s continued and effective harassment of … Continue reading Tuesday Trivia: July 15, 2008

Keith Newlin, author of the biography Hamlin Garland: A Life, was recently interviewed on the Donna Seebo Show. The author discusses a variety of topics during the program, including how he discovered Hamlin Garland as well as the agricultural environment in which Garland grew up and then chose to leave for a writing career. Listen to the interview from the BBSRadio link at the bottom of the author’s web page: http://people.uncw.edu/newlink/Garland_Bio_info.htm Keith Newlin’s biography of Hamlin Garland is the first to be published in over 40 years. In recognition of his achievements in literature, Hamlin Garland (1860–1940) received four honorary … Continue reading Hamlin Garland Biographer Interviewed on the Donna Seebo Show

New this month from the University of Nebraska Press, Genealogies of Orientalism: History, Theory, Politics edited by Edmund Burke III and David Prochaska is a series of essays that argue for the extension upon Edward Said’s 1978 book, Orientalism, to explore what lies in beyond the title. With this collection they suggest that a look into the past as well as a re-evaluation of the theory is necessary for a multifaceted approach. This week Linking in Lincoln, is also going to take a comprehensive approach to this segment of the world, and see what it has to offer! Interested in … Continue reading Linking in Lincoln: July 10, 2008