https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-4hwbz-19e1436

“Deaf and rejected, Luczak longs for visibility among those who erase him: class bullies, teachers, and even his mother, who goes to the grave unable to accept her gay son. I found myself rereading Ironhood, wanting to savor his writing.”

— Beverly Matherne, author of Potions d’amour, thés, incantations / Love Potions, Teas, Incantations

Sponsored by Modern History Press, Moravian Sons Distillery, author Terri Martin and Doc Chavent

In Ironhood, the acclaimed poet Raymond Luczak recalls the neighbors and shopkeepers he once knew while growing up in Ironwood, Michigan during the 1970s and 1980s. They included a scruffy man who smoked cheap cigars while tending to his fragrant backyard garden, a cat-eyed woman who stood watch over a sea of typewriters, a bald jeweler whose dexterous fingers repaired a watch’s minuscule innards, and tired cashiers in red smocks who dreamed at the western edge of town.

Listen in for a chance to win a signed copy of Ironhood.

Copyright (c) 2025 Emma Blogs, LLC.

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-p792z-19bb807

“Are You Okay

being the only one?

My favorite downstate teller asks,

holding photos of the lonely U.P. camper

and noting my nervousness.”

Sponsored by Modern History Press, Moravian Sons Distillery, Doc Chavent

At the age of sixty, Suzanne Sunshower moved into an ancient hunt camp trailer that no one had attempted to live in year-around before, which she named Bear Shack, in a remote area of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. This poetic collection is her story of adventure and adjustment.

Listen for a chance to win a signed copy of Still Wild.

Copyright (c) Emma Blogs, LLC. All rights reserved.

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-zsvdc-192d255

 The Caving Grounds excavates the rubble of Negaunee, a small town in Upper Michigan hollowed by a century of mining.

Sponsored by Moravian Sons Distillery, Doc Chavent and Author Lauren Perssons

The extraction of hematite caused underground collapses and sinkholes; undermined neighborhoods were deemed unstable; homes, churches and even cemeteries were moved, and dangerous areas fenced. Thankfully, a guide will emerge: Rusty.

“The ‘pick and hammer’ was historically used in cartography to indicate the location of a mine. It emerges from my love of maps, which I reference in several of the poems, and the sheer abundance of those mine symbols on old UP Michigan maps: hundreds of historic mines in the Marquette Iron Range alone,” Heideman said about the symbol on the cover.

Listen in for a chance to win a signed copy of The Caving Grounds.

Copyright (c) 2025. Emma Blogs, LLC. All rights reserved.

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-xrbjx-18e1ffb

In sixty short prose poems, Jon Stott, celebrates the timeless rhythms and unexpected events that mark the passage of the late spring and summer months beside a woodland lake in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Sponsored by Modern History Press, Moravian Sons Distillery https://moraviansonsdistillery.com, authors Brian Talarczyk and Jennifer Raines.

Beginning with his anticipation of departing from the “City of the Pavements Grey” (Albuquerque, New Mexico) and the excitement of arriving at “The Little Cabin in the Big Woods” after spending many months so far away, he then chronicles such simple events as the sighting of the tiny flowers of May, the first appearance of a loon chick riding on its parent’s back, the joyful noise of Fourth of July celebrations, the spotting of the first red maple leaves,

and the melancholy hours of packing up and closing the cabin for the season. The theme of wildblueberries runs through the book.

Listen in for a chance to win a signed copy of Wild Blueberry Summer.

Copyright (c) 2025. Emma Blogs, LLC. All rights reserved.

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-2gkiz-17b4e9a

In her poetry anthology “Roots in Water”, Kathy Johnson captured the simple moments in life that matter the most: the love and passion for what we do.

“The only thing you take with you at the end of your life is your love, not your bank notes, not your honors, not your book,” she said in the For the Love of Books Podcast episode hosted by author Emma Palova.

As a Chaplain for the local hospice in the Copper Country of the Upper Peninsula, Johnson has met her final inspiration. “The saddest people are those who have given up on various things in life.

I’ve come away from death more alive to human beings, the world, and self-worth.”

A stanza from Kathy Johnson’s poem “Ceremony” shows the poet’s passion for life. 

As the seasons turn

One to the next, so we travel

From East to West.

We rise and flow with the years.

Sponsored by Moravian Sons Distillery and Doc Chavent.

Listen to the podcast episode for a chance to win a signed copy of “Roots in Water.”

Copyright (c) 2025 Emma Palova. All rights reserved.

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-6wv35-174ec3e

Happy Thanksgiving.

A Bigfoot Bestiary and Other Wonders is a collection of poems that explores the mysteries of the human condition–from pain and loss to joy and friendship–all the big, hairy things that fill our lives with wonder and, sometimes, heartbreak. 

The poems in the book chase the mythical figure of Bigfoot through mountain and forest, trying to capture the greatest mystery of all–love.

Listen for a chance to win a signed copy of A Bigfoot Bestiary and Other Wonders.

Sponsored by @Moravian Sons Distillery and Doc Chavent.

Copyright (c) 2024. Emma Blogs, LLC. All rights reserved.

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-h2kf5-151ca72

Making reading time a bit more musical with Bingo Books.

Author librarian Cassie Veselovsky makes reading time a bit more musical in her sing-along books for the five-year-olds and under crowd, and their grown-ups.

“I’ve taken my old rhymes and converted them into books,” she said in the podcast interview.

A librarian of 40 years, Veselovsky also loves pairing books with readers to see the joy in kids’ eyes when they say, “I loved the book.”

In her sing-along books, Veselovsky matches up the rhymes with online purchased illustrations.

“Rhyming books are not easy,” she said, “so they don’t sound silly.”

She would like to disperse a common misconception about her Bingo Books that they are like a bingo game.

“They’re not a game,” she said. “They’re sing-along books with five-letter words.”

Veselovsky will be at Winter Whimsy in Hartford on Dec. 8.

She has attended Reading Rocks in Rockford, hosted by the Rockford branch of the KDL system.

Listen in for a chance to win a signed copy of ‘Tis the Season.“

Happy Holidays.

Sponsored by Doc Chavent and author Ed Bentley.

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-6tf6a-118b798

In his second book after Carbon Footprint, Donny Winter tackles issues beyond the glitz of stepping out as an LGBTQ+poet, educator, and activist.