McLean & Eakin Booksellers: Another One of My Favorite Bookstores

Posted on April 21, 2025 by youngv2015

McLean & Eakin Booksellers (Lake Street Entrance) is conveniently located next to a coffee and sandwich shop. April 2025

McLean & Eakin Booksellers is located in downtown Petoskey, Michigan, on Lake Street, in what is referred to as the Gaslight District. It’s been a shopping district for over one hundred years. Many of the old gas lamp posts, while now electrified, still remain.

The view from the front of the store, April 2025

McLean & Eakin was established thirty-three years ago in 1992 and has remained in the same family. It’s located in the G & A Building, built in 1907. The initials stand for Guleserian and Altoonjian, two Armenian immigrants who ran a Persian Bazaar on the first floor of the building and rented the second floor to the Petoskey Normal and Business College. It’s fun to imagine all of the people who shopped for goods that would have come from the Middle East and Asia. Perhaps they bought a Persian rug, or a piece of ornate furniture, or an exquisite painting. Over the years other businesses came and went, including a women’s clothing store during the 1950s and 1960s.

“Hey,” I thought, “I’m reading that book!”

A couple of days ago when I walked into the store, I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger, a book I’m currently reading, welcomed me. At the checkout counter, I discovered a display dedicated to Enger’s novels and an announcement that he would be appearing at an author event in Petoskey. The clerk told me that the owner of McLean & Eakin is a huge Leif Enger fan. I own all of Enger’s novels, so I bought The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon, which is supposed to be a wonderful historical novel. The story, inspired by a real midwife’s diary, takes place in Maine in 1789.

Leif Enger will be doing an author event in Petoskey on April 23, 2025.

From the outside one might expect McLean & Eakin to be quite small, but it’s two stories, so customers will find plenty of titles. The main entrance is on Lake Street, but if you go around the block to the back of the building, you’ll find another entrance, also at street level but one story lower. The G & A Building, like many structures in Petoskey, was built into a hill.

The staff is always friendly and helpful. On more than one occasion, I’ve watched a clerk function as a human algorithm: A customer feeds the clerk titles of books they’ve enjoyed, and the clerk starts suggesting other books they might like.

McLean & Eakin offers a rewards program, and even though I live over nine hours away, I joined. At first I resisted because I lived so far away. But as I traveled to Petoskey more frequently, and as every trip included at least one visit to the bookstore, I signed up. There is no fee to join the rewards program, and I realized it was financially foolish not to belong. For every $100 dollars I spend, I receive a ten-dollar coupon. On this trip to the bookstore, I earned my third coupon since enrolling in their rewards program.

In addition to books, customers can shop for greeting cards, stationery, writing journals, puzzles, games, candles, stickers, coffee mugs, socks, and other miscellaneous items. At the back of the store on the main level is a charming children’s section.

At one time people could walk into the Persian Bazaar and take home a piece of a faraway world. Today people can walk into McLean & Eakin, buy a book, and read themselves into another world. After I finish I Cheerfully Refuse, which has taken me forward in time to northeastern Minnesota along Lake Superior, I will read The Frozen River, which will take me back to 1789 in Maine.

An Afternoon at the Opera with Puccini’s La Bohème

Posted on March 30, 2025 by youngv2015

I went to see a live opera because it was on my list of things to do. (In case you’re wondering, I signed up for Medicare a few months before going to my first opera.) I had such a good time that I want to share some thoughts about my experience, but first I should point out my shortcomings as an opera critic.

I have no training in opera.

I don’t understand opera’s conventions. (Other than there is a lot of singing, which crescendos into an epic climax of either joyful or tragic proportions at the end of the opera.)

The Jenny Lind biography I read as a fourth or fifth grader.

My exposure to opera as a child consisted of two events. One, in fourth grade I read a biography about Jenny Lind, an opera singer known as the Swedish Nightingale. This didn’t encourage me to learn more about opera. Instead, I just fancied myself to be the next Jenny Lind. I would sit by my second-story bedroom window and sing out into the neighborhood (with what I considered to be a lovely operatic voice) because that is what Lind did as a child. People passing by Lind’s window listened to her beautiful singing, and one passerby discovered her talent and helped her down the path to stardom. Only Mr. Geise’s cows across the road heard me sing, and none of them mooed about my talent.

Two, when I was about twelve, I saw Beverly Sills, a talented soprano, perform on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. I loved her voice and her flowing red hair. When Carson interviewed her, I fell for her wit and laughter. Over a handful of years, I saw Sills make appearances on various talk shows during the 1970s, but I never saw her in an opera. She was a gifted and well-respected opera singer, but it was the talk-show circuit that made her a household name and gave her celebrity status. Even people who knew nothing about opera, like me, usually knew who Sills was.

So, anything I say about my La Bohème experience isn’t intended to resemble a critique or a review. Also, I truly loved my debut at the opera, so my comments come from a place of affection, even if they sound cheeky.

I chose La Bohème to be my first opera because that’s what the Lyric Opera of the North performed this year. It’s a famous opera, so I’d heard of it. It’s the opera that Ronnie Cammareri (Nicholas Cage) takes Loretta Castorini (Cher) to see in Moonstruck. Ronnie knew what he was doing — Loretta loved the opera. And, this is where Loretta falls in love with Ronnie.

Because La Bohème is written in Italian, I read a synopsis of the libretto before attending the opera. While reading about La Bohème, I came across some unflattering critiques of Puccini’s opera — calling his musical composition simplistic, lacking in complexity, yada, yada, yada. For a moment, I wondered if I should wait to see a different opera. Then I remembered all the beautiful singing and music in Moonstruck’s La Bohème scene. I also learned that La Bohème has been performed over 1,000 times at the Met. So, not the first time critics have panned something that people love anyway. Besides, what would I know about the musical composition of an opera.

So, here’s what I loved about my first opera:

I loved that the set design evoked a shabby-chic slice of Paris with a romanticized version of poverty, you know, without the half-starved rats, the rubbish in the streets, and the ever-present layer of grime. The rich jewel-toned costumes complimented the pastel-colored sets, like a well-chosen pair of earrings and necklace elevates an evening gown. After all, gritty reality is overrated. When we know that in the end a lovely young woman will die a tragic death while in the arms of her lover, we want some beauty along the way.
I loved that on a long, narrow screen above the stage, an English translation of the Italian libretto scrolled by as the singers trilled, vibratoed, bel cantoed, and otherwise sang their way through scenes of comedy, anger, and tragedy. The subtitles provided a line-by-line translation. Without it, I would’ve missed out on so much of the story. I thought this was unique to the venue I attended, but a friend of mine said when she saw an opera in Michigan there were subtitles.
I loved that the melodramatic, over-the-top, corny libretto sounded brilliant when sung in Italian. More than once, as I read the English translation, I thought, “As a writer, I could never get away with such sappy, syrupy, trite dialogue.” (Perhaps my characters should speak Italian.)
I loved that although the pageantry on the stage was gorgeous, it was upstaged by operatic voices so strong, crisp, and clear, producing sounds so bewitching that I couldn’t believe they flowed from human voice boxes.
I loved the magnificent, glorious, wrenching tragedy of it all. How can anyone hear Mimi ask, “Will my hands never be warm again?” and not shed a tear? (Charles Dickens would’ve loved to have written that line.)
I loved that at the end of the opera, as Mimi reclines upon her couch in her freezing apartment, dying of tuberculosis, she sings her heart out with Rodolfo, the love of her life, reminiscing about their time together. Having read a book about dreaded plagues, which included a chapter about tuberculosis, the incongruity of performing an operatic finale when one would be coughing up blood and gasping for air, stuck me as darkly humorous. But I kicked the cold, hard reality from my mind, and I let Mimi and Rodolfo’s final moment together carry me away.

After the performers took their final bows, I left the theater knowing I would definitely see another opera. A few months later, I went to see La Serva Padrona, a light-hearted intermezzo by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, which was translated into a modern English version by Steve Solkela. I loved everything about it.

In the movie Pretty Woman, Edward Lewis (Richard Gere) takes Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts) to see her first opera, La traviata by Giuseppe Verdi. Before the performance begins, it’s apparent that Edward hopes Vivian will love opera as much as he does. As the final song ends and Violetta dies in the arms of her lover (of course), Edward looks at Vivian and sees her eyes have pooled with tears and her face is filled with rapture. At this moment, Edward realizes Vivan has a depth beyond his stereotype of hookers. He has fallen in love with Vivan, he just doesn’t know it yet.

When another woman asks Vivan if she enjoyed the opera, Vivian answers, “Oh, it was so good I almost peed my pants.” Vivan, like me, doesn’t know how to talk about the conventions of opera, but she knows what she likes.

Book Review: Realm of Ice and Sky: Triumph, Tragedy, and History’s Greatest Arctic Rescue by Buddy Levy

Posted on March 22, 2025 by youngv2015

Its belly wounded, the Italia hangs in the air, brooding over a group of explorers who stand on the frozen, barren Arctic snow. The sun flames between the sky and the ice, perhaps a promise, perhaps an omen. The cover art compelled me to buy the book.

The title, Realm of Ice and Sky, invited me to enter a world ruled by those two endless and formidable expanses and to meet the men who risked their lives, their money, and their reputations in search of fame and glory and discovery as they vied for the North Pole and a place in history.

The subtitle, Triumph, Tragedy, and History’s Greatest Arctic Rescue, promised me a shipwreck story of sorts, and I love nonfiction books about shipwrecks.

Each night I would sit on my cushy couch with a patchwork quilt over my legs and enter the realm of ice and sky. I followed the adventures of Walter Wellman, Roald Amundsen, and Umberto Nobile, who were all driven by an inner desire to venture into a dangerous and largely unknown world, reaching for a sense of immortality.

While Levy’s book isn’t a biography, he does delve into the lives of Wellman, Amundsen, and Nobile just enough to give readers a glimpse of who those men were and what inspired them to leave the comforts of civilization and venture into the hostile and largely unexplored regions of the Arctic. Wellman, Amundsen, and Nobile were all talented, knowledgeable explorers, who, when it arrived, faced adversity and danger with calmness and bravery.

But Levy refrains from portraying these men simply as heroic figures because, although they could be heroic, they also had their faults. In the early 1900s, Polar explorers were a small, tightly-knit group who looked out for one another. However, they could also be aroused by petty jealousies that sometimes became public disputes, which their fans eagerly followed in the newspapers and radio broadcasts of the day.

The beauty of Levy’s book goes far beyond its cover. Levy’s talent for clear descriptive writing lets readers easily imagine the enormity of the airships, marvel at their mechanical intricacies, and hold their breath as the crews battle against the unpredictable Arctic weather of ice, snow, rain, hail, and gale-force winds. Readers can picture the magnificent views from the top of the world: the midnight sun, the blindingly-white snow, and the changing hues of the ice floes and water.

Levy, an award-winning author, deftly weaves together the stories of explorers who conquered the earth’s last frontier, the rise of airships, and the dawn of the golden age of radio. Starting with Wellman, explorers could send messages via radio transmissions to the outside world, giving almost real-time updates of their progress, which then appeared in newspapers and radio broadcasts, feeding a public who hungered for the thrilling news of the Arctic explorations. It’s been almost a hundred years since the airship Italia flew over the North Pole, but stories of daring explorers still fascinate us, especially when told in the capable hands of an author like Buddy Levy. [For more about Levy and his work, click here.]

In addition to a well-written and well-researched story, readers will appreciate the book’s extras. Maps at the beginning of the book track the different flights and give readers a better understanding of the geography of the North Pole and Arctic Circle. The table of contents and index make it easy to find information. At the end of the book, there is a glossary of airship and aviation terms, a list of each expedition and the crew members who participated, and a bibliography. Sixteen pages of wonderful photographs are also included.

I liked this book so much that I plan to read two other books by Levy: Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk and River of Darkness: Francisco Orellana and the Deadly First Voyage Through the Amazon.

__________________________________________________________

A short story suggestion:

“Love and Hydrogen” by Jim Shepard

Shepard’s historical short story takes place in May 1937 aboard the Hindenburg while on its doomed flight from Frankfurt, Germany, to Lakehurst, New Jersey. Among the ninety-seven people aboard the airship are two male crew members who are in love with each other. It’s a powerful story, written with a lyrical heaviness that foreshadows both the impending explosion of the Hindenburg, and the looming disaster of World War II.

Some extra thoughts:

Until I saw this book, I had no idea that dirigibles had been used in Arctic explorations. I knew only two things about these airships. One, that the Hindenburg had exploded in Lakehurst, New Jersey, in 1937, killing thirty-six people. In my high school history class, we watched the newsreel footage of the explosion and fire, while we heard the radio reporter’s poignant utterance, “Oh, the humanity” as the burning airship crashed on the ground. My second experience with airships was watching the Goodyear Blimp fly above arenas in order to provide overhead coverage of sporting events.

After reading Realm of Ice and Sky, I did a little research on dirigibles. Below is a YouTube video about the USS Akron disaster, which had seventy-three fatalities compared to the Hindenburg‘s thirty-six. It’s about ten minutes long and very interesting. [Footage of the Hindenburg disaster is easy to find on YouTube.]

My Replacement Mittens Arrived!

Posted on March 14, 2025 by youngv2015

(Some of you may have read my blog about my lost mitten. About my buying another pair online. And about one of the new mittens arriving with a twisted lining. If not, you can click on A Lost Mitten to read that blog if you wish.)

My replacement mittens: I now have two left mittens and one right mitten. My mother also gave me the hat for Christmas.

On Monday, March 3, my new mittens arrived. I pulled the bag from the mailbox, and crossed my fingers as I hoped they would fit and be without defect. After I went inside, I opened the bag and tried on the mittens. They fit fine. They were a perfect match. And they looked well-made.

The journey of my mittens was well documented. After the company received the pair with the defective mitten, they sent me an email telling me that my replacement mittens were on their way. They provided me with a tracking number, so I could follow their journey as they made their way from the East Coast to my Midwest mailbox. They sent me another email after my mittens were delivered.

Remember the old days when we ordered something from a catalog, then waited? There were no emails or text alerts to tell us something was on the way. We couldn’t track it as it left a warehouse, arrived at a shipping center, then showed up at our local delivery facility where it would be loaded onto a small truck headed to its final destination. We didn’t get an email announcing our package’s arrival with a photo of it resting against our front door.

But receiving those emails from the company was reassuring. After all, the original pair of mittens had been a Christmas gift from my mother.

All that communication about my defective mitten and the replacement mittens made me think about a two-week summer romance I had with a boy when I was fifteen. We parted with promises to write to each other. I wrote to him and received a letter from him in return. So I wrote again.

Every day I ran to the mailbox, flung open the flap, and grabbed the mail. I shuffled through bills and advertisements, but he never wrote back. Perhaps waiting for my new mittens reminded me of the boy because I waited for a second letter from him with the same hope I had while waiting for my replacement mittens. I wanted both his letter and my mittens to be perfect.

I pined for that boy, every day.

After each day’s disappointing trip to the mailbox, I’d sit on my bed and hold his one-and-only letter and sing the words to “Daisy a Day.” Tears would gather in my eyes. I’d blink them back, but occasionally one would break loose and roll down my cheek. (My unrequited love for that boy hurt almost as much as when I had a supersized crush on Donny Osmond, who never answered even one of my love letters. To think of all the money I wasted on Tiger Beat Magazine.)

Next, I’d play a John Denver album and sing along with his rendition of the heart-wrenching ballad “Today,” which was about a love that wasn’t meant to last. This sent the rest of the tears that had pooled in my eyes strolling down my face.

Finally, I’d play a Beatles album and listen to “Please, Mr. Postman” over and over. I’d sing along with every pleading lyric, as the singer begged the postman to check his bag one more time. The song had a melancholy air, but at the same time, the rhythm of the music inspired me to get off my bed and dance. Even though the singer, like me, was disappointed by love, the dancing lifted my spirits and soon I’d be off to enjoy the rest of the day.

For about a month that was my routine — dash to the mailbox, suffer bitter disappointment, croon to love songs, then dance myself out of a funk.

After school started in the fall, I kicked that summer-romance boy out of my head. I was on to other crushes on other boys in my high school — just like when I outgrew Donny Osmond and went on to have a crush on David Cassidy.

Eventually, I outgrew it all — the crushes, the summer romance, and the teen idols.

But I won’t outgrow my replacement mittens. They are safely tucked in my mitten box on a shelf in my front closet. It’s still cold enough to wear them, but spring is coming. I’m saving them for next year. By then I’ll be brave enough to wear them again. I’m going to watch over them as carefully as I watched over the mailbox when I was fifteen.

The mittens, a Christmas gift from my mother, warm my soul.

Something Published: “Christmas Break Snowstorms Were the Best

Posted on February 28, 2025 by youngv2015

My short essay “Christmas Break Snowstorms Were the Best” appears in the March issue of Northern Wilds, where I’m a contributing writer. I love writing for the magazine and reading it.

You can view it in blog form here: https://northernwilds.com/snow-day-memories-part-two/ You will need to scroll down. My essay is the second one,

Or you can view it in the magazine format here: https://northernwilds.com/current-issue/ There is an option to view it in full screen. My essay appears on page 18.

This is where I spent most of my childhood. Our old white farmhouse sat close to a narrow road. The barn on the left belonged to our family. The structures in the background, a barn and a home, belonged to two different neighbors. Our snowbanks ran from the back of the farmhouse toward the neighbor’s barn.

A Lost Mitten

Posted on February 22, 2025 by youngv2015

One of the very pretty mittens my mother bought me. The other one is irrevocably lost.

I lost a mitten on February 10. And it made me very sad. I hadn’t lost a mitten since 2017, when I actually lost a pair of them.

This Christmas my mother bought me a pair of very pretty mittens. The colors are cheery and subdued, all at the same time. The red flower on the top of each mitten, along with the red buds along the cuffs have just the right touch of whimsy for me. She also bought the knit beanie hat that matched the mittens. When I opened her gift, I wasn’t sure about the beanie. I’m kind of fussy about hats. But later when I tried it on, I found it fit well and looked nice on my head. My mother has a knack for buying me things I wouldn’t buy for myself, yet I end up loving them. She seems to know if something will suit me. Maybe that’s because she sees me differently than I see myself.

After I unwrapped the mittens, oohed and aahed over them, and slipped them on my hands, my mother said, “I bought those at Ciao Bella’s. They were expensive.”

And my mother has a knack for that too — pointing out that something was expensive or sharing exactly how much she paid for it. I think this has to do with how poor she was as a child. I had no doubt they were expensive. They were fancy, they were lined, and they felt like small warm hugs on my hands. I loved them. I thought, “I’ll have to take extra care not to lose them.” And that made me afraid to wear them.

Until my daughter-in-law took me to dinner and a play to celebrate my book of short stories being accepted by a publisher. It was a special night, and I wanted to wear my pretty hat and mittens. Dinner was wonderful, and the play, What the Constitution Means to Me, was funny and thought-provoking, and I didn’t lose my hat or mittens.

Emboldened, I started to wear my Christmas mittens to other places, including a coffee shop on February 10. I met a friend for lunch, and we visited for two hours. When I got up to leave and put on my mittens, I discovered I had only one mitten in my purse. I was certain that I’d had both of them when I’d gotten out of my car. My heart sank. In the morning when I’d put on the mittens, I remembered thinking, “I love these, and I sure hope I don’t ever lose them.” I felt like I’d cursed my mittens.

My friend and I looked everywhere for the mitten: all over the coffee shop, in the parking lot, in my car. Then we looked in all of those places again and again. (It’s nice to have a friend who will stay and help you look for a lost mitten.) We even went next door to the bookstore just in case someone found the mitten and turned it in there. No one had seen my mitten, and no one had turned it in at either shop. In the bitter cold, I drove home with only one hand snuggled in warmth. Mother Goose’s nursery rhyme about naughty kittens losing their mittens played in my head.

I’d decided to try and replace the mittens. After I arrived home, I called the store where my mother had bought them and left a message. But I was too impatient to wait for someone to call me back. While I was waiting, someone, somewhere, might buy the last pair of mittens like mine.

I found a tag inside my remaining mitten. They were made by a company called Lost Horizons. Now that’s irony. I looked up the company online. They still had my mittens for sale. The name of the pattern was Chloe. I decided not to wait to hear back from the store where I’d left a message. (They have never returned my call.) I ordered a pair of Chloe mittens. My mother was right — they are expensive. And I had to pay shipping. But it was worth it to me because the mittens had been a gift from her. The older my mother gets, the more sentimental I get about her.

In the meantime, I took a photo of my remaining mitten and made a poster, writing on it: “Have you seen this mitten? They were a Christmas gift from my mother. If found please return to the coffee shop or the bookstore.” I asked the managers of each establishment if they could put up my poster. I needed to do everything I could to find my lost mitten. After all, when I lost the pair of mittens in 2017, I searched for them like a treasure hunter on the trail of a buried treasure. I never did find those mittens, and they weren’t replaceable.

Four or five days later my new mittens arrived. They were exactly the same! They looked just like the mitten I hadn’t lost. I put the right one on first because that was the one I’d lost. Same great hugging-the-hand feeling. Then I slipped on the left mitten. Not good. It felt like an overly-firm handshake. The lining of the mitten had been twisted during assembly and sewn in the wrong place.

On one hand, I still had the original left mitten that fit well, so that would leave me with a good pair of mittens that fit. On the other hand, I’d paid for two mittens that were supposed to fit properly. I wanted what I’d paid for, so I emailed the company, and explained the problem. It was Saturday and their offices were closed until Monday.

But in the tale of my lost mitten — a story with its ups and downs — another upswing came my way. I heard back from Lost Horizons. Their representative emailed me that while their offices were closed on the weekend, they wanted me to know that they’d received my email, they were sorry I’d had a problem with the mittens, and they’d be contacting me on Monday to help me with either a new pair of mittens or a refund.

On Monday I opted for new mittens. I received another email with a return label and an assurance that they’d reserve a pair of the Chloe mittens for me. (I liked how they made sure they didn’t sell the last pair of Chloe mittens while waiting for my returned mittens. A company that thinks like me!)

So, the pair of mittens with a defective left are on their way to the East Coast. And I’m waiting in the Midwest. It was bad luck to lose one of my mittens, especially during a subzero cold snap. It was good luck to find I could buy another pair. It was bad luck to get a defective mitten. It was good luck to have done business with a company that values customer service.

I’m hoping the good luck holds and my mittens arrive soon. I hope they fit well. I’m not superstitious, but maybe I’ll only wear them to the theater and not to coffee shops.

Foxes & Fireflies, My Hometown Bookstore, Is The Perfect Place to Shop for Valentine’s Day!

Posted on February 3, 2025 by youngv2015

Always some refreshments available Foxes & Fireflies

Bookstores are great because they have books (the best), but many bookstores have a lot of other cool stuff. Bookmarks, jewelry, socks, toys, gadgets, stationery, journals, games, bookmarks, ornaments, pins, coffee mugs, jigsaw puzzles, stickers, candles, stuffed animals, chocolates.

So, if you’re looking for a perfect Valentine’s gift for someone special, and you’re looking for something unique, try a bookstore, even if your someone special isn’t a reader.

If your Valentine is a reader and you know what book they want – good deal, buy a book. If your Valentine is a reader and you don’t know what book they want – buy a gift certificate. If you want to step up your Valentine’s Day game, add another gift to the book or the gift certificate. Scroll for ideas!

Does your Valentine love sticky notes? Do they love to use them to mark their favorite passages in books? Do they still enjoy a trip down the yellow brick road? This palm-sized book of Wizard of Oz sticky notes is sure to please both good and bad witches!

Little Valentines would love one of these 3-D printed creatures. Their moving parts make them good fidget toys.

A small fox figure guarding lip balm, facial masks, and earrings

An earnest fox figure, seems to say, “Just keep reading. No need to get up and cook or do the dishes.” As your browse for books, look for the squirrels, foxes, and chipmunks. They are for sale. They make wonderful reading buddies.

These sweet dioramas can be found throughout the store. Does your Valentine like to build models? Kits are available for purchase.

The Foxes & Fireflies mascot is the perfect teddy fox for young Valentines who like to snuggle with a friend during story time.

Throughout the store, magnets are on display for sale. Find the words that capture your Valentine’s personality.

Stickers! Think of these like the Valentines we gave each other in elementary school. People like to put these on travel mugs and computers. I like to put mine on the inside of my writing journals.

Postcards from your Valentine’s favorite fictional worlds.

Stationery, journals, calendars, and a few Valentine cards. I found the perfect Valentine’s Day card for my husband!

Playing cards and coffee cups. Note, the coffee mug features Shakespearean insults. Should you have a lover’s spat — you can trade first-rate barbs by the bard.

Reading journals formatted for your Valentine reader to record the books they read

Plush and soft, great accessories to go with a book from the children’s section

Pencil cases filled with stickers, sticky notes, tabs, a bookmark, a pen, and a highlighter

And books! I read Before the Coffee Gets Gold, and loved it. These cozy Japanese novels take readers away to quiet worlds filled with a bit of magical realism. I’ve got my eye on We’ll Prescribe You a Cat.

Realm of Ice and Sky: Triumph, Tragedy, and History’s Greatest Arctic Rescue

Posted on January 29, 2025 by youngv2015

I want this book!

On Monday I received an email from a blogger who posts book reviews and blurbs about new releases.

One look at the book’s magnificent cover art and my heart was pounding out of my chest, like a cartoon character who has taken one look at another cartoon character and fallen hopelessly, immediately, completely in love.

Look at that gorgeous airship, hovering over the frozen landscape.

How had I never heard about an airship and an arctic rescue?

Those of you who read my book reviews know I like to read about shipwrecks. Something you don’t know about me is that I think airships are fascinating. Mind you, I wouldn’t get on an airship, any more than I would get on a ship.

I want the book. But I’m on a book diet right now, which means I stop buying books for two or three weeks while I read some of the books on my TBR stacks. (This doesn’t always stop me from cheating and buying a book anyway.) On Monday, I decided to resist temptation by using my local library. But this book was just released, and my library doesn’t have a copy yet, and copies aren’t available through inter-library loan.

I’m making a deal with myself: (1) read a couple of books from my TBR stacks, (2) wait until at least February, then (3) declare that I need a present for Groundhog’s Day.

My First Book!

Posted on January 27, 2025 by youngv2015

When I told my husband I was dedicating my book to him, he said that I should dedicate it to our dog Ziva. She logged a lot of hours with me while I wrote.

In February 2027, my first book, a collection of short stories, will be published by Cornerstone Press, which is run by the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Yay! (Imagine an emoji of happy, dancing feet here.)

I spent five years working on my collection of short stories. Every time I submitted a story to a journal or a contest, I sent a bio. In each bio I started writing: She is currently working on a collection of short stories. Because I wrote this in my bios, I kept writing short stories. After all, I didn’t want people to think my words were fluff. For me writing and submitting to journals was scary enough, but the idea of getting a book published was scarier. So, every time I wrote the words: She is currently working on a collection of short stories, I eased my way through my fears. Putting it in words over and over made it less intimidating and eventually kind of like saying, Yeah, I’m going to get my nails done on Saturday.

I also told myself if I finished enough stories to have a book-length collection, then I would have met my goal. I had done what I said I would do — write a collection. That didn’t mean the stories had to be published. Right? For me, the idea of getting published was terrifying. I worried about everything. Will people like my stories? Will anyone read my book? Will I have book signings and be the only one there? Will anyone buy my book? Will people like me? What if I mess up when signing someone’s book? Can I use an erasable pen? I waffled so much over whether or not to submit my short story collection to publishers that I could have become my own Waffle House franchise.

At the end of 2023, I had enough stories, but not enough courage. Then I discovered the Iowa Short Fiction Award and the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction sponsored by the University of Georgia Press. These contests are for emerging authors. I entered both of them. I didn’t believe I stood a chance of winning anything, and that made submitting my stories to them less nerve-wracking. But I took each entry seriously. I read all my stories out loud and silently, again and again. I had my readers rank which ten stories they believed were the strongest so I could place them at the beginning, middle, and end of my collection. I didn’t win anything in either contest. But after I sent my collection off to the Iowa contest, I started writing in my bios: She recently completed her first short story collection and is querying publishers.

After receiving rejections from the Iowa and Georgia presses, I waffled some more. I think I might have driven a few people crazy with my waffling. And I’m so grateful that none of them told me to shut up and go away.

I was still waffling away, when I attended the Wisconsin Writers Association Conference in October 2024. While I was there, a few things happened that gave me a shove. First, I met Lan Samantha Chang, a wonderful writer who is also the director of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She was one of the guest speakers, and she talked about the scariness of writing and putting one’s work out into the world. And I thought, If Chang, an accomplished writer, can be scared, I can be scared. Next, I listened to a panel of three publishers speak about their presses and submission processes. Afterward, I introduced myself to the publisher of Cornerstone Press. I told him I enjoyed listening to him and the rest of the publishers. Then I said the words, “I have a collection of short stories that I’m going to submit to Cornerstone Press.” To which he said, “I look forward to reading them.”

I had done it. I had said the words out loud. At that point I knew I would have to submit my collection because I didn’t want the publisher to think my words were fluff.

I’m still scared of all that other stuff, but I’m going to take it one fear at a time. I can handle one fear at a time.

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Acknowledgments

I didn’t write my collection of stories in vacuum. I owe a lot of gratitude to so many people and organizations.

I want to thank everyone who spent any amount of time reading my stories and giving me feedback. You were always helpful.

I want to thank the people who follow my blog and would read my stories when I posted a link to where they had been published. Your positive comments meant the world to me.

I want to thank the following organizations: Lake Superior Writers, Red Oak Writing, Wisconsin Writers Association, and Write On, Door County. These organizations were a lifeline during COVID. They pivoted to Zoom classes and gatherings that gave me and others a place to connect and be writers. They are all wonderful organizations for writers who want to learn more about their craft and spend time with other writers.

I want to thank all the writers, famous and not famous, whose works I have read and who have inspired me to be a better writer. There are so many talented writers, most of whom will never be household names.

Today Is Ziva Baby’s 14th Birthday

Posted on January 23, 2025 by youngv2015

Yes, her name is Ziva Baby. Baby is her middle name. It has nothing to do with my love of the movie Dirty Dancing. She earned her middle name because she was and still is quite the baby.

She didn’t read the book, and she’s not unruly. As a matter of fact, she is rather ruly these days, as in she rules the roost. And because while she’s only 14 years old in dog years, she’s 78 in people years. She is the oldest person in the house, and she wants her dinner and her treats and her walks when she wants them. She gets her way. She’s earned it.

She’s a blue poodle, at least that was the consensus of two different poodle breeders. She doesn’t normally look this blue. The afternoon sunlight reflected off the rug and onto her fur. Ziva hangs out here if my husband is in the TV room and I’m in the kitchen or front room. This way neither of us can leave the house without her noticing. She loves car rides, even though she occasionally gets carsick. My van’s floor is covered with a layer of car blankets and towels. Last week she threw up on one of the leather seats, and I didn’t notice until the next day. The throw up was chunky, but frozen solid. It was super easy to clean up. So, there’s a good point to sub-zero temperatures.

Yes, Ziva is a charmer. For months, I’ve been telling people that she’s going to be 14 years old on January 23, 2025. And people keep telling her she looks amazing for her age. Ziva never gets tired of hearing this. She’s a mouthy charmer. I think that’s about the most wonderful thing a person can say about a dog. Ziva likes to talk, and I like that she likes to communicate. She can’t speak English, and I can’t speak bark, but I pretty much know what she wants by the tone of her bark or the timbre of her grumble.

Ziva loves her walks. Most dogs do. It’s one of the nicest things we can do for our dogs — take them for a walk. Ziva loves to walk with me. She loves to walk with Nellie, my grand-dog. When we go to Michigan, she loves to walk with Bogey, my mom’s dog. Ziva can’t always walk as far as she used to. Some days she walks farther and faster than other days. She used to strut, with her poodle sashay, looking like a runway model. Now she often has a hitch in her stride. My vet says I’m very in tune to Ziva. And she’s right. I notice the smallest changes. Ziva and I have walked many miles over the years.

Ziva is my writing buddy. My watchdog. My traveling companion. My walking partner. My cuddle bunny.

She had a low-key birthday this year. After all, I couldn’t buy her another fancy bed. But she did have some extra treats. She also had a car ride, and didn’t throw up. And, tonight she has a couch all to herself and both of her humans are in the same room with her watching Animal Control.