New book due out soon

It's titled, "Portrait of a Peninsula" and it'll be unveiled in a few more weeks on Sunday, December 5th.

The book is a collaboration between me and the artist Paul Grant, featuring more than 80 of his paintings over the last 4o years, accompanied by text written by me.

It's a celebration of Paul's paintings and of the Upper Peninsula where he's lived almost continuously since 1970. I, on the other hand, moved here only six years ago but have fallen equally in love with the place.

Christine Pesola, the owner and general manager of the Landmark Inn, first suggested the collaboration more than a year ago. Paul and I, who were acquainted with one another at the time, started meeting weekly at the Northland Pub to talk about his paintings and the U.P. We also took a few driving trips to get to know each other better, and soon I was taking voluminous notes and Paul was busily collecting paintings from patrons who had bought them over the decades so that we could scan them for the book.

We've seen an advance copy of "Portrait of a Peninsula" and it's gorgeous. It's 11 by 14 inches, hardback with a dust jacket, and with the finest quality paper. We're excited.

The official unveiling will be Sunday afternoon, December 5th, in the Landmark Inn lobby. Paul will be there, signing the books. We'll also have food and drink. In other words, a party, and everyone's invited.

For years, friends and fans of Paul have been suggesting he put out a book like this, and in fact, a couple of decades ago, he and John Voelker had been discussing a similar project, but it never happened. Voelker died shortly afterwards. After that, another project was proposed--one that would honor Voelker through Paul's paintings---but again, it didn't happen.

Now it is happening.

We believe the book honors Voelker, Paul's paintings, and the Upper Peninsula, and we hope you'll agree.

By the way, after the initial unveiling, "Portrait of a Peninsula" will also be available on this website.

Mid-January Book Release

It's still looking like a mid-January release for "Money in the Ground" although I'm told not to be surprised if that changes.

The novel will first be available on this website, and then I'll slowly get it distributed throughout the U.P., and then I hope to make it available through Amazon and other national distributors.

We'll see. I sound like I know what I'm talking about, right? Actually, I've gotten some help from other authors, including Karl Bohnak (http://www.upweatherhistory.com/), who's just published his second book, "Michigan's Upper Peninsula Almanac". It's extremely useful and informative, by the way, and I think it's selling well.

When people ask me what "Money in the Ground" is about, and I tell them mining and the U.P., they automatically assume it has something to do with Kennecott and sulfide mining. Not really. Yes, the whole debate over the Kennecott mine the past several years probably inspired the idea for the novel, but I'm certainly not making a statement about it at all. The dynamic of mining versus environmental concerns just makes for a good novel, I think.

One of the readers of the first draft of the novel also commented that I was not likely to make many friends with the novel. I hadn't really considered that, but she may be right. Some of the portraits of people, in business and in TV, aren't particularly flattering, but then, I'm a journalist. When do we ever have nice things to say about anybody, right?

Right? Hello?

I don't know. I'm hoping it'll be a nice mix of idealism and cynicism, which summarizes me pretty well.

I'll be eager to get some feedback next month.