Rodeo Snow

Embracing the Sign

This memoir braids together stories about ordinary people who had extraordinary experiences following the death of a loved one. Each recounts a confluence of events or series of coincidences that seemed to come from “out of the blue.” What makes these stories important is the profound effect of each experience...

Bearer of the Pearls

Imagine if the king of evil genies was searching for you with deadly intent. Only through the tragic chance of becoming an orphan have you been saved . . . so far.For teenager Wendy Adair, this is reality: no home, no parents, and no idea why a gang of genies is willing to kill her...

Going Coastal

Lake Superior—its people and places—feature in this anthology of short stories by nine writers from Minnesota and Wisconsin.The power of stories lures an aging man on a road trip back home, north on Highway 61. Through her painting of a river, an Ojibway woman teaches a historian about himself and her culture’s connections to the land and water...

Farewell, My Sweet

Michael Connelly, an attorney living in the lakeside city of Excelsior, Minnesota, has few wants beyond his small law practice, his lakeshore town home, his boat, and his vintage Mustang. Life for him runs smoothly and on a routine.It's with women that Mike seems to get himself into trouble...

The Legend of the Golden Monkey

The Crypto-Capers are off on another adventure, but this time it is because of their adversary, the Panther. Max, Mia, Granny and Morris, must rise to his challenge. If they don't, the infamous Panther will surely win. The Legend of the Golden Monkey leads the Crypto-Capers to the ancient ruins of Chichen Itza, a once flourishing Mayan city where secrets abound...

The Map Maker's Choice

Duluth, Minnesota, is finally at peace and things are getting better on both sides of the Divide. However, dark forces are lurking. When Tasker the dwarf is kidnapped, Jane, Jacob, and the others realize something horrible is about to happen. Soon it becomes obvious that they need help and with Coronia, a lonely mermaid, they set off on a quest to find the machine that generates the Divide...

The New Folklore

The New Folklore: Lyrical Tales for Dreamers & Thinkers is a collection of seven stories written by musician Teague Alexy and beautifully illustrated by artists from across the country: "The Wisdom of King Joe Colli," "Old Lady Truth," "The New Tune of Elijah Swoon," "Three Little Fish," "How Lefty Stepanovich Turned Water Into Wine," "Teufelo's Tongue" and "Old Rickety Bridge...

Without Dividend in Mind

Small enough to fit in a pocket, J. Vincent Hansen’s second collection of poems touches the soul with its simplicity, honesty, and conviction. Hansen packs a punch with his epigrams and easy essays, accompanied by wood engravings by the gifted artist Claire Leighton. Without Dividend in Mind is sure to stay in the mind of the reader for a long while.

Northern Lights, Southern Nights

“You can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood . . . back home to a young man’s dreams of glory and of fame . . . back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time—back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.” -Thomas Wolfe, You Can't Go Home Again

Shelterbelts

Tia Fiskum, the old maid of Tolga Township, yearns to retain her hold on the family farm after her shell-shocked brother returns from World War II. The neighbor she hopes to marry chooses a town girl for his new wife.The Potato King listens to the radio preacher and prays for a miracle. Eddy Root fears a return to the asylum...

Who Done Houdini?

Detroit Free Press reporter Timothy Wiggins learns of Harry Houdini’s death on Halloween 1926 with more than casual interest. He had been at the great magician’s final performance the night before. Wiggins had grown up as a sort of magician himself on the streets of London, stealing to survive. But then he met the real-life Sherlock Holmes, who made him his chief Bay Street Irregular...

Autumn of Elves

Panic fills Aly and her grandmother when Aly's ten-year-old sister, Emily, sees a troll. The shock of Emily also having magical powers gives way as the sisters begin to share a world of intrigue. Aly becomes Emily's instructor and protector while they interact with many new creatures—some of which are fascinating and some terrifying...

Fishing for a Killer

The sun isn’t even over the horizon at Madrigal’s Lodge on Gull Lake, and an empty motorboat is slowly circling the bay. The Governor’s Fishing Opener just got a lot more exciting. Luckily, St. Paul Daily Dispatch reporter Warren “Mitch” Mitchell and photographer Alan Jeffrey are on the scene...

Visibility: Ten Miles

Visibility: Ten Miles is a collaboration of poetry and photography between Sharon Chmielarz, poet, and Ken Smith, photographer. Both are well acquainted with the prairie; hence these photos and poems include not only grasslands but also the unusual only insiders have seen. These images come from two angles, what the eye sees and what the heart responds to...

A Habit of Mind

Looks, charm, stylish job shooting TV news . . . Doug Pepper’s only goal is his next conquest at the local pick-up bar. It takes tragedy and a cross-country odyssey for Doug to break through a habit of mind—classic self-absorption—and learn to love. The lady in Doug’s life also learns life’s hard lessons in a shared moment of truth that binds the pair together forever.

The Murder of Emily Magillicutty

What's Behind the Mighty Fitz?

When Lucas Sanchez fails to catch a Frisbee and it crashes into an oil painting of the Edmund Fitzgerald, he is stunned as part of a green eye stares back...

That Word

“Jamie Parsley’s new poems tread the path of grief within the liturgical map of holy days, feasts, and spiritual acts. These poems offer a voice ‘forever altered’ by loss, a keening we sense in each moment depicted until we understand ‘We are what we hold / and let go...

Rooted in Iron and Ice

Author Gary W. Barfknecht jokes that his baby-boom boyhood home in Virginia, Minnesota, wasn’t exactly at the end of the world. But he could see it from there. With energetic style and sly wit, this son and grandson of miners paints a vivid, fascinating portrait of his daily life in the harsh, frigid, isolated strip of mineral wealth known as the Mesabi Iron Range...

Fishing for a Killer

The sun isn’t even over the horizon at Madrigal’s Lodge on Gull Lake, and an empty motorboat is slowly circling the bay. The Governor’s Fishing Opener just got a lot more exciting. Luckily, St. Paul Daily Dispatch reporter Warren “Mitch” Mitchell and photographer Alan Jeffrey are on the scene...

Minnesota's Lost Towns Northern Edition

The long-awaited second book in the Minnesota’s Lost Towns series is now available. Travel along as we visit and learn about more than 125 central Minnesota locations. The book covers twenty-six of Minnesota’s central corridor counties, from east to west. Read how the towns were created, how they developed and lived, and why they died. Discover the people and places of Minnesota’s past...

A Killing Fair

The Minnesota State Fair is famous for its endless variety of foods on a stick, so reporter Warren “Mitch” Mitchell and his photographer buddy Alan Jeffrey are surprised when they’re sent to the fairgrounds to cover the introduction of still another stick-bound treat. The new novelty, called Square Meal on a Stick, is introduced by its celebrity inventor, Vinnie Luciano, owner of one of St...

Desert Crosses

No description.

Chasing the Moon

Nadia Alvarez, a fifteen-year-old Mexican immigrant, travels from a remote and poverty-stricken village in southern Mexico with her family to the United States. They sneak illegally into the country through a drain pipe that connects Sonora, Mexico, to Arizona. As the family enters the country, the Border Patrol is waiting for them...

Growing Up on the Mississippi

“Kent Stever takes you by the hand for a stroll back in time to a simpler place, one sprinkled with nostalgia and fond remembrance. His writing conjures up images so exact you’ll swear you’re sitting at a soda fountain sipping on a cherry Coke while he tells his tales.” —Mike Nistler, Publisher, Minnesota Moments Magazine

Seven Chances

Abby is a nobody. That is, she was a nobody. Until a ­horrifyingly embarrassing thing happened to her. Now she’s the laughingstock of St. Theodore High. Abby is desperate to get her life back to the way it was, and after meeting a ­mysterious and unlikely ally, it seems she will get her wish. But trying to get it “right,” isn't as easy as it seems...

What's in Your Boathouse?

While visiting vintage and classic boat shows around the country, what sometimes seems so evident, beyond just the spectacular restorations, is where did all this come from? I mean, sure, it was in the boathouse just last week, but really, what is the story behind this boat...

The Last Ram

It’s1903 in the Badlands and Evan Warner, a store owner’s son, spies an elusive Audubon Sheep that was thought to be extinct. Even better, his best friend, David, an adopted Lakota boy, is ­returning from two years at the Pierceson Indian School. Evan can’t wait to track the sheep through the Badlands with David just like when they were younger...

Shadow Play

Sometimes life seems like a madhouse. And sometimes it’s worse . . . Psychiatrist Grace Rendeau struggles to make sense of her husband’s untimely death...

Driving with Cats

"Anyone who has loved, lived with, or grieved the loss of a cat will appreciate Driving with Cats...

The Ghosted Bridge

The Ghosted Bridge is a ghost story set against the backdrop of mystical Sedona, Arizona, and the real life disaster of Minnesota’s I-35W bridge collapse on August 1, 2007. Katherine Simon is fed up with her life. The economic downturn of the past few years cost her husband his job and is chipping away at her sanity. Now Katherine is desperate to know what the next chapter holds...