front cover of Lingering Inland
Lingering Inland
A Literary Tour of the Midwest
Edited by Andy Oler Foreword by José Olivarez
University of Illinois Press, 2025
How do the stories we tell about Midwestern places influence or reflect our experiences? How is the literature of a place or a region relevant to the people who live there? In this expansive anthology, Andy Oler collects 72 original short essays by a diverse array of contemporary writers. Each explores locales in Midwestern literature relevant to the life and work of literary figures and canonical authors such as Toni Morrison and Willa Cather. Lingering in these places in both body and mind, the contributors contemplate the resonances and desires nurtured by their chosen location. Together, the essays take readers on an odyssey that maps our inner longing to connect across vast landscapes. A singular collection of creative nonfiction, Lingering Inland plumbs the personal and collective essence that binds Midwesterners together through words and places.
[more]

front cover of Michigan Salvage
Michigan Salvage
The Fiction of Bonnie Jo Campbell
Lisa DuRose
Michigan State University Press, 2023
Michigan Salvage is the first scholarly collection on celebrated writer Bonnie Jo Campbell, the author of two novels and three short story collections, including National Book Award finalist American Salvage (2009). Her writing captures a diverse and bustling rural America, brimming with complex characters who struggle with addiction, poverty, and land degradation—issues that have become, undeniably, part of the southwestern Michigan landscape that she calls home. The essays in this volume demonstrate many rich ways to approach Campbell’s writing, from historical and cultural overviews to essays examining the class and gender implications of her stories and novels, to teaching essays highlighting how to use her work in the classroom and beyond. Along with each essay, Michigan Salvage also features lesson plans and writing prompts meant to spark discussion and encourage further investigation into these stories and novels. This essential and teachable collection makes plain Campbell’s contributions to contemporary American literature.
[more]


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter