Category: Nonfiction
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Questions & Authors: Erika Janik of ‘Wisconsin Life’
Nonfiction writers who submit to the Peninsula Pulse’s 2017 Hal Prize contest will have the chance for their creative works to pass before the eyes of well-known Wisconsin historian and author Erika Janik, this year’s nonfiction judge. Janik is a familiar voice to dedicated Wisconsin Public Radio listeners. As the executive producer of Wisconsin Life, […]
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2017 Hal Prize Deadline is May 1
The submission deadline for this year’s Hal Prize contest is quickly approaching. Poets, photographers and fiction/nonfiction writers are encouraged to submit their creative efforts by Monday, May 1 for a chance to be published in the Peninsula Pulse’s annual Literary Issue. Conducted annually since 2001, the mission of the Peninsula Pulse’s Hal Prize is to […]
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Lake Superior Writers Contest Accepting Entries
Lake Superior Writers announces its 2017 Writing Contest with a theme of “Rivers: Mapped and Unmapped.” Rivers, real or metaphorical, make up the theme of this year’s contest. Writers have written about rivers as a metaphor for time, history, lifeblood and more. What will rivers, or a specific river, evoke in your writing? In her […]
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Isherwood: The Greenland Shark
Somniosus microcephalus, also known as the Greenland shark is the world’s latest celebrity. Known to fishermen as the Greenland, this shark is widely distributed through the North Atlantic, found at the surface as well as in the depths, amazingly at 1,800 meters. Adults grow to 400-500 centimeters, making it the largest fish in these cold […]
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New Memoir Chronicles Duality of Modern American Indian Life
“My name is Louis Clark. They call me Two Shoes. I am of two worlds.” So begins How to Be an Indian in the 21st Century, a deceptively simple memoir – composed in the verse and prose of Oneida Indian author Louis V. Clark III (Two Shoes) – that reveals a profound life story of […]
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Isherwood: ‘Model A’ Town Plow
The photo is from the Steir farm, circa 1944, Town of Bristol. The subject is a homemade snowplow consisting of a basic Model A coupe, with a sort of monster jungle gym attached. An oversize steel box attached to a sub-frame, all this in turn attached to the said Model A. On the front of […]
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Announcing the 2017 Hal Prize Contest
The Peninsula Pulse newspaper in Door County, Wisconsin proudly presents the 2017 Hal Prize. Conducted annually since 2001, the mission of the Peninsula Pulse’s Hal Prize is to encourage and appreciate artistic expression through various literary forms and photography. The contest has showcased works from individuals of all ages and backgrounds – novice writers and […]
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New Jerry Apps Book Reflects on Water Memories & Meanings
Rural life author Jerry Apps shares his memories of water – from its importance to crops and cattle on the farm to its many recreational uses – in his newest book, Never Curse the Rain: A Farm Boy’s Reflections on Water. From hauling buckets of water from a windmill pump into the farmhouse to listening […]
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Review: ‘Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis’
After the bombardment of postmortems following November’s election, many of us feel that we have reached the point that the autopsies of the autopsies have left no political remains to be buried. Nonetheless, let me recommend J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. The 31-year-old author writes of his […]
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It turns out photography isn’t the only medium that can speak a thousand words. With the right approach, sculpture, painting and even glass-blown works can as well. Just ask author, poet and instructor Anne-Marie Oomen, who recently teamed up with Write On, Door County to lead a workshop on ekphrastic writing – the literary technique […]
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Autumn is to remember potato vacation. A time of one-room schools neatly scattered through the townships like jubilant watermelon patches. When kids walked to school, pumped the water and filled the reservoir, swept the outhouse, clapped the erasers before pledging the allegiance to the flag, and President Washington reigned over the alphabet strip. This, our […]
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‘Good Seeds’ Author Brings Menominee Indian Food Memoir to Door
Because my Wisconsin dairy farm family foraged for hickory nuts, morel mushrooms, and wild blackberries, I read with interest Thomas Pecore Weso’s new book, Good Seeds: A Menominee Indian Food Memoir. A member of the Wisconsin Menominee Nation, Weso takes readers through an indigenous culinary history of his people, every chapter devoted to a different […]
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History Professor Details the Greatest Generation at Door County Historical Society Meeting
The Door County Historical Society will host its dinner meeting and program “When is Daddy Coming Home?” presented by author Richard Haney on Oct. 24 at the Sturgeon Bay Moravian Church at 6 pm. Haney makes an exceptional contribution to the literature on the Greatest Generation – one that is both devastatingly personal and representative […]
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Book Review: ‘Memories of the American Girl’
Memories of the American Girl, the title of a slim book by Washington Island resident Jim Anderson, might suggest to some mainlanders the memoir of an all-American woman looking back on her life. And in a metaphorical way, that thought would be correct. But in this case the American girl is no lady, rather a […]
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Fall into Autumn’s New Book Releases
Fall is a busy season for many: students are returning to class, third quarter tax payments are due, and many Door County businesses are preparing for the peninsula’s autumn festivals. Autumn is also an eventful season for book publishers – it is the season typically reserved for big-name, big-buzz books. This year is no exception; […]
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Questions & Authors: ‘Selected Artists of Door County’
“How true the old adage: ‘it’s all in the eye of the beholder.’ But if we are to appreciate art, we must try to understand what the artist wanted to achieve. The greater our understanding, the more we enjoy art.” Throughout her new book Selected Artists of Door County, local art historian Virginia Jones Maher […]
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Book Review: ‘Alexander Hamilton’
When the musical Hamilton opens in Chicago on Sept. 27, Midwestern audiences will be able to experience one of the most unlikely projects in the history of musical theater. The guiding genius of this project is Lin-Manuel Miranda, an actor, composer, writer, and hip-hop musician (an impressive, if unusual list of accomplishments). Miranda also has […]
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Isherwood: How to Build A Bird
Grandparents have a critical role in a kid’s education. My wife and I disagree on gender lines exactly what this role is, you can surmise the details: fire, gunpowder and jokes about farts. For myself I believe a grandfather’s role can be summed up by the acronym SOTG, Second Only to God, this where I […]
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Book Review: ‘The Time of Our Lives: Collected Writings’
By today’s standards, Peggy Noonan was a neglected child. Born in Brooklyn into a large and tempestuous family, she was packed off every summer to stay on Long Island with her two great aunts, immigrants from Ireland. They lived on a barren plain in a small house that was without air conditioning, telephone service, or […]
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2016 Hal Prize Winners Announced
Each fall, the Peninsula Pulse invites people of all ages, backgrounds and artistic abilities to submit stories, photographs and poems for a chance to be published in our annual Hal Prize literary and photography issue. The Hal Prize is held in the spirit of the late Hal Grutzmacher, a professor and Door County bookstore owner, […]