Do you ever get the feeling that it’s all going down the drain? That indignity piled on absurdity piled on ignominy will soon culminate in the End of Things? That there is simply no hope for humanity? No point in keeping on?
I sometimes feel that way, too. When I do, it’s a sure sign I need to turn away from TV, from social media, from all that clutter.
I spend time with my grandchildren, who are real people. I take my dog, a living quadruped, for a walk. I feel the air and smell the earth.
For, Gentle Reader, there are two kinds of things in this world: Real things, and things you witness on screens.
Real things are not all wonderful. But they are actual. They are authentic.
Screen things—media things—are stories, rumors, innuendoes, screeds. They are programs, livestreams, commercial announcements, candidate debates. They are strategies. They are memes. They are panics. They are the news of the day.
They may have some reality behind them, but not much of it. And what there is is curated, coiffed, filtered, teased, slanted. It is not the kind of reality that is in touch with your reality. It comes from a fabricated place. It comes via media.
If you’re losing hope, Dear Friend, I have one word for you.
Disintermediate.
Go out in the real world, one on one. Just you and your experience; no third-party reporters, critics, summarists, AI bots, or commentators. Get rained on, get snowed on, get snowed in. Touch something made by God, not by an influencer. Steep yourself in actuality.
It will restore your confidence: not necessarily confidence in the future, but confidence at least in the solid present.
“But, O New Favorite Writer,” you say, “even that may be a mirage, in the long run.”
The long run? I’m only here for the short run, and it’s getting shorter by the day.
Stop. Smell the roses.
This message brought to you by the Maker of Reality, through the medium of Your New Favorite Writer.
We feel compelled to point out, in the best interests of the Reading Public, that Your New Favorite Author’s complete works are still available at their original cover prices:
In accordance with their ever-increasing value as actual, non-AI books written by a Living American Author whom you know, we were going to raise the prices by at least five dollars per book. However, we ran into the cruel ironies of the Third Book Business.
If we were McGraw-Hill, or Grosset & Dunlap, or one of the other titans of the old book industry of the last century, raising the price would be a no-brainer. The next time we did a print run of, say, 50,000 more copies, we’d naturally print a higher price on the covers. But in today’s book industry, books are printed one by one. That means we can change the cover any time we want,only we have to pay a special set-up charge any time we alter the image stored in the printer’s computer.
Forget it.
The only reason we mention this is because it means you can still buy these books at the same low price.
If you already own a copy of The Price of Passage and one of Izzy Strikes Gold!, thank you very much for your patronage. But if you have not yet purchased either or both of these books, what are you waiting for?
1853: Scandinavian immigrants ANDERS and MARIA meet DANIEL, a young slave fleeing brutal captivity. Will they do their legal duty by turning him in, or defy the laws of their new homeland and risk everything to help him gain freedom?
It’s an epic tale of America’s heartland, based on the author’s own Norwegian ancestors.
Order from HenschelHAUS Books, here, or use QR Code:
1957: Inquisitive 12-year-old IZZY squirms through a small-town childhood, helped and/or hindered by friends such as bombastic Andy Shore, bullying Lyle Haycock, bewitching Irma Ruger, and bewildering Mutt-mutt Corner.
Rooted in the author’s own 1950s boyhood, it’s a warm-hearted coming-of-age tale, suitable for young readers and their grandparents.
Includes discussion questions and a glossary of 1950s terms.
Order from HenschelHAUS Books, here, or use QR Code:
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Both books are certified by the Authors Guild to be free of artificial intelligence (AI) content.
That means, if you should happen to find any intelligence between the covers, you know who put it there.
It’s hard to describe the emotional punch packed by the simple act of writing “The End.”
It may be a stronger punch for writers of fiction than of nonfiction. When you’re writing nonfiction, there is at least a scheme—a plan, an outline—that you can follow to its inevitable conclusion at, well, you know, the end.
As a fiction writer, you are somewhere between panic and desire, mired in a bog or lost in a fog, with little sense of how you’ll get to the end. You may not even recognize the end as you stumble past it. You could shoot right on by and write another twenty thousand words looking for a conclusion that is already embedded in the narrative.
Some novelists breeze through first drafts with panache and confidence. I don’t know any of them, but I’ve heard of some. For me, the first draft is excruciating. Even when I know what I think the story is supposed to be, pulling it out of my strangely mixed conscious/unconscious brain is like the extraction of a whole mouthful of deeply impacted wisdom teeth.
Once I have finished a first draft, I am liberated. No matter how bad it is, I can go to work and make it better. I love revision.
All of which is my roundabout way of announcing—Ta-DA!!—I have just written “The End” on the first manuscript of my third novel, working title Hard Feelings. Don’t hold me to that title, Dear Reader. Titles are even harder to write than first drafts.
But at last, I am delivered of this baby that has been years in its conception and now nearly three years gestating in the womb of my laptop. If it’s a little messy—and let’s face it, all babies are messy at birth—we can get to work cleaning it up.
I’m shipping it off to the delightful Christine DeSmet for a first take on how much and what kind of work it needs. Her initial skim is like the APGAR score given to newborn babies—a quick check for signs of life. I hope there are some.
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What does all this mean to you, the reader?
It means you may see—after a few months of author’s revisions and a few more months of publisher’s preparations—a wonderful book you can buy. It may or may not be called Hard Feelings.
It is a book about the soured relationship of two brothers growing up and coming of age in small-town America during the years before the Second World War. The two boy/men, Jag and Harold, have strikingly different journeys through life, and I hope you’ll find them interesting.
What does it all mean to me, the author?
It means I’m finally free to start work on my next project—as it happens, a nonfiction treatment of some fascinating bits of church history. I’m familiar with the turf, but additional research will be needed. And once I get that project off to a good start, I’ll circle back and do the fun part of the job on Hard Feelings—revising! As a certain rabbit of literary fame might say, “Don’t throw me in that briar patch, Br’er Fox!”
Br’er Fox throws Br’er Rabbit in the briar patch. Walt Disney Productions. Fair Use.
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You may have noticed that in all this palaver there is no hint that you will have a new book to read anytime soon. If this distresses you, and if you enjoy these weekly ruminations, feel free to order either or both of my previous novels, The Price of Passage and Izzy Strikes Gold!
Visit of the Wise Men, from an 1894 Sunday School lesson, by lithographers Harris, Jones & Co. of Providence. Public Domain.
Tomorrow will be Christmas Eve. On Thursday morning, as Santa’s sleighbells jingle away to the North, the Big Day itself will arrive.
This will be my eightieth Christmas on Earth.
The first few of those eighty are lost in the mists of time, permanently and perpetually outside my experience. But I recall clearly the next several after that. I remember times of gathering and feasts of togetherness.
After the workday—most folks used to put in a whole day on December 24—Mom and Dad piled us into the car and we drove in darkness over the hundred miles from the city of Streator to the little town of Knoxville on the Illinois prairie, to gather with family.
1936 Plymouth, from an old postcard. Fair use.
The car was a 1936 Plymouth or a 1939 Chevrolet—both of them relics from an old-time gangster movie—or, later, our first modern car, a 1954 Plymouth. I sat in the back seat with my sister Cynda. We all four sang Christmas carols all the way down the road. Over the river—both Illinois and Spoon—and near some woods but mostly through plateaus of snow-dusted corn stubble, to Grandmother’s house we went.
It was all about gathering. Being together.
The “-gether” part of “together” is really the same word as “gather.” From Old English gaderian, meaning to unite or join.
We gathered together with Grandma and Grandpa, with Uncle Dick and Aunt Jane and Cousin Rick, with Uncle Garrett and Aunt Edith and Cousins Steve and Betsy, with Aunt Jo and Uncle Earl, with Aunt Jean and her boyfriend Richard Henderson, with Aunt Sue and Aunt Linda; with Grandma’s sister Aunt Bertha and her husband Uncle Harry Young; with Dad’s parents, my Grandma and Grandpa Sommers, who had no other children left in the Midwest and so joined the LaFollette mélange; and sometimes we would even see Grandma LaFollette’s brother Uncle Roy Dredge and his wife, Aunt Eva.
Eighteen of us including the unpictured photographer, who is probably Aunt Bertha, plus General George C. Marshall on the cover of Life to prove it’s Christmas 1950. Your New Favorite Writer is the boy at lower left, chin on hands.
That made twenty to twenty-five of us all celebrating Christmas in Grandma’s house. Gathered. Together. And the best part was: we all knew each other. We knew one another very well. We were kin. There’s hardly a better way of understanding love than gathering at Christmas.
“Fear not,” says the prophet Isaiah, “for I am with thee: I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west; I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth; even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him.”
It’s a grand vision of gathering together, members of one tribe, one kindred.
That’s what we did on those long-ago Christmases. Our tribe came together, at least those of us who could. We came from east and west and north and south and called one another by name.
I did not know this fact at the time, but I know it now: It was not the toys that mattered most, nor the turkey and dressing and pie and cake. It was the coming together of the people. The spindly tree, illuminated by strings of gaudy colored lights over which Uncle Dick and Uncle Garrett and Uncle Earl had slaved for hours on the living room floor getting all the bulbs to light up at once, was the totem pole, the magnet that gathered the kin.
Rice pudding with lingonberries. Fair use.
In my wife’s family it was much the same, only with a Swedish accent, because her mother’s folk were all Swedes, first- and second-generation Swedish Americans. So they had warm glögg with almonds and raisins in the bottoms of the cups; rice pudding with lingonberries; meatballs and gravy; limpa rye bread and dopp-i-gryta, the dipping of bread in fatty broth. But mostly with them, it was the people coming together, even if they were all Swedes except my wife’s father, who was Norsk.
The decades bring forth change. Families are smaller now. Folks tend to be more spread out, east and west, north and south. In our house this Christmas we will have Jo and me, my sister Cynda and her husband Steve, our daughter Katie and her children Elsie and Tristan (teenagers!). Plus Katie’s friend Valerie. Eight, all told. Still, it’s a coming together, a gathering.
Most of us will attend our church’s Christmas Eve service. It’s a Congregational church, meaning the local congregation governs itself autonomously. Such a church is said to be a gathered church, that is, one formed by a process of kindred souls simply gathering together. And indeed it’s more like a family than like a formal institution. We’ll read the Scriptures and sing the carols and burn up a few candles in the process. But the main thing is, we’ll gather together.
We have within us the seeds of hate and the seeds of love. When we gather together around the Christmas tree or the communion table, we nurture the seeds of love and starve the other ones.
Two greatly different realities are available to us in this world. I prefer the gathered one.
May you gather this season with whomever you have to gather with. And treasure the time, the place, and the gathering. It’s the best Christmas gift.
For decades, she flew flatwise across the vertical top of our yearly Christmas tree—be it pine, balsam, or spruce.
Some people place a star on their tree—to represent the Star of Bethlehem, I suppose. Others place an angel. Most of the angels, like the stars, are built in vertical format, the better to occupy the top of the tree, which is usually a single evergreen spear, jutting toward the ceiling.
But our poor little angel, I’ve never known her name, was made in such a way she could only lie horizontally. We hung her from the vertical top branch, but she lay sprawled across its middle, resisting all upward tendency.
There is something to be said for the horizontal. When Your New Favorite Writer studied the photographic arts, he learned that horizontal lines and shapes suggest calm, tranquility, rest, repose. If you want to show strength, go for the vertical. For drama, diagonal lines and swirly shapes are great. But horizontal composition speaks of peace.
We stopped buying cut trees at some point a few years ago—maybe the forty-dollar point. Instead, we trimmed our potted Norfolk Island pine for Christmas.
The Norfolk pine lives outdoors in spring, summer, and fall. At the end of all that warmth, we huff and puff and carry the big tub with its delicate little tree indoors. Originating on Norfolk Island, it would never survive a Wisconsin winter.
Norfolk Island, in case you’re wondering, is nowhere near the same-named city in the Tidewater region of Virginia. Rather, it’s an external territory of Australia, located in the Pacific Ocean between New Zealand and New Caledonia. Its namesake pine, Araucaria heterophylla in case you’re interested, is not a true pine but a closer relative of the hoop pine and the monkey-puzzle tree. In other words, a subtropical specimen.
It’s a pretty, willowy plant with short-bristled branches that droop as they get longer. You can’t hang heavy ornaments on it, or the branches will droop more than they already do.
Our little angel, a real lightweight, qualifies for the top of the Norfolk pine. We used to hang her on the upward-pointing spear, just as we did with our cut trees in prior years.
This year, however, is different. The Norfolk pine grew too tall to be brought in through the door. My wife, anticipating this problem, cut off its top in the spring. The little tree, in a touching burst of cooperation, grew replacement branches horizontally. So now, instead of a vertical spike on top, we have a horizontal bed of interlocking branches.
Just the right place for our little angel’s true vocation, which rhymes with fiesta.
Something about that seems to fit the peace message of the season.
Sleep well, sweet angel; and flights of pine boughs loft thee to thy rest.
Detail from Rembrandt, The Night Watch, 1642. Public Domain.
. . . Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. . . .
—Shakespeare, “The Seven Ages of Man” from As You Like It
Young men with beards think they can fix everything for us.
Not long ago, clean-shaven young men thought they could fix everything for us.
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Well, STOP THE PRESSES, Dear Reader, because I’ve got a news bulletin: Everything is not fixed.
They’ve worked at it and worked at it and fought fiercely for their constituents and—guess what?—the only part they left out was the fixing of everything.
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Some things cannot be fixed. They can only be endured.
As to those things that can be fixed, we’ve mostly got to do it ourselves.
To imagine that politicians will fix everything—or would, if not thwarted by opposing, evil, politicians—is arrestingly naïve.
If politicians solved more problems than they create, we’d run out of problems.
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Of course we must have politicians, to divide the spoils among us and administer our public institutions. But Politics holds no key to a New Jerusalem where streets are paved in gold and teardrops never fall.
Here’s the fact of it: We are all in this together, Dear Friend: All broken, jumbled, confused creatures muddling our way through swamps of untoward circumstance.
Swamps of untoward circumstance . . . Paul Klee, The Man of Confusion, 1939. Public Domain.
Each of us gets one life, and it’s altogether imperfect. We are mixed creatures. Our lives are spotted, blotted, their meanings and messages obscure.
Perhaps God could have made us perfect—but at what cost to our souls?
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Beware the temper that looks to some hero to come along and straighten it all out.
Making idols of the prominent, or of the adamant, leads us to loathe our neighbors. Hatred and suspicion of those we live with is the worst form of hell on earth.
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It might be better just to relax.
Resolve to enjoy what life throws at you, pain and pleasure together, weal and woe alike. Do what good you can, when you can. Forgive others. Forgive yourself.
This—right here, right now—is your chance to witness the grand spectacle of human existence from a front-row seat, and it will be over before you know it.
William Bendix, left, canonized the line, “What a revoltin’ development this is!” on the 1950s sitcom The Life of Riley. Nervously clutching the banjo is Sterling Holloway. Publicity photo. Public Domain.
What a revoltin’ development this is!
Your New Favorite Writer’s thrills and chills of the past week have shaken loose a flurry of new notions–things I must share with you or burst–yet those same impacts, centering on major surgery in my lower spine, have left me wounded on the field, writhing in pain, unable to lift the flimsiest quill to set forth any manifestos.
Woe is me! Woe unto all in my estate: Popping with ideas and lacking any train of thought, any line of persistent expression, across which to festoon them.
I am reduced to hunting and pecking, upward from below, on a cell phone to string a concatenation of letters, one by one, hoping they will arrange themselves into words, and the words into thoughts and sentences, and it will all mean something while I lie spraddled on an ice pack.
My wife, Joelle, and I are entering the sunny uplands. We both turn eighty this spring. We’ll be OCTOGENARIANS.
There is something rounded and satisfying about the prefix “octo-”, which is more than you can say for the cramped and unbalanced “septua-”.
Hitler in 1938. German Federal Archives, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 de.
Did you know that Jo and I are America’s secret weapons? She was born April 1: Within days Germany surrendered. I was born June 12, and it was not two months before the Japanese capitulated! You’re welcome, America.
Tojo in 1943. Public Domain.
I’ve always thought myself to be part of the postwar Baby Boom, because Dad came home from the Army, married Mom, and nine months later I was born. That was the definition, I supposed: Kids born when their fathers came back from the war and turned their energies to procreation.
But I was an early arriver. Dad came back in September 1944, almost a year before war’s end, having already completed two-and-a-half grueling years in the Southwest Pacific. He was out of uniform, and I was at large in the world, before the war technically ended. But the arbiters of generations, whoever they are, seem to date the Baby Boom from V-J Day.
To my all-conquering spouse, this is no obstacle. She reasons that since we were both born too soon to be Boomers, we must be part of the Greatest Generation. This could be a valid point, given our respective contributions to victory, as noted three paragraphs above.
Yet, I don’t know how we can be members of our parents’ generation. It flies in the face of—how you Americans say?—logic.
My parents—and Joelle’s parents, who were several years older than they—struggled with the privations of the Great Depression and did their varied duties when the world went to war. Journalist Tom Brokaw dubbed them and their whole age cohort “the Greatest Generation.” Who could argue with that? It seems akin to lèse-majesté if we were to appropriate for ourselves this distinction that they earned honestly.
Wikipedia to the rescue! It turns out, if you go to the trouble to look it up, there is a whole generation reckoned to fall between the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boomers. It comprises people born between 1928 and . . . wait for it . . . 1945. At last, Gentle Reader, we have found a home. We cannot be members of the Greatest Generation; that would be our parents. Yet, we have not quite reached Boomerhood.
Generation timeline created by Cmglee from Wikipedia. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
We are the Silent Generation. According to Wikipedia, “The Silent Generation, also known as the Traditionalist Generation, is the Western demographic cohort following the Greatest Generation and preceding the baby boomers.” There you go. That’s us.
Time magazine said, in 1951, “The most startling fact about the younger generation is its silence. With some rare exceptions, youth is nowhere near the rostrum. By comparison with the Flaming Youth of their fathers & mothers, today’s younger generation is a still, small flame. It does not issue manifestoes, make speeches or carry posters. It has been called the ‘Silent Generation.’”
Well, there you have it, Gracious Reader, to a tee. Even though we were among the very youngest members of the Silent Generation, neither of us ever embraced the flaming ideological adventurism of those even a few years, or months, our juniors. While people we knew, fellow-students sometimes, taunted the police, breached barricades, and provoked volleys of tear gas in the War Against the War, we were busy recoiling in—well, at least in distaste, if not in horror. We preferred silence to angry confrontation. The color selection of our wedge in the generations graphic is gray.
“In the U.S.,” says Wikipedia, “this group includes most of those who may have fought in the Korean War and many of those who may have fought during the Vietnam War.” Well, um, yes. That’s a fact.
After us Silent People came the Baby Boomers—and we all know what a mess that turned out to be.
The next identified generation is “Generation X.” The generation-namers could not think up a catchy title for kids born form 1965 to 1980. An unknown, they were dubbed X. It seems a slight, yet it’s the label our daughter, Katie, must endure.
Gen-Xers have also been called “the Latchkey Generation” or “the MTV generation.” If you read the full description on Wikimedia, it’s pretty clear nobody has figured them out yet. They remain a big X. If we judge by our Katie—and we might as well—Gen X-ers may be intelligent, capable, compassionate, and independent-minded people.
Katie’s kids, Elsie and Tristan, are split between Generation Z and Generation Alpha.
Two Gen Z girls share a selfie at the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille, France. PBA photo by J.M. Dautel, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Elsie, born in 2009, is a Zoomer. It’s hard to know about Gen Z. They’re still developing. But the prevailing thought, says Wikipedia, is that they are “‘better behaved and less hedonistic’ than previous generations. They have fewer teenage pregnancies, consume less alcohol (but not necessarily other psychoactive drugs), and are more focused on school and job prospects. They are also better at delaying gratification than teens from the 1960s.” Looking at our Elsie, she seems to fit the pattern. She’s a focused, organized achiever. What a great kid!
A pair of Gen Alpha twins share a laugh while camping. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
Her brother Tristan, born in 2012, belongs to what’s now being called “Generation Alpha.” They’re still in childhood; not much is known about them. If I were to advise the generation arbiters, based on my grandson, I would say Generation Alpha—at least some of them—could be fearless, untrammeled, intellligent, and invested with a native curiosity about life. Could be worse. A lot worse.
Of course, Dear Reader, all this is malarkey. We are individuals.
Those who are born in certain years and thus are destined to live through particular times in history may share similar responses to the circumstances of their lives, that’s all.
We march on, irrespective of what the generation namers say.
Dear Reader, it was the kind of moment that keeps this old heart beating.
Literatus & Co., Main and Fourth, Watertown.
I stood by a small table on the way into Literatus & Co. bookstore in Watertown, Wisconsin, with small stacks of my historical novels: The Price of Passage and Izzy Strikes Gold! My agenda was buttonholing passers-by to introduce them to my books and myself.
One young woman and her husband or boyfriend heard my spiel. “I’ve always thought I wanted to be a writer myself,” she said, “but I’ve never done it.”
“Maybe you will,” I said.
She made a meek face. “May I ask . . . how old were you when these books were first published?”
I scratched my head. The Price of Passage first came out in August 2022, Izzy Strikes Gold! only last July. “I must have been in my late seventies,” I said. “I’ll be eighty this June.”
“That’s so encouraging! I still have time!” She flung her arms around me and squeezed long and hard. Of course I squeezed back. Hot tears rolled down her cheeks—I knew they were there but could not see them, so fierce and arresting was her hug. Eventually, she let go.
Not yet forty, she had come close to giving up on her dream of writing.
“Of course you still have time,” I said. “Just write. Don’t look for fame and fortune, but write. You’ll make friends of other writers and maybe get together to read one another’s drafts and offer mutual critiques. You’ll find fellow writers are incredibly generous and supportive.” I said that last bit because I’ve found it to be true.
Someone else who is generous and supportive is independent bookstore owners, like Isabelle Eller and Wesley Crnkovich of Literatus & Co. (The always well-informed Wesley asserts there is an unseen vowel in his last name. Say “CHIRNkovich.”)
Isabelle, left, and Wesley, right, with Your New Favorite Writer in the middle.
It was no random chance that brought about the mutually helpful encounter between me and the young woman who wants to write. It was, rather, part of a careful design.
I love bookstore proprietors like Isabelle and Wesley. They struggle, they care deeply about books and about people, they extend themselves to create islands of happiness and success. In today’s commercial milieu, that’s not always easy, but it’s done with aplomb.
Literatus & Co. stands in an old brick-faced corner at 401 East Main Street, smack in the center of Watertown. Like a lot of main streets in our part of the world, this one has seen more prosperous days. Literatus & Co., since its founding in 2019, has been “dedicated to keeping a thriving book culture alive in Watertown.”
And, boy, are they succeeding.
Wherever you may live, it’s worth the drive to spend a morning or afternoon at Literatus & Co. Let me tell you what you’ll find:
The front window has a dazzling display of books. At present it’s mostly bright-colored picture books for children. Maybe they change that from time to time.
Open the door, and you enter a long, narrow space, two old-fashioned stories high, lined with bookshelves. There are tables in the front end of the store where folks gather in ones, twos, threes, and sixes to meet, chat, and pass the time of day. An intense young man furrows his brows at a laptop computer; three mothers with shopping bags and coffee drinks exchange news while they watch their toddlers; a senior couple peruses books they have just bought or maybe are thinking about buying.
All are enveloped in the comforting smell of book-paper, humanity, and hot food.
Upstairs or downstairs, take your pick. Space for browsing and socializing at Literatus & Co.
Overhead, a railed mezzanine stretches the length of the store, with upstairs tables for two dozen more loungers/loafers/chatters. On ground level, reaching rearward from mid-store, is the hub: A cash register, a case of goodies baked fresh by Isabelle, and a coffee bar cum short-order kitchen where you can get hot and cold beverages, soups, sandwiches, and hot panini made to order.
On any brisk Saturday when customers mill about, Wesley, Isabelle, and one or two part-time employees spend their time ringing up sales and preparing food and drink orders, with a special combination of relaxed chatter and easy attention to detail. The store owners are on a first-name basis with most customers. It’s the place you go for a fix of community spirit when you’re downtown on a Saturday morning.
Browse through the bookshelves—take your time, Gentle Reader—and you’re bound to notice the collection is carefully curated. Books of a feather are shelved together, many turned face-outward so you don’t have to squint at narrow spines to divine what they are. The scope and variety of titles are stunning.
But, as an author flogging his own wares here, I have noticed it’s not only the books that are well-curated. The customer base is just as well-cultivated.
The owners and staff of Literatus & Co. know what they’re about. Their homepage says it: “A setting to gather, discuss, engage and learn—as real people. A place to form human connections and share stories. . . . Most of all—we commit to creating a place where minds are opened, and all ideas are welcome. In short: knowledge, curiosity, and civility.”
Isabelle’s baked goods.
This welcoming space does not just happen by itself. Wes and Isabelle pursue its elaboration with missionary zeal. If you’ve ever met real honest-to-goodness missionaries, you have noticed they don’t foam at the mouth with pet theories. They play the long game, work humbly and steadily to make their animating vision a new reality in people’s lives.
In just six years, Wesley and Isabelle and their helpers have created a place in Watertown frequented by lots of people just looking for coffee or a sandwich or some human warmth, but also by lots of readers—discriminating readers—who come in looking for books, searching the shelves for new offerings, willing to chat and listen to an author who might have something to share.
The booksellers at Literatus & Co. have made this new thing in their community. I am in their debt, and our whole wider Wisconsin literary community is as well.
Answer: When it’s Open House Imports, 308 East Main Street, Mount Horeb, Wisconsin.
Open House Imports, an elvishly decorated Queen Anne-style house on the right as you enter Mount Horeb from Madison, is really a gift shop devoted to all things Norwegian (or even Swedish or Danish). But it’s one of my favorite bookstores!
Here’s why: The owner, Janice Christiansen Sievers, embodies the Norsk concepts of velvaere (well-being) and koselig (coziness). It’s natural for Janice to help out a struggling author by buying and displaying his works, in case any of her customers are interested.
Your New Favorite Writer with Janice Sievers.
That kind of hospitality and openness is a theme we’ll explore repeatedly, Dear Reader. This is the first in a series of posts on bookstores Your New Favorite Writer knows and loves. What they all have in common is owners who care—who relate to authors, and to readers, whole-heartedly and with the joy of the human touch.
Fine examples of Norwegian rosemaling (flower painting).
How did Open House Imports get to be one of my favorite bookstores? Well, my first book, The Price of Passage, is about Norwegian immigrants navigating the social, political, and military challenges of the Civil War era. For years, my wife and I have shopped at Open House Imports, mostly during the Christmas season, when all its lovely wares seem especially relevant to our needs. So I knew that—right along with the rosemaling, Norwegian sweaters, and cooking utensils—the store has a robust display of Scandinavian-themed books.
Guess whose books you can buy there?
So I took the book out to show Janice. I told her the story of how The Price of Passage came to be, and what it means to me. I admit I choked up at one or two places, because the book’s themes are personal with me. I got a grand, koselig hug from Janice to help me through my spiel. She purchased several copies right on the spot, displayed the book in a prominent place, and even ordered more copies through my distributor.
Janice continues to promote my literary career. The last time I stopped in, I mentioned my second book, Izzy Strikes Gold!, a nostalgic trip back to 1957 from the viewpoint of a 12-year-old. Apologetically, I said, “Well, there’s not really a Scandinavian theme or connection in this one. ” Because her store is all Nordic, all the time, and Izzy is just an American kid with no particular national background. Didn’t matter. She wanted Izzy. So now he has a place on her shelves beside The Price of Passsage.
Scandinavian yummies.
Fair Reader: If you don’t yet have your copy of Izzy Strikes Gold! or The Price of Passage, Open House Imports is a great place to get it. While you’re there, you might also pick up one of many other books, fiction and nonfiction, with a Scandinavian flavor. Not to mention Scandinavian cookbooks—or receipe books, as Janice calls them.
By the way, if you’re going to do any cooking out of those cookbooks, you might need utensils, or place settings—or ingredients! Don’t worry, Janice has you covered. Open House Imports has a full range of the things you need for breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, and snacks that will really ramp up your velvaere in a big way.
Norwegian sweaters.
Did I mention the Norwegian sweaters? And clogs. And tee-shirts. And all manner of essential housewares, from fine crystal to authentic wooden serving dishes decorated with sumptuous rosemaling.
And cards, calendars, knicknacks, figurines of trolls and elves (nisser), postcards, maps, et plenty of cetera. Chances are you can find a great gift for almost anyone you are buying for.
I could go on and on, Gentle Reader, but remember: Best of all, it’s a great bookstore!
Even if you aren’t in need of anything mentioned above, drop in the next time you’re near 308 E. Main Street, Mount Horeb, and introduce yourself to Janice. Have a nice chat. You’ll be delighted. Tell her Larry sent you.
