Will lightning ever strike twice? Can David beat Goliath a second time? These questions haunt everyone in the small town of Milan, Indiana, whose basketball team inspired Hoosiers, the greatest underdog sports movie ever made. From a town of just 1,816 residents, the team remains forever an underdog, but one with a storied past that has them eternally frozen in their 1954 moment of glory. Every ten years or so, Milan has a winning season, but for the most part, they only manage a win or two each year. And still, perhaps because it’s the only option for Milan, the town believes that the Indians can rise again. Bill Riley follows the modern day Indians for a season and explores how the Milan myth still permeates the town, the residents, and their high level of expectations of the team. Riley deftly captures the camaraderie between the players and their coach and their school pride in being Indians. In the end, there are few wins or causes for celebration―there is only the little town where basketball is king and nearly the whole town shows up to watch each game. The legend of Milan and Hoosiers is both a blessing and a curse.

The Milan Miracle: The Town that Hoosiers Left Behind

History

Riley, Bill

Neville, Susan S.

Oliu, Brian

Butcher, Jack

Americas

Quarry Books

Calling on the image of the Midwest’s vanished inland sea, Susan Neville has written a compelling collection of essays that ponder writing and the "landlocked imagination." The essays range from interviews with Indiana writers Kurt Vonnegut, Scott Sanders, Marguerite Young, and others, to discussions on techniques grounded in a Midwestern sensibility. As director of Butler University’s Visiting Writers Series, Neville has had the rare opportunity to converse with such literary giants as Salman Rushdie, Ray Bradbury, and Toni Morrison, and some of those exchanges have been incorporated into this exciting new collection.

Sailing the Inland Sea: On Writing, Literature, and Land

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

The Butler Bulldogs advanced to the NCAA National Championship basketball game against Duke University upon defeating Michigan State on April 3, 2010. With only 4,500 students, Butler was the smallest school to play for a national championship since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985. Coached by Brad Stevens―just three years into his position as head basketball coach―the undefeated Bulldogs were a hometown team, playing before a hometown crowd on the national stage. Two days later, Butler lost narrowly to Duke, 61–59, but their run for the championship had become a national phenomenon. From her vantage point as a Butler professor, acclaimed writer Susan Neville observed (and participated in) Hoosier Hysteria firsthand. In Butler's Big Dance, she intertwines her recollections of the events with interviews, anecdotes, and photographs to bring readers a taste of the on-campus and courtside excitement of the Bulldogs’ David-and-Goliath bid for the national title.

Butler's Big Dance: The Team, the Tournament, and Basketball Fever

Indiana University Press

Iconography: A Writer's Meditation

"I started this meditation on the first day of Lent. I hope to keep going every day until Easter. Each day I go fishing in the water of this internal voice. This week the water’s still, this angled pen a blue sail; the hook is lazy in the estuary, the water the color of lapis. So what if I don’t catch a fish? I said that I would fish; that’s all I promised. I bait the hook with each day’s discipline. I have no guarantees that there is anything at all to catch in these particular waters, that something beneath the surface won’t grab my pen and pull me under." —from IconographyWhen Susan Neville enrolls in an icon-painting class in the cellar of an Indianapolis monastery, she begins a journey into a fascinating hidden world where saints are fabricated of mineral and wood, yolk and blood, earth and time. The process is tedious, and she begins to make mistakes, to become impatient; she doesn’t feel ready for the challenge. To prepare herself, Neville makes a vow to write during the 40 days of Lent. What emerges is a journal, a meditation, a series of confessions that we are invited to listen to as we follow Neville’s sometimes painful attempts to reveal the truth and discover the mystery of her existence. In the layering of colors and moods, her writing is the spiritual equivalent of an icon. As she observes the world around her and applies the paint of language to her observations, she realizes that spirit and matter are not separate—that now and then moments of meaning emerge from daily life, and the stillness and majesty of the universe shine through.

Literature & Fiction

United States

Calling on the image of the Midwest’s vanished inland sea, Susan Neville has written a compelling collection of essays that ponder writing and the "landlocked imagination." The essays range from interviews with Indiana writers Kurt Vonnegut, Scott Sanders, Marguerite Young, and others, to discussions on techniques grounded in a Midwestern sensibility. As director of Butler University’s Visiting Writers Series, Neville has had the rare opportunity to converse with such literary giants as Salman Rushdie, Ray Bradbury, and Toni Morrison, and some of those exchanges have been incorporated into this exciting new collection.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Neville, Susan S.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Neville, Susan S.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Neville, Susan S.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Milan Miracle: The Town that Hoosiers Left Behind

Sailing the Inland Sea: On Writing, Literature, and Land

Butler's Big Dance: The Team, the Tournament, and Basketball Fever

Iconography: A Writer's Meditation

Sailing the Inland Sea: On Writing, Literature, and Land