The Driftless Land, a collection of essays by Kevin Koch, is a search for the spirit of place among the bluffs, woodlands, and prairies of the Upper Mississippi River valley. The Midwest is commonly known for its flatlands, for oceans of corn pressing towards the horizon beneath a big sky. Lesser known are the steep hills and bluffs, the ravines and towering rock outcroppings where the upper Mississippi carves its meandering path. These rugged lands amid the prairies are known as The Driftless Area, a 20,000 square-mile region of northeast Iowa, northwest Illinois, southeast Minnesota, and southwest and central Wisconsin, bypassed by most of the glaciers. Koch observes, “You can ‘love nature’ and ‘love the land’—but you won’t know place until you’ve walked slowly and attentively through Lost Canyon or the Kickapoo Valley Reserve or Swiss Valley or Trempealeau Mountain, and then returned to learn what you can about them.” Hidden within the woodlands are the imprints of human history and the deeper geological story as well, the story of a land untouched by the ancient onslaught of leveling glaciers. The result is a call to know place deeply, whatever place you inhabit.

The Driftless Land

History

Kevin Koch

Americas

SEMO

Hardboiled noir meets academic satire in Academy Gothic. Tate Cowlishaw is late for another faculty meeting when he discovers the body of Scoot Simkins, dean of Parshall College. Cowlishaw might be legally blind but sees that a man with three bullets in his head didn't put them there himself. The police disagree. When Cowlishaw investigates, he is told his teaching contract won't be renewed. Suspects aren't hard to come by at the college annually ranked Worst Value by U.S. News &amp; World Report. While the faculty brace for a visit from the accreditation board, Cowlishaw's investigation leads him to another colleague on eternal sabbatical. Before long, his efforts to save his job become efforts to stay alive. A farcical tale of incompetence and corruption, Academy Gothic scathingly redefines higher education as it chronicles the last days of a dying college.

Academy Gothic

Literature & Fiction

Hill, James Tate

Humor & Satire

“The poems in Angie Macri’s gorgeous debut collection Underwater Panther have at their center landscape and place, exploring and excavating the neglected geographies of the Mississippi River and the communities that settled along its sandy banks. The poems seamlessly blend mythology with history to create a new kind of pastoral, part elegy, part ode, and all heart. These poems will wear you smooth as a riverbed rock in the timelessness of our impermanence.” —Stacey Lynn Brown, author of Cradle Song

Underwater Panther

Macri, Angie

Poetry

“Jason Allen’s A Meditation on Fire is a fierce, courageous collection of poems, a ferocious, yet meditative mission to dig for the truth beneath the surface of all that it means to be human. Allen’s poetry is gritty and lyrical, profound and sardonic, and his use of language is as precise as a scalpel. Allen is willing to risk being vulnerable while exploring the darkest moments of his life, and all the while he straddles the line between compassion and desire. A must read for anyone who loves poetry, and for those who don’t yet know they love poetry. What an amazing, powerful book!” —Maria Mazziotti Gillan, American Book Award Winner

A Meditation on Fire

Allen, Jason

After school, custodian Oliver Nix investigates a strange sound coming from the boys’ locker room. What he finds rocks this suburban Atlanta community. Langley, a sophomore, claims she was forced, but Kevin, the accused, insists on his innocence while plotting his path out of town. His mother, Grace, defends her son despite having made a similar accusation twenty years before. Eleanor, Oliver’s daughter, tries to reconcile her loyalty to best friend Langley, who created the rules for lying, with her unrequited love for Kevin. Rules for Lying follows the characters through a police investigation that makes them question their memories, allegiances, and actions, all while hiding secrets of their own.

Rules For Lying

Corbitt, Anne

Contemporary

“Poignant, quirky, troubled, the poems in Everyone at This Party are reminiscent of James Tate, Bill Knott, and eternal Edward Lear. Rife with characters who stumble, speakers who suffer, and wisdoms that bristle with the darkest and lightest aspects of being alive, Modlin’s portraits are delightful, artful, and frightening collages of the fractured individual who must daily relearn the lessons of love and grief. To read this book is to recoil with recognition, and then to shoot forward with the courage it provides via humor and the unexpected warmth of shared plight.”—Larissa Szporluk, author of Traffic with Macbeth

Everyone at This Party Has Two Names

Modlin, Brad Aaron

United States

It’s the Midwest in the 1970-80s, and Mary is growing up in Detroit, where the recession hits hard, and jobs are scarce. In a set of linked stories, Mary tries to conjure the spirits of protection to confront economic struggle, violence, addiction, and death. Mary moves to cities across the Midwest looking for work, all the while learning the healing power of dignity from the true patrons: her community of friends and family who teach her to love better, live fuller, and question power. An ode to the creative spirit’s ability to transcend hardship, The Patron Saint of Lost Girls paints an unflinching portrait of women’s resilience in the face of injustice.

The Patron Saint of Lost Girls (Nilsen Prize for a First Novel Winner)

Aitken, Maureen

Literary

Austin’s semi-autobiographical, linked story collection follows the misadventures of Avery Colt as he struggles to survive in North St. Louis alongside his family. Learning the best way to slaughter a goat, rebuilding his family’s corner market, and reckoning the weight of a revolver are a few of the challenges Avery faces. As he matures through each page, Avery takes control of his circumstances and attempts dangerous feats of alchemy. Charged with urgency and emotion, Austin’s prose faithfully renders a community determined to overcome crisis with strength, dark humor, and plenty of heart.

Avery Colt is a Snake, a Thief, a Liar (Nilsen Prize for a First Novel Winner)

Austin, Ron A.

<div>Weird Pig is about Weird Pig, a pig who wants to do right. But doing right isn't always easy. He drinks. He eats pork chops. He rides a skateboard. He gets his fellow farm animals murdered, and fathers an illegitimate son who has a messiah complex. When Weird Pig leaves the farm he calls home, he inspires a series of children's books that help bring on the end of his little world--a farm where human and beast alike toil in the shadow of an ever-growing factory livestock complex. From farm to table and beyond, follow the misadventures of Weird Pig in this kaleidoscopic portrait of America, seen through the eyes of a crazed animal who insists on making himself at home there.</div>

Weird Pig

Foreman, Robert Long

The Way of the Saints is a multi-generational, historical collection of short stories, based on the author's family and her personal experiences as the daughter of a Santeria priestess. The linked stories in the collection tell of three generations of Puerto Rican women: Paula, Isabel, and Esther as they navigate Puerto Rico's Independence movement of the 1930's, life in the 1950's tenements of New York, and the opulence of 1980's Westchester.

The Way of the Saints (Nilsen Prize for a First Novel Winner)

Engelman, Elizabeth

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

Books by SEMO