State of Mine

A Memoir of a Father, a Family and the Land that Healed Them

I’d crossed the lake to my grandparents’ cottage in autumn just once before. I was six then, and standing on the last remaining section of dock marveling at odd creatures washed ashore.

Kalamazoo was not big enough for me, my Mama, and my Mama’s ghosts.

This excerpt from “Once Upon a Time at the Opera House – Drama at Three Historic Michigan Theaters, 1882-1928” by James Berton Harris © 2019, was published by Michigan State University Press and is reproduced here with permission.

“Suite for Another Day in the World” by Jack Ridl is reprinted with permission from Wayne State University Press, publisher of “Saint Peter and the Goldfinch,” a 2019 book of poems by Ridl.

The essay “A Winter Soul” was published in “Elemental: A Collection of Michigan Creative Nonfiction” in 2018. This excerpt from that essay is reprinted here with permission from Jessica Mesman and Wayne State University Press.

After a Memorial Day tornado tore through our neighborhood a few years ago, the skies had scarcely cleared when a chorus of chainsaws and generators echoed through the land. Just like that, my indefatigable brethren were out in force. 

The following excerpt of Natalie Ruth Joynton’s work, “Welcome to Replica Dodge,” is reprinted here with permission from Wayne State University Press.

Craft beer, of course, is still beer, and it’s made with the same ingredients that went into Stroh’s, but this new generation of Michigan’s brewers sees those ingredients as only a starting point

The few wooded acres on which my wife and I pay property taxes support nearly every kind of tree native to mid-Michigan. Time is...