And Here: 100 Years of Upper Peninsula Writing: Panel Discussion

We are thrilled to host a panel discussion of contributors for the new collection And Here: 100 Years of Upper Peninsula Writing, 1917-2017 

About And Here:
Upper Peninsula literature has traditionally been suppressed or minimized in Michigan anthologies and Michigan literature as a whole. Even the Upper Peninsula itself has been omitted from maps, creating a people and a place that have become in many ways “ungeographic.” These people and this place are strongly made up of traditionally marginalized groups such as the working class, the rural poor, and Native Americans, which adds even more insult to the exclusion and forced oppressive silence. And Here: 100 Years of Upper Peninsula Writing, 1917–2017, gives voice to Upper Peninsula writers, ensuring that they are included in Michigan’s rich literary history. Ambitiously, And Here includes great U.P. writing from every decade spanning from the 1910s to the 2010s, starting with Lew R. Sarett’s (a.k.a. Lone Caribou) “The Blue Duck: A Chippewa Medicine Dance” and ending with Margaret Noodin’s “Babejianjisemigad” and Sally Brunk’s “KBIC.” Taken as a whole, the anthology forcefully insists on the geographic and literary inclusion of the U.P.—on both the map and the page.

Ronald Riekki is an award-winning poet, novelist, and playwright. Since 2010, he has headed the U.P./MI Book Tour, which has scheduled literary events throughout the state of Michigan, particularly in rural communities.

Sue Harrison is the author of six critically acclaimed bestselling novels. Mother Earth Father Sky, My Sister the Moon, and Brother Wind make up The Ivory Carver Trilogy, an epic adventure set in prehistoric Alaska. Song of the River, Cry of the Wind, and Call Down the Stars comprise The Storyteller Trilogy. Sue has also written a young adult book, SISU, released by Thunder Bay Press.

Gordon Henry is an Anishinabe poet and novelist, and an enrolled member of the White Earth Chippewa Tribe of Minnesota. His poetry has been published in anthologies such as Songs From This Earth On Turtle’s Back: Contemporary American Indian Poetry (1983) and Returning the Gift: Poetry and Prose from the First Native American Writers (1994). His novel, The Light People (1994), was awarded The American Book Award in 1995. He has also co-authored the textbook, The Ojibway (2004), to which he contributed a number of essays on Native American culture. He currently teaches at Michigan State University.

M.L. Liebler is an award-winning poet, literary arts activist, and professor. He is the author of several books of poetry, including I Want to Be Once (Wayne State University Press, 2016), and editor of the anthology Working Words: Punching the Clock and Kicking Out the Jams(Coffee House Press, 2010). He is also co-editor of Bob Seger’s House and Other Stories (Wayne State University Press, 2016). He has taught at Wayne State University since 1980.

William Olsen is the author of six poetry collections, four of them published by Northwestern University Press: Sand Theory(2011), Avenue of Vanishing (2007), Trouble Lights (2002), and Vision of a Storm Cloud (1996). Olsen teaches at Western Michigan University and Vermont College. He lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Phillip Sterling is the author of Mutual Shores and three chapbook-length series of poems: Abeyance (winner of the Frank Cat Press Chapbook Award 2007), Quatrains, and Significant Others. The recipient of an NEA Fellowship, two Fulbright Lectureships, and a P.E.N. Syndicated Fiction Award, he is also the editor of Imported Breads: Literature of Cultural Exchange and founding coordinator of the Literature in Person (LIP) Reading Series at Ferris State University, where he has taught writing and literature since 1987. His new collection of poems, And Then Snow, is now available from Main Street Rag Publishing.

Keith Taylor teaches at the University of Michigan. He has published many books over the years: collections of poetry, a collection of very short stories, co-edited volumes of essays and fiction, and a volume of poetry translated from Modern Greek.