Gearing up for last day at Milwaukee Ave Art Festival

While critical paperwork piles up at home and in my office, going out and meeting people and showing the things we have to offer - books, healthy coffee, art-poetry broadsides, custom stationery products, book distribution, Send Out Cards, and our book publishing consulting business, I see the challenge of being involved in too many things. It's hard to be good at one or two things when you have a world of stuff going on: -- it can also be a turn-off for some people. But not all people. It's a question of finding the right people, and not becoming too involved in the outcome. Some people you can engage, others not. If you can inspire one or two of them you get what is called leverage. They work for the good of themselves, and while they build their own business they are helping you as well. The quest for applied leverage continues ...

My regular job is to sell books for clients to bookstores. Bookstore people in the Midwest are my long-standing customers. I have a commitment to them and to my client publishers to do a good job. My network of bookstores is the one that crosses all the paths of everything I do, all the stuff listed above. It's always been like that. The bookstore network, the one-on-one customer service, the engagement, the approach to understanding what the bookseller's needs are and what kind of books they can sell best, the development of a trusting relationship between us is what drives my business. It has always been the case through 26 years as a book traveler in the Midwest territory.

And dealing with the general public, the book buying public, has never been a strength of mine. My core audience has always been business owners, especially bookstore owners, managers, and buyers. And so the shindig at the Milwaukee Avenue Arts Festival is a new skill set for me. I've been trying to build up an e-mail list. A mailing list, direct mail and greeting cards, is the ultimate goal, but you need to take small steps. The goal is to develop an audience; people who are interested in what you do and what you have to offer. I'm working on it. It's a balancing act.

Showing up is half the battle. Everything else is in your positive attitude, save 2% which is intangibles and sheer luck. "You're a good man," a fellow who stopped by my table at the Milwaukee Avenue Art Festival told me. Raising that kind of awareness and increasing engagement with these kinds of people is the key to success over time. You need to be in it to win it!

Live from Milwaukee Avenue Art Festival

3ibooks has its kiosk just inside the entrance of 2515 N. Milwuakee Ave. The building is a converted roofing contractor's warehouse. Inside it's bloody hot, the lighting and ventilation are poor at best, and the cracked concrete floor is murder on the feet and it has a permanent layer of dust. But the flow of interesting people is nonstop, and we are right next to LSLR: -- The Logan Square Literary Review. This is a very high quality journal "hand crafted in Logan Square" -- www.loganliterary.com -- and edited by a triumvirate of Eleanor Black, Patrick Dahl, and Daniel Majid. There is a definite synergy to both our approaches to all-things-local literature, and I definitely think we will be collaborating on some projects together in the future.

One of the exhibits just behind our table is LSLR's showcase of MILWAUKEE AVENUE: THE MILLENNIAL SHIFT. This is a fascinating display of artwork, posters, photographs, broadsides, advertisements, rock concert handouts, circulars going way back, and these super-cool venue flyers for current places doing great work up and down the avenue. Young Chicago Authors at 1180 N Milwaukee is one notable organization that used to have a home on W Division Street, and was referred to me by past 1st Ward alderman Manny Flores. They sponsor the largest youth poetry festival in the city, the latest event being called Louder than a Bomb.

I met up with a very vivacious young woman named Katie Palmer, an actress who has come to Chicago by way of Orlando, FL. She originally hails from Connecticut, and she is involved with one of the venues featured in the Milwaukee Avenue showcase, the Gorilla Tango Theater at 1919 N Milwaukee Avenue -- http://www.gorillatango.com/ -- and Ms. Palmer is starring in a current stage version of the classic film THE OMEGA MAN. Ms. Palmer told me it was a burlesque, and being billed as a Hestonian Opera, in honor of screen actor Charlton Heston. I'm partial to THE TEN COMMANDMENTS and SOILENT GREEN myself, but I always dug Omega Man too. I really enjoyed talking to Ms. Palmer and her boyfriend, and I think this play might be worth checking out.

We are here in this outside-the-box venue as guests of Any Squared 2328 N Milwaukee Avenue. This is an art collective that grew out of the ashes of ARTillary, and they put on art shows such as this one in places that don't normally do them. They did an amazing job with it. There is a deejay spinning disks, real vinyl, and innovative sound performance artists coming in at regular intervals, and some really cool exhibits. The one that caught my eye was LOSS OF SPACE from the Espacio Perdido Gallery, curated by Abdi Y. Maya & Eliazabeth Farias. I had a chance to talk to Liz and went through some of the pieces from the show, a mixture of paintings, lithographs, photos, and multimedia collage. One set of photographs that was really arresting were ones by local photographer Luis Hernandez. He has this Indian Muse character, really photogenic, who inhabits three different settings. It draws the viewer in and makes you want more information.

All in all, Saturday at the Art Festival was fun and productive.

SEND OUT CARDS is a game changer for business people

www.sendoutcards.com/ericlmiller

Jordan Adler calls it "the law of reciprocation" -- people experience it all the time because they took the time to send a card to somebody. It's a great business tool, a distinct way to enhance relationships and differentiate yourself from the pack.

Frank has had explosive growth at Metropolitan Bank down the street, and he was wondering out loud what he was going to do for an encore next quarter or next fiscal year. "It's in the cards!" I told him.

JUICE PLUS is an incredible system to get the fruits and vegetables you need to be essentially healthy. And SEND OUT CARDS has a variety of JUICE PLUS images to go on cards that distributors can send out to the customers, clients, and friends. This helps to effectively spread the needed message of JUICE PLUS. Karen can also use it to motivate her national team to achieve new heights in volume.

Erica told a story about how she sent a client a card and it made the recipient's week. Just imagine what could happen if you send out 1 - 3 cards daily! Over the course of a year, almost 1,000 people are positively impacted by expressions of gratitude. The end result: -- an increase in business!

A way for Jim to separate himself out from all these brokers hawking loans is to reach out to his customers and show them that he cares beyond making a fast sale. He's a holistic broker and a real cool character, and he's looking to build and maintain relationships with young people and help them achieve their dreams of home ownership. Through the cards, they become generational customers.

John could make himself memorable by sending cards to his customers and prospects thanking them for the opportunity to evaluate their property. He could send "looking forward to seeing you" cards, "forget-me-not"cards, and holiday cards that carry the message that he cares and will go the extra mile for people.

Handymen are a dime a dozen in this town, and you wouldn't want someone on your home that you didn't trust. Word of mouth is all it takes, and there is a never-ending stream of work where a majority of the houses are falling apart around here. Card sending is a way to widen the network of people you know. With sending out cards, Tom could demonstrate beyond his handyman skills that he's a cut above the rest.

The importance of a well thought-out estate plan can't be under-estimated. People lose thousands of dollars every year because they procrastinated and didn't set up a plan whilst they were healthy. And Gwen could find her potential clients using the SEND OUT CARDS system; the reach out is personal, immediate, and powerful.

In reality every business owner and professional needs to use SEND OUT CARDS. They mostly do a bad or uneven job of connecting with their customers and clients on a personal level. You, dear reader, need to experience it. Go to this web site (www.sendoutcards.com/ericlmiller) and click on number 2 to send a free card. Send the card out and see this amazing system in action!

Top 25 Forthcoming Books from the Great Lakes Region

The following books represent the cream of the crop of Great Lakes regional publishing. Diverse authors, diverse subjects, diverse publishers! Happy reading!!

Univ. of Utah Pr./Poetry Foundation - BLUEPRINTS: BRINGING POETRY INTO THE COMMUNITIES
edited by Katherine Coles paperback $8.95 trade 978-1-60781-147-3 Available - Poetry

Academy Chicago - COUNTY: LIFE, DEATH, AND POLITICS AT CHICAGO'S PUBLIC HOSPITAL by David Ansell MD cloth $32.50 978-0-89733-620-8 trade Available Memoir/Medicine

Univ of Georgia Pr. - LAST DAY ON EARTH: A PORTRAIT OF THE NIU SCHOOL SHOOTER by David Vann cloth $24.95 trade 978-0-8203-3839-2 October 2011 True Crime

Intelink Pub Group - 9/11: 10 YEARS LATER by David Ray Griffin paper $18 trade 978-1-56656-868-5 September 2011 Current Affairs/Politics

Johns Hopkins Univ Pr - INVENTING IRON MAN: THE POSSIBIBILITY OF A HUMAN MACHINE by E. Paul Zehr cloth $24.95 trade 978-1-4214-0226-0 - Science

Univ. Pr. of Kansas - DEFENDING CONGRESS AND THE CONSTITUTION by Louis Fisher paper $24.95 trade 978-0-7006-1799-9 - Politics

Univ Pr. of Kansas - FISHES OF THE CENTRAL UNITED STATES 2nd edition Revised & Expanded
by Joseph R. Tomelleri paper $24.95 trade 978-0-7006-1816-3 Nature/Picture Book

Univ. Pr. of Kentucky A VOICE IN A BOX: MY LIFE IN RADIO by Bob Edwards cloth $21.95 trade 978-0-8131-3451-2 Memoir/Media

Univ Pr. of Mississippi ALAN MOORE: CONVERSATIONS edited by Eric T. Berlatsky paper $25 trade 978-1-61703-159-5 Graphic Novels/Comics

Minnesota Historical Soc Pr. THE1968 PROJECT: A NATION COMING OF AGE by Brad Zellar paper $24.95 trade 978-0-87351-842-0 US History

Univ. of Texas Pr. - GREEBACK PLANET: HOW THE DOLLAR CONQUERED THE WORLD ... by H.W. Brands cloth $24.95 trade 978-0-292-72341-2 History/Economics

Tupelo Pr. - TRAFFIC WITH MACBETH: POEMS by Larissa Szporluk (at Bowling Green St U, Ohio) paper $16.95 trade 978-1-936797-02-8 Poetry

Wayne State Univ Pr. - DETROIT LAND by Ricahrd Bak paper $24.95 tarde 978-0-8143-3499-7 Regional History

Wayne State Univ Pr. - THE STOOGES - HEAD ON by Brett Callwood Foreword by Alice Cooper paper $19.95 trade 978-0-8143-3484-3 Music/Regional

Wicker Park Pr./Lake Street Pr. BEYOND THE PEWS: BREAKING WITH TRADITON AND LETING GO OF RELIGIOUS LOCKDOWN by Jillian Maas Backman paper $16.95 trade 978-1-936181-34-6 Religion/Spirituality

NIU Pr. – CHICAGO’S TRUNK MURDER by Elizabeth Dale cloth $32 trade 978-087580-440-8 True Crime/Regional

Michigan State Univ. Pr. – LAUGHING WHITEFISH by Robert Traver paper 19.95 trade 978-1-61186-014-6 Historical Fiction/Native American

Ohio Univ. Pr. – THE MIDWESTERN NATIVE GARDEN by Charlotte Adelman paper $26.95 trade 978-0-8214-1937-3 Gardening/Regional

Ohio Univ. Pr. – THE LOCAVORE’S KITCHEN by Marilou K. Suszko (from Ohio) paper $32.95 trade 978-0-8214-1938-0 Cooking/Regional

Ohio Univ. Pr. – MARIEMONT: A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF A MODEL TOWN by Millard F. Rogers, Jr. cloth $59.95 trade 978—0-8214-1972-4

Univ. of Minnesota Pr. - WHISKEY BREAKFAST: MY SWEDISH FAMILY, MY AMERICAN LIFE by Richard C. Lindberg (set in Chicago) paper $22.95 trade 978-0-8166-4684-5 Memoir

Univ. of Michigan Pr. – FAITHFUL ONTO DEATH by Becky Thacker Paper $22.95 trade 978-0-472-03469-7 Available Fiction/Regional History

Univ. of Michigan Pr. – THE WINDWARD SHORE: A WINTER ON THE GREAT LAKES by Jerry Dennis cloth $22.95 trade 978-0-472-11816-8

Univ. of Michigan Pr. – THE ART OF COOKING MORELS by Ruth Mossok Johnson – cloth $29.95 trade 978-0-472-11784-0 Cooking

Kent State Univ. Pr. - 1950’S RADIO IN COLOR (Photos of Tommy Edwards)
By Christopher Kennedy cloth $49 trade 978-160635-072-0 Music/Photo

3iBooks is offering Chicago Poetry Center Broadsides for sale

3iBooks is a moon-unit of Wicker Park Press Ltd of River Forest, IL. In an effort to re-invent itself every so often this luminous body has gone thinking outside the box yet again and has power-partnered with the Chicago Poetry Center (www.poetrycenter.org) to offer a wide variety of rare limited edition broadsides featuring prominent Poets & Writers of the modern, post-modern, and post-human era.

The Broadside is an art form dating back to the 17th century, and they were printed as a political statement or bold opinion to the citizenry. The original meaning, a barrage of cannon fire launched by one ship to another, eventually led to the connotation to "let loose" or write a strongly-worded opinion, the most famous of which were the Dunlap Broadsides, first published copies if the Declaration of Independence. This tradition led to printing poems from the oral tradition of the ballad.

Today's broadsides are printed on letterpress, illustrated by an artist, and signed and numbered by the poet and the artist.

Some of the poets with broadsides: Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Mark Strand, Billy Collins, Louise Gluck, Liesel Muller, Ted Kooser, Kay Ryan, Natalie Merchant, and Billy Corgan

Some of the painters with broadsides: Ed Paschke, Tony Fitzpatrick, Laura Letinsky, Marcos Raya, and Stanley Tigerman

Joe Dan Boyd calls "Pope Mary" a fantastic read!

A Review of Gene Logsdon’s Latest Book ...
By Joe Dan Boyd

Pope Mary & The Church of Almighty Good Food, called a “barnstormer of a book” by publisher Wicker Park Press, Ltd., is the latest effort, and the third novel ($24.95, PO Box 5318, River Forest, IL 60305), by my great friend Gene Logsdon. We met during the mid-1960s in Philadelphia, where Gene and I shared adjoining offices at Farm Journal Magazine on Washington Square.

The heroine of this great read is a feisty Ohio farm girl, Mary Barnette, who—like most of her neighbors—is offended when a high-handed Bishop arbitrarily closes St. Philodendra, a venerable Catholic church (with $200,000 in the bank) surrounded by corn fields and with deep roots in Mary’s community. She also challenges traditional “Canon Law” by which churches can be closed, buildings and property sold (without consent of the local congregations) and attendees forced to alternate worship sites. In this case the church is both closed and locked, denying parishioners use of the building, until a midnight avenger breaks the lock.

The heroine’s officious attitude prompts Mary to suggest she could probably do as well as “that old man over there in Rome,” and is thereafter called “Pope Mary” for the balance of this carefully crafted novel exploring virtually every aspect of rural ministry from the sharply contrasting viewpoints of the hierarchy, those who administer an often arbitrary church authority and the parishioners, those who must either comply with or challenge that authority.

And challenge is the message of this novel, which also features a bi-vocational pastor/priest, Father Ray, sometimes called The Lone Ranger, who spends as much time tending his flock of sheep as he spends in ministry to his human flock. Father Ray is called both to a spiritual ministry and a personal mission to encourage local food production and marketing for the preservation of agrarianism, traditional farming and a rural lifestyle.

What Pope Mary and Father Ray eventually champion is both unorthodox by modern standards, and refreshingly familiar to scholars of the early Christian Church. Readers will either scratch their heads in puzzlement or erupt in holy jubilation as the tables are turned on the clergy hierarchy and a rural church not only survives, but also thrives.

Miguel Del Valle for Chicago Mayor

It's clear that Del Valle is the best man to lead Chicago in the post-Daley years. He is the only one among the major candidates who has been elected to city-wide office as the current City Clerk. He was the first to announce his candidacy and he has stayed on message the whole time. He also is the most qualified candidate to lead city government. He was a State Senator for 20 years, and his connections in Springfield will be a huge asset to the city.

Voters need to think long and hard about who they want for the next mayor of the City of Chicago. I'm not saying that Del Valle is perfect, and it's true that he is a politician. Here is a look at Del Valle's competition, and they all pale in comparison. Rahm Emanuel is using his Washington, DC beltway experience as tool to convince voters he is best for the job, and this is a ruse. He has the most money and buys expensive television and radio ads, but he never talks directly to reporters or to the people. He's trying to appeal to Chicago's inflated sense of itself as an international city, the home of President Obama, as if that is going to help anyone in the neighborhoods. Rahm is a smart fellow and a consummate back-room deal maker, but his brash style and carpetbagger ways are only going to help him and his buddies from corporations. He has a bad record on the unions and won't represent working families and people who have to live and work in this city. Rahm is a great chief of staff and majority leader in the legislature, but he would make an autocratic and weak leader for Chicago at this critical time.

Gery Chico was leader of the city schools while my daughter was growing up. He was Daley's point man on education. It was clear to me as a parent that the Chicago Public Schools system was broken, especially when addressing the achievement gap between black and white students, and even more so when it came to special education. Chico sponsored a college prep high school on the far North Side that was referred to as Chico High because he spent lavishly on the building so his own kids could go there. Chico is ambitious and clearly out for himself, and he didn't spend enough time as city schools chief to really make a difference. It looks good on his resume, and he seems to know the way the administration of city government works, but that is not good enough for Chicago at this time.

Carol Mosley Braun pulled off a stunning upset when she became the first African American woman elected to the US Senate in 1992. She botched the opportunity badly and became a one-term senator. There is nothing in her resume that says she can effectively lead the city at this time. Each time she has the limelight she seems to use it to stir controversy, like her sadistic comments about mayoral candidate Patricia Watkins and Police Superintendent Jody Weis. With Braun the whole campaign is smoke and mirrors and the cult of personality. I think her approach has backfired and she doesn't have a chance.

Patricia Watkins and Williams "Dock" Walls III seem like they have some good ideas for Chicago and are a lot stronger African American candidates than Carol Moseley Braun. But this is Chicago politics and they are not real contenders for the position of Mayor. I like Walls the best among the candidates running against Del Valle, but I understand he doesn't have a chance to win, and Del Valle is such a strong candidate, and he has built such an impressive grassroots organization that I need to put Walls aside. He appears like perennial Presidential candidate Harold Stassen to me.

State Senator Rickey Hendon says that politics is like a marriage and you have to coexist with your chosen mate. Del Valle endorsed Daley in 2006 and paved the way to the City Clerk's office in the 2007 election. He alienated some people from his Hispanic base when he did that. Del Valle has also endorsed Patricia Horton for City Clerk, over fellow Hispanic Susana Mendoza, a State Rep from Chicago. This was definitely the right move for Del Valle. Horton is a great candidate and will make a fine City Clerk.

Bottom line is that Miguel Del Valle is highly qualified for the job of Mayor. It has nothing to do with his ethnic background. He grew up in Chicago and loves the city. He is suitably humble and hard-nosed at the same time. This is the twenty-first century folks and the candidates for Chicago Mayor look like a cross-section of America. Del Valle is progressive and will fight for the people. We need more of these kinds of leaders in this day and age. A vote for Del Valle is a vote for the future and for someone who will lead the city at a critical time in history.

Wicker Park Press -- Spring-Summer 2011 List

Food with Attitude
Cooking the Cuban-Rican Way
By Chef Papi Pérez

Join celebrated Chef Papi Pérez on a unique culinary journey where exotic flavors and health-conscious food go hand-in-hand. Cuban-Rican is a fusion of two distinct Caribbean cooking styles, and in the capable hands of Chef Pérez recipes contained in this book come alive as explosions of flavor and spice.

Drawn on his own experience of foodstuffs passed down from his ancestral home in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, Chef Pérez shares his secrets for creating whole menus and truly exciting and accessible food in this dynamic and colorful cookbook. There are zesty appetizers, savory side dishes, aromatic salads, hearty main courses, and delectable desserts that bear the stamp of a master craftsman in the kitchen. “I love what I do, and I believe in what I do,” says Chef Pérez. Readers are in for a treat as they delve into such classics as sazon papas, vegan arroz gondules, Cajun hummus, award-winning Angel sweet potato pie, and the inimitable Havana Hot Plate, a creative comida of steak, garlicky yucca, and red beans and rice.
This vibrant and imaginative cookbook has a delicacy for every palate and creed, from mac ‘n cheese to wheatgrass spicy rum cake, from garlic mashed potatoes to the Pérez original peanut butter and jelly smoothie, “my kids love it,” says the epicurean maestro.

The emphasis here is on recipes that are easily prepared, healthy in composition, and incredibly tasty. The dishes herein reflect the worldview of their creator. “This is what Food with Attitude is all about,” says Chef Pérez. “It’s about taking a lot of traditional recipes and making them better. So let’s take those leftovers and turn them into a gourmet dish!”

Born in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, CHEF PAPI PÉREZ bears the distinction of being one of the only certified Kosher chefs in Chicago. He has worked as a chef for many eateries throughout Chicago, and he owned his own restaurant in the Pilsen neighborhood called Café Aorta. He has been an award-winning pie maker, menu consultant, and innovator in the kitchen for the past 25 years. Having personally cooked for a large percentage of President Obama’s White House staff, Chef Pérez is considered a world authority on Caribbean cooking. -- see http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Chef-Papi-Perez-Fan-Page/241196621426

Cloth 200 pages $27.95 ISBN 978-1-936679-00-3 August 2011 7 ½ x 9 ¼ Cooking



"Joseph G. Peterson’s Inside the Whale is a part tall tale, part tragedy, part symbolist epic. His Jim O’Connor, the disastrous hero of this work, is a whorl of grief, reckless charm and surly poetic ambition. But as fascinating as it is to watch the antiheroic O’Connor churn through misadventures, oracular bursts of poetry and failed loves, perhaps Inside the Whale’s most moving passages are about Chicago, captured in Peterson’s beautiful coda to this boisterous yarn. From first word to last, this is a book infused with spirit, heart and awe."
—Gregory Lawless author of I Thought I Was New Here

Inside the Whale
A Novel in Verse
By Joseph G. Peterson

Chicago’s own Joe Peterson is back with a strikingly original novel that is at once both mythic and fanciful. It is a narrative poem that recounts the life of Irishman Jim O’Connor, a tragic figure who was born with a preternatural gift for poetry, that brought him early fame, but he is also an alcoholic who had his first blackout drunk at 12 years of age. The stanzas of the novel recount Jim’s tragic exploits as he leaves a wake of dark destruction in his midst. The ghost of his ex-girlfriend Anne, killed in a car crash on a slick, snowy road with Jim driving after an acute drinking binge, haunt Jim to the end of his days. And in a seedy tavern on Chicago’s south-side he writes an ode to her:

would it surprise you flaxen anne if i said
you sing to me a siren call
i hear you singing like the muse
today we’re starting out but
who knows where this will take us
will it take us across the decades
or will it merely take us across town
to a motel perhaps or perhaps to another bar

Inside the Whale is a novel that, in the spirit of Beowulf, imagines a bardic drone chanting the mnemonics of rhythm and rhyme to entertain, lyre in hand, a group of ruffians gathered around a keg of beer and the red-hot coals of a dying fire.

JOSEPH G. PETERSON is the author of Beautiful Piece, a critically acclaimed novel. His new novel, Wanted: Elevator Man, will be published by Switchgrass Books in Fall 2011. He lives in Chicago with his wife and two children, where he works for a large academic publisher. See: www.josephgpeterson.com

ISBN 978-1-936679-01-0 – Paperback - $16 – 225 pages – 5 x 8 – Fiction/Poetry – May 2011



Cavafy’s Stone and Other Village Tales
by Harry Mark Petrakis

Advance praise for Cavafy’s Stone and Other Village Tales:

“The book compares favorably to the work of such short-story writers as Sholem Aleichem and Anton Chekhov.”
- Mavis Manus, Hellenic Journal

“I am reminded of D. H. Lawrence’s naturalistic accounts of coal miners in England, but even more of Thomas Hart Benton’s paintings of small-town life in the American Midwest with ordinary people “enlarged” through the brightness of color—matched in Petrakis’s case by a meticulousness of description, dialogue, and narration that renders these unknowns not just knowable but memorable."
- Peter Bien, professor of English emeritus at Dartmouth College; translator of Kazantzakis's, The Last Temptation of Christ

Cavafy’s Stone and Other Village Tales is the twenty-third book by master storyteller and award-winning novelist Harry Mark Petrakis. In its play of voices reminiscent of the Winesburg, Ohio of Sherwood Anderson, this sequence of tales from a Greek village is at once tragic, moving, and poetic. The linked stories in which the inhabitants of the village of Fanaron in central Greece spin their tangled tales of love, hate, vengeance and despair create a microcosm of the world.

The storytelling craft of Harry Mark Petrakis, praised by writers such as Elie Wiesel, Kurt Vonnegut and Isaac Bashevis Singer, is poignantly and skillfully evidenced in these tales taking place in a land where three of the world’s four great tragedians once wrote their plays.

HARRY MARK PETRAKIS is the author of twenty-three books, short-stories, and essays, and has been nominated twice for the National Book Award. He was the Nikos Kazantzakis Chair in Modern Greek Studies at San Francisco State University (1992). In 2004, the American College of Greece in Athens presented him with an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters Degree. He lives with his wife in Northwest Indiana. -- http://www.harrymarkpetrakis.com/bio.html

ISBN 978-0-9789676-5-9 – Hardcover – 5 ½ x 8 ½
$24.95 – 234 pages – Fiction – April 2011



The Girl Who Applied Everywhere
by John J. Binder

Applying to college is a rite of passage experienced by thousands of high school students every year. For Sarah Jennings, a senior at fictional Oak Stream High School in suburban Chicago who wants to attend a top university, the task is a daunting one. She comes up with the highly unorthodox idea of applying to 101 colleges around the country, including her safety school, University of Illinois. Readers will find themselves rooting for Sarah and her two classmate helpers, Carrie Wilson and Rob Taylor, as she struggles to submit all her applications by the end of December deadline.
The pressure of getting into a prestigious school can be incredibly intense in a suburban environment. Worried about his own chances, Rob decides on a new, bizarre strategy. Embracing his Native American heritage, he changes his name from Rob Taylor to Running Elk Taylor; he then reapplies to the schools he has already applied to by submitting identical materials while listing his ethnicity as Native American. Rob ends up getting into many colleges that might have otherwise rejected him. While Carrie, Sarah’s other friend, contends with undue pressure from her mother who went to MIT, and who sees her going there as a fulfillment of a multi-generational legacy. There is no question in Carrie’s mother’s mind where she will go. But Carrie has other ideas.

In the strange world of college admissions it becomes clear that acceptance decisions are based on all kinds of things beyond the applicant’s academic ability. Because she is famous due to media coverage of her application odyssey, Sarah gets admitted by most of the schools she applied to. Then comes the really hard part, where to go? And herein lies the moral to this spirited and entertaining novel.

JOHN J. BINDER is a faculty member and former administrator at a university in the Chicago area. His previous book, The Chicago Outfit, deals with rackets other than higher education. He wrote this book partly to help put his children through college.

ISBN 978-1-936679-02-7 – Hardcover - 5 ½ x 8 ½
$19.95 – 160 pages – Fiction/Young Adult - April 2011



Pope Mary and the Church of Almighty Good Food
by Gene Logsdon

"Pope Mary and the Church of Almighty Good Food is a wicked satire of religion and small-town oddballs."
- Barbara McIntyre, Akron Beacon Journal

Vinal County, Ohio is a place where corn is king and soybeans are a distant cousin. The spires of regal Catholic churches rise out of the farm landscape and are living manifestations to the faith of God-fearing farm families who contributed to the collection plate every Sunday for generations. Little changes as seasons’ progress, until one day the higher-ups in Rome decide to shut down these churches and make way for some good old-fashioned 21st century style efficiency. A mini-revolution occurs in the churchyard of St Philodendra’s; the lock on the venerable church door is shattered, leaving it swinging in the wind, and the sanctuary open to all. A cast of zany characters populate this romp, from Mary Barnette who dubs herself Pope, to the horse-riding, sheep-tending priest Fr. Ray, to a greedy parish priest who tries to cash in on the ethanol boom, to a group of Catholic royalists calling themselves the Defenders of the Door.

The original contrary farmer himself ruminates on the nature of religion and belief in this barnstormer of a book. Razor sharp satire, flawless characterization, telling dialogue, and formidable comic situations make this third novel by veteran farm and nature writer Logsdon a must-read.

Gene Logsdon lives and raises sheep in north central Ohio with his wife, Carol. He is the author of 26 books, including The Lords of Folly (published by Wicker Park Press), The Mother of All Arts, You Can Go Home Again, The Contrary Farmer, The Pond Lovers, and All Flesh is Grass.

ISBN 978-0-9789676-4-2 – Hardcover – 6 x 9
$24.95 – 200 pages – Fiction – April 2011



The Book of Raymond
A Journey from Prison to Praise and Poetry
by Raymond Richard

Raymond Richard tells it like it is in a powerful collection of poems that are electrifying, terrifying, and awe-inspiring. Richard has been to the big house, lived in poverty on the streets of Chicago, and took to crime and drugs to survive. Here is poetry that literally crackles off the page. Richard is the real deal. He has put his life back together against almost insurmountable odds. He’s back to tell his story in poems that are honest, heart-breaking, violent, and tender. This book is a thoroughly unique look at how religious experience can transform lives for the better.


The Ghetto

...for I have seen violence and strife in the city. Day and night they go about it upon the walls thereof; mischief also and sorrow are in the midst of it. Wickedness is in the midst thereof; deceit and guile depart not from her streets. Psalms 55: 9b-11

Growing up in the ghetto
Broke dreams was all I seen,
From athletes, entertainers, lawyers, doctors and teachers,
All becoming fiends,
Still hear the families scream
As their loved ones lie dead
With a hole in their head,
On the streets another life gone,
This can’t go on.

Police and paramedics arrive on the scene
Too late to do anything,
Nobody is talking,
Don’t want to get involved
Senseless murders go unsolved
Black on black crime
Or gang violence is what its called.

The media report its government support
Its “case closed” that’s the way they want it.
Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior
Never intended for us to live this way,
Satan led us astray.

Strung out mother’s
Locked up fathers,
A child is born with no one to guide them,
So they turn to the gangs,
The gangs become their family,
Only because parents didn’t live up to their responsibilities.
No one was there to teach them the facts of life,
Violence has become a way of life.


RAYMOND RICHARD lives in Chicago and he has devoted his life to helping men and women put their lives back together after incarceration. He has founded Returning Citizens, a nonprofit organization that empowers former prisoners through job training, literature, and the power of the spoken word.

ISBN 978-0-9789676-7-3 – Paperback – 5 ½ x 8 ½
$15.95 – 68 pages – Poetry/Religion – Now Available



Here, There Are No Sarahs
A Woman’s Courageous Fight against the Nazis and Her Bittersweet Fulfillment of the American Dream
by Sonia Shainwald Orbuch and Fred Rosenbaum
“Here, There Are No Sarahs is especially salient because it deals with little known phenomena of Jews who fought back and explores the difficult role of women in the resistance … uncommonly frank.”
- Michael Berenbaum, Founding Director, United States Holocaust Museum

From a frail teen hiding in German-occupied Poland to a fighter in the forests with the Soviet Partisans…

Stripped of her name, 18 year-old Sonia Shainwald went to war without basic training, without equipment, without food, or any of the essentials necessary to fight the Germans. Urging her family and neighbors to leave a wretched hiding place during the liquidation of their ghetto, she and her parents and uncle spent a brutal winter in the forest. There she joined the Fyodorov partisans and resisted Nazi oppression. After the liberation, her family spent three years in a Displaced Persons camp near Frankfurt, and eventually reached America.

SONIA SHAINWALD ORBUCH was born and raised in Lubomi, Poland. In 1945, she married Holocaust survivor Isaak Orbuch and the couple had two children. She currently lives in the Bay Area and is active in numerous Jewish organizations in New York and California.

ISBN: 978-0-9789676-8-0 – Paperback - $17.95
5 ½ X 8 ½ - 276 pages – Illustrated - Judaica/World War II/Autobiogtaphy – February 2011

Also Available
Taking Risks
A Jewish Youth in the Soviet Partisans and His Unlikely Life in California
by Joseph Pell and Fred Rosenbaum
ISBN 978-0-9789676-9-7 – Paperback - $15.95
5 ½ x 8 ½ - 228 pages – Illustrated - Judaica/World War II



Out on a Ledge
Enduring the Lodz Ghetto, Auschwitz, and Beyond
by Eva Libitzky and Fred Rosenbaum

“Eva Libitzky’s personal story … opens a valuable window with frank discussions of the traumas and stresses of suffering and survival.”
- Robert Moses Shapiro, Professor of Judaic Studies, Brooklyn College

An account of one woman’s uncommon resourcefulness and perseverance, this book uncovers some of the secrets of Jewish suffering and survival in the twentieth century. Related in her plainspoken voice, it will be of consider¬able interest to scholars and the general public.

This book owes much to a trove of documents on the Holocaust, 150 million pages that were recently digitized and made accessible to researchers by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Fred Rosenbaum was among a team of twelve scholars assembled by the USHMM to examine the archive in summer, 2009. It revealed a great deal of information about Eva Libitzky, and her times. Original documents, including transport lists, medical records, and identity cards are reproduced in the appendix of this volume.

EVA LIBITSKY was born in Lodz, Poland, where she was confined by the Nazis for over four years in Europe’s most impenetrable and longest-lasting ghetto. She was later tortured at Auschwitz-Birkenau, enslaved in the Oederan munitions factory, and quarantined in There¬sienstadt during a typhus epidemic. In 1946, she married Martin Libitzky in a DP camp near Munich. The Libitzkys immigrated to America in 1949. They live in Florida where Eva speaks to groups about her wartime experiences.

FRED ROSENBAUM is the author of numerous books in Jewish history, his most recent book is Cosmopolitans: A Social and Intellectual History of the Jews of the San Francisco Bay Area.

ISBN 978-0-9789676-3-5 – Paperback - $16.95
5 ½ x 8 ½ - 276 pages – Illustrated - Judaica/World War II/Autobiography Available




The Uncanny Valley
Waxworks Photographs of Eleftheria Lialios
by Eleftheria Lialios
Introduction by Dan Georgakis
Text and Notes by Hatto Fischer
Poetry by Vincent Berquez

“ART is a lie that makes us realize TRUTH.”
– Pablo Picasso

The very nature of representation is on graphic display in these outrageous color photographs by veteran multimedia artist Eleftheria Lialios. The color photographs in this book were taken in various wax museums from Cyprus, Greece, London, Paris, and Berlin. They were taken with a regular film 35 mm camera, and were shot “on the fly.” As part of a tour group traveling through a wax museum, Lialios was one of the crowd and did not have time to compose a photograph or implement special lighting. She took the photograph, and later worked with her assembled images.

The wax figures that populate this book form a facsimile of humanity, a representation of life, graphically displayed. The cult of celebrity and the reflexive recognition of historical figures compiled in this book add to its overall unreality, or surreality. Lialios is an artist with an agenda to make readers look inward at themselves as raw observers, she asks us implicitly, what is the quality of our own gaze? What preconceived ideas do we bring along with us?

What is especially uncanny about this book is its ability to entertain, inform, and shock readers all at the same time. As a functional work of art, this collection of photographs challenges more than our expectations and goes right to the heart of what it means to be human, and even post-human.

Eleftheria Lialios is an international artist: -- she’s a filmmaker, a photographer, and is experienced in making photographic transparencies and using them in installations. Appropriately, Lialios’ first name means “freedom” in Greek, which is what many of her friends call her. From immigrant scholar to political artist, Lialios made her art world debut in the late 1970s and has gained notoriety ever since. Born in 1956 in Ioannina, Greece, her family, Greek refugees from Albania, migrated to Canada and then to the United States, where Lialios completed her undergraduate degree at Wayne State University. Early in her career, she won numerous awards and grants, including the prestigious Fulbright Scholar grant in 1986. From 1988 – 2010 she was Associate Adjunct Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She currently resides in Paris.

ISBN 978-0-9789676-6-6 – Paperback - $35.00
10 x 10 - 120 pages – Photography (color) - September 2011

ISBN 978-0-888160-75-8 – Cloth (laminated) - $65.00
10 x 10 - 120 pages – Photography (color) - September 2011



Carbon- Free and Nuclear- Free
A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy, Updated Edition IEER PRESS
by Arjun Makhijani

“Argun has produced a study which fulfills my greatest hopes – an urgent action plan to move Earth in a dignified way out of intensive care.”
- Helen Caldicott, M.D., President, Nuclear Policy Research Institute

This important book shows how energy needs can be met by alternative sources: -- wind, solar, biomass, microalgae, and geothermal are all part of a comprehensive solution. In a world confronting global climate change and other critical issues, the U.S. must assume a leadership role in moving towards a zero-C02 emissions energy economy. This book is a blueprint for bringing America closer to energy independence and environmental safety.

ARGUN MAKHIJANI is an engineer and President of Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER).

ISBN 978-0-9645168-2-3 – Paperback – 5 ½ x 8 ½
$17.95 – 265 pages – Science/Environmental Studies – February 2011

Joe Peterson's INSIDE THE WHALE is lauded by fellow author

"From first word to last, this is a book infused with spirit, heart and awe."
—Gregory Lawless

INSIDE THE WHALE: A NOVEL IN VERSE
by Joe Peterson
ISBN 978-1-936679-01-0
Paperback $16 5 x 8 Release date: April 2011
--
Joseph G. Peterson
is the author of the novel,
"Beautiful Piece"
http://www.josephgpeterson.com

Let's not wait until we smell the corpse on this one...