Thank you for participating in this fund raising effort!
Donation Update:
Jan 30: $50 paid to Frost Lake Elementary school.
Poetry Anthology proceeds to aid Minnesota
Pigeon Falls selected for Larry Meiller’s WPR book club radio show
Jeff Elzinga’s Pigeon Falls has been selected as one of the six books for WPR’s Larry Meiller’s radio book club show, Thursday, June 18 edition. According to the WPR post about the event, the show host still finds it exciting, after nearly sixty years on the air, to discover new books. “That is one of the most fun parts of this job for me. I read something that I wouldn’t have read, and it’s like, ‘Wow,” Meiller said.
We agree. It’s easy to discover the latest NYT bestseller, but when you realize that indie book you took a chance on is just as good or better, it’s like finding a hidden gem.
Meiller encourages listeners to get copies of the featured books to read prior to the show so they can call in with questions for the author. ORDER PIGEON FALLS
“The Larry Meiller Show” airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on WPR News. Click on the photo below to go to WPR site for more information.
New Poetry by Marilyn Zelke Windau
Living With The Dead is the newest work by Wisconsin poet and artist Marilyn Zelke Windau. In her newest collection, Marilyn Zelke Windau writes about family, memory, loss, and grief. This book about death celebrates life.
Previously we have published her book about traveling, Beneath The Southern Crux. As a member of the Grand Avenue Poetry Collective, she also appears in The Aging Poems and The Water Poems.
Join us in celebrating her new book.
Available January 6, 2026
The Songs of Summer: Poems About Baseball
We’re excited to announce that we will publish a new poetry anthology on the theme of baseball, edited by Tom Erickson and Ed Werstein.
Filled with profound, lyrical, and nostalgic poems, The Songs of Summer: Poems About Baseball is the book for any baseball fan with a literary bent. Fifty-six poets exhibit their passion for the sport in a companionable collection of poems tinged with humor, sensibility, and pathos.
Due out October 14, 2025, you can pre-order your copy now.
AI resistance
There is no doubt that artificial intelligence has already made inroads into our daily lives. Smart phones are, perhaps, too smart. But as AI continues to teach itself, there are things we can do, especially as writers, to keep AI from using our books to learn.
According the The Author’s Guild, placing a “no AI Training” statement on your copyright page is a start. Their free-to-use model statement is listed below. Author’s Guild members can also apply for a human-made seal for their works.
NO AI TRAINING: Without in any way limiting the author’s [and publisher’s] exclusive rights under copyright, any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.
Those of us who are old enough to remember the movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, have never forgotten the chilling scene where HAL, the precursor to AI, turns on his human counterpart and refuses to comply with an order. What I think is interesting is when I searched for that quote (so I could get it right), AI found exactly what I needed. Convenient, I guess, but also kind of chilling.
Nevertheless, take heart Water’s Edge Press community. Each book we publish is HUMAN MADE, whether or not it has a seal. We have begun to make that statement on the copyright pages of the books we publish as well as the “No AI Training” statement listed above.
What readers can do is to buy their books from reputable presses, like ours. While Amazon publishing requires their authors to state whether or not AI was used in a book’s creation, they have no qualms about selling AI made books. Reader beware! It’s a brave new world indeed.
Intracoastal on the Horizon
We’re excited to announce a new collection of poetry by Franco Pagnucci, author of Again The Red Fox (2024).
Slated to be released November 4, 2025
Description:
Intracoastal follows the journey of two people from the Midwest heading to the Coastal South in search of a new place. They settle in a place between a salt marsh and the sea. There has been a major storm—Hurricane Florence—the landscape is starting over as the two people are. The work is a collection of seventy-seven mostly short poems, visually crisp that leave us feeling resplendent.
Happy Pub Day: Calliope Chapbook Authors
The three books of poetry in our series one of Calliope Chapbooks were chosen, edited, and promoted by teams of student editors in Professor Wattenberg’s Literary Publishing class at Lakeland University. Water’s Edge Press’ collaboration with the University had several aims, but chiefly to engage interested students in a real-world publishing experience. The outcome is three tremendous chapbooks, each one a jewel in its own right. Buy one, buy all three. We ship orders the same or next day, in eco-friendly packaging.
Happy Pub Day: Pigeon Falls by Jeff Elzinga
April 8, 2025 is the official publication date for Pigeon Falls by Jeff Elzinga. We’re thrilled to have edited and published this compelling and important novel. You will want this one! Orders are shipped same or next day.
Experiential Learning: Lakeland Students Learn About Editing and Publishing
This spring, Water’s Edge Press collaborated with Madeleine Wattenberg’s Literary Publishing class to give students a hands-on experience with literary editing and publishing. In this blog post for Lakeland University, Alyssa Voigt wrote about this collaborative experience.
Pigeon Falls by Jeff Elzinga, BookLife Editor’s Pick
We’re excited that our soon to be published novel from Jeff Elzinga–Pigeon Falls–is a BookLife Editor’s Pick. It’s gratifying when other book professionals recognize excellence.
You’re going to love this book. It is a timely story with characters that will grab your heart.
Pre-Order Now.
