Starting July 15, 2020, we are offering copies of The Distance Between Stars signed by the author, Jeff Elzinga.
Order yours today before our supply sells out. This offer is available only at Water’s Edge Press.
ABOUT THIS BOOK
The Distance between Stars, a story about DUTY, RACE, and national IDENTITY.
In an African country quickly sliding towards civil war, an American diplomat adrift in his personal life searches for an investigative reporter who has gone missing in the bush.
We are excited to share that Lakeland Professor Emeritus Jeff Elzinga has published his debut novel, “The Distance Between Stars,” through Water’s Edge Press.
Ashley Ehman’s full review in Portage Magazine
Excerpt: “Much like the dandelion seeds on the cover, sometimes only beautiful things can come from the death of something else. This collection touches on life lessons, memories had, and the chance to grow as individuals in the wake of something seemingly negative, like death. Stitching Earth to Sky does a wonderful job at creating an introspective look at the reader’s own mortality through the experiences of the PaperBirch Poets.”
We recently signed Wisconsin poet Kathryn Gahl and will publish her collection of poems, The Velocity of Love. We’re hopeful we can have this volume in readers’ hands this fall. Follow us to keep tabs on this project.
Water’s Edge Press is excited to announce we have agreed to publish The Distance Between Stars, a novel by Jeff Elzinga.
The Distance Between Stars takes place over ten days in an East African country on the verge of civil war. The country of Umbika, like many of its neighbors, had once replaced colonial repression with a dictator of its own choosing, but now, after fifteen years of stagnant social and economic progress, peaceful protests are turning violent. The Life President accuses the U.S. government of secretly supporting his opposition, and tribal animosities, simmering for years, are rolling into full boil.
Joe Kellerman is an American diplomat, among the Department’s best problem solvers. He has spent his entire career in sub-Saharan Africa, moving from one difficult assignment to another. Joe is white, middle aged, and adrift in a solitary life, where his work is all that matters to him. As Umbika begins to disintergrate, a controversial black American journalist arrives in country on a fact-finding trip. Joe is assigned to assist him, but for many reasons, the two men do not get along. When the journalist disappears in the bush, Joe is sent to find him or find out what happened to him. What follows is a story about duty, race, national identify, and the vanishing point where these elusive perspectives meet.
Painting South Pier is a book of poetry by Dawn Hogue that considers each season at Sheboygan’s South Pier neighborhood.
These are the poems of a fascinated heart and mind, of lucid seeing and simple language that celebrates both nature and our part in it. Broken up by season, Painting South Pier does more than merely describe the earth’s subtle and not-so-subtle changes; it paints an intimate human portrait rooted in ecstatic love for all things bright and not-so-bright. A quiet, humble wisdom hums from within each poem, as does a refreshingly sanguine yearning to “shout life in spring’s cold sun.” — John Sibley Williams, author of As One Fire Consumes Another
First is Icarus: Anthropology of Addiction, a chapbook by Sylvia Cavanaugh. The poems take readers on a poetic sojourn through the effect addiction can have on a family.
Next in line is Stitching Earth to Sky, a full-length book by The PaperBirch Poets, a group of nine women, mostly Wisconsin writers. These poets consider life through a variety of lenses and help us understand nature, history, love, and family.
We’re thrilled to present From Everywhere a Little: A Migration Anthology, a collaborative effort from editors Dawn Hogue and Lisa Vihos. The book began as an idea at a 100 Thousand Poets for Change event in Sheboygan, WI, September 2018. According to Vihos, “People of all ages shared original poems at the event. Throughout the open mic reading, I kept saying, We have to make a book of these poems. And I’ve learned if you say something enough, it will happen.”
Vihos’s vision is fully realized in this 96 page collection of poems from award-winning poets across the U.S. and beyond. About this book, Wisconsin’s newest poet laureate Margaret Rozga said, “At home or driven from home. Doors opening or shut fast. Migrants, immigrants, refugees. People moving and being moved. The poems in From Everywhere A Little: A Migration Anthology touch on all that. They will touch and move you, too.”
The newest project from the Grand Avenue Poetry Collective is a chapbook called The Aging Poems. About this book, Wisconsin Poet Laureate Karla Huston says, “This book will delight you with its joy of language, its delicious imagery, and its collective wisdom.”
Poets in the Grand Avenue Poetry Collective are Sylvia Cavanaugh, Nancy Harrison Durdin, Dawn Hogue, Maryann Hurtt, Georgia Ressmeyer, Lisa Vihos, and Marilyn Zelke Windau.
Ancestral
$25.00
A Hollow Bone
$16.00
Lamenting My Failure to Learn How to Tap Dance: And Other Missteps
$18.00
Something Novel Came In Spring
$15.00
Poems from the Winter House
$25.00
