New creative nonfiction by some of Michigan's most well-known and highly acclaimed authors. Elemental: A Collection of Michigan Creative Nonfiction comes to us from twenty-three of Michigan's most well-known essayists. A celebration of the elements, this collection is both the storm and the shelter. In her introduction, editor Anne-Marie Oomen recalls the ""ritual dousing"" of her storytelling group's bonfire: ""wind, earth, fire, water, all of it simultaneous in that one gesture. . . . In that moment we are bound together with these elements and with this place, the circle around the fire on the shores of a Great Lake closes, complete."" The essays approach Michigan at the atomic level. This is a place where weather patterns and ecology matter. Farmers, miners, shippers, and loggers have built (or lost) their livelihoodon Michigan's nature-what could and could not be made out of our elements. From freshwater lakes that have shaped the ground beneath our feet to the industrial ebb and flow of iron ore and wind power-ours is a state of survival and transformation. In the first section of the book, ""Earth,"" Jerry Dennis remembers working construction in northern Michigan. ""Water"" includes a piece from Jessica Mesman, who writes of the appearance of snow in different iterations throughout her life. The section ""Wind"" houses essays about the ungraspable nature of death from Toi Dericotte and Keith Taylor. ""Fire"" includes pieces Mardi Jo Link, who recollects the unfortunate series of circumstances surrounding one of her family members. Elemental's strength lies in its ability to learn from the past in the hope of defining a wiser future. A lot of literature can make this claim, but not all of it comes together so organically. Fans of nonfiction that reads as beautifully as fiction will love this collection.

A modern-day fairy tale told in conversation between a young girl and the mermaid of Lake Michigan. The Lake Michigan Mermaid is a new tale that feels familiar. The breeze off the lake, the sand underfoot, the supreme sadness of being young and not in control-these sensations come rushing back page by page, bringing to life an ancient myth of coming of age in a troubled world. Freed from the minds of Linda Nemec Foster and Anne-Marie Oomen, the Lake Michigan mermaid serves as a voice of reason for when we're caught in the riptide. This is a gripping tale in poems of a young girl's desperate search for guidance in a world turned upside down by family and economic upheaval. Raised in a ramshackle cottage on the shores of Lake Michigan, Lykretia takes refuge in her beloved lake in the face of her grandmother's illness and her mother's eager attempts to sell their home following her recent divorce. One day Lykretia spots a creature in the water, something beautiful and inexplicable. Is it the mythical Lake Michigan mermaid, or an embodiment of the stories her grandmother told as dementia ravaged her mind? Thus begins a telepathic conversation between a lost young girl and Phyliadellacia, the mermaid who saves her in more ways than one. Accompanied by haunting illustrations, The Lake Michigan Mermaid offers a tender tale of friendship, redemption, and the life-giving power of water. As it explores family relationships and generational bonds, this book is an unforgettable experience that aims to connect readers of all ages.

“Lively . . . At times dreamily beautiful.� —CHICAGO SUN-TIMES Coding and decoding are threads running through the poems of Uncoded Woman, which together tell the story of a woman named Bead and her search for safe harbor. “LN1: You Should Proceed with Caution.� “D: Keep Clear of Me: I Am Maneuvering with Difficulty.� “YZ: The Words Which Follow Are in Plain Language.� The maritime International Code of Signals—a dictionary of ship’s pennants and the message they convey—becomes a symbolic guide to Bead’s journey, as she learns that some signs mislead while others illuminate. Along the way, the beautiful terrain near Lake Michigan forms a powerful backdrop to Bead’s life with Barn, her Native American boyfriend, whose struggles are in stark contrast to the wealthy resort community around them. From exhilaration to degradation, from betrayal to self-reliance, Anne-Marie Oomen’s poems give voice to a woman’s life on the edge.

Anne-Marie Oomen uses a wealth of vivid language and personal details to bring scenes from her childhood on a family farm to life in ""House of Fields"". Yet, the focus of this book shifts away from the daily activities of the farm, which Oomen presented in ""Pulling Down the Barn"", to life outside its boundaries, as she explores the complex meaning of ""education"" in all of its rural forms. From reading lessons to shattered windows, from dynamite to first kisses, from lost underwear to confirmation names, these stories depict the spiritual and emotional journey of being educated by family, fields, and church - as well as by traditional schools. Oomen's description of the farmhouse where she grew up becomes the central image for this collection of essays. This once-grand home, filled with memories and the physical wear of family life, is the soul of her family's farm, and its sense of nurturing and protection is reflected in the author's relationships to her mother, her teachers, and her mentors. Within this context, Oomen examines memories from her formal education, which began during the final years of the one-room school era then shifted to the ""consolidated"" schools of the late 1950s and 1960s and to a parochial school system. Struggles with reading, first friendships, early loves, and contradictory educational models are coupled with the challenges of coming of age and the ups and downs of an emotional education between mother and daughter. Fans and teachers of creative nonfiction, as well as anyone with roots in a rural community, will enjoy this lyrical and revealing volume.

Pulling Down the Barn eloquently recalls author Anne-Marie Oomen's personal journey as she discovers herself an outsider on her family farm located in western Michigan's Oceana County, in the township of Elbridge - a couple hundred acres in the middle of rural America. Written as a series of heartfelt interlocking narratives, this collection of essays portrays the realities of farm life: haying, picking asparagus and cherries, the machinery of tractors and pickers, but each chapter also touches upon the more ethereal and rarely articulated: the stoic love that permeates a family, the farmer's struggle with identity, the unspoken patriarchy of land passed on to sons (often at the expense of daughters), and the way land can shape a childhood. With its rich language and style, Pulling Down the Barn engrosses the reader in Oomen's memories - setting beauty and wonder against work and loss - and paints a poignant portrait of growing up in rural Michigan.

Writer Pam Houston once summed it up: "Nice mother-daughter stories are a dime a dozen; pain-in-the-ass mother-daughter stories are the ones that grab us." As Long as I Know You is a compelling read for any adult grappling with a living elder who might also be a pain in the ass, particularly, any reader who wants a tender take on the lethal combination of dementia and defiance. As Long as I Know You narrates Anne-Marie Oomen's journey to finally knowing her mother as well as the heartbreaking loss of her mother's immense capacities. It explores how humor and compassion grow belatedly between a mother and daughter who don't much like each other. It's a personal map to find a mother who may have been there all along, then losing her again in the time of Covid. As the millions of women like Oomen's mother reach their elder years and become the "oldest of the old," their millions of daughters (and sometimes sons) must come on board, involved in care they may welcome the way they'd welcome hitting a pothole the size of a semi. How a family makes decisions about that pothole, how care continues or does not, how possessions are addressed-really, no one wants the crockpot-and how the relationship shifts and evolves (or not), that story is universal.