Yesterday, Michigan Radio featured an interview with me and Fracture contributor Maryann Lesert on their Stateside program. We discussed fracking, the book, and our upcoming events in northern Lower Michigan. Listen here.
Category Archives: Creative Writing
More Michigan Fracture Events
Here are a couple photos from our April event at Lansing’s Everybody Reads. Sorry about the quality; we did have a professional photographer attend our Creston Wellness Center event, and I hope to share the photos from that soon.
Here also are a few more dates for upcoming Fracture readings in Michigan. As always, they are free and open to the public!
Saturday, August 6 – Traverse City, Michigan
Join us at the Horizon Books for a reading and book signing with contributors Stephanie Mills and Maryann Lesert as well as yours truly.
Details on the Horizon’s event page.
Tuesday, August 9 – Pellston, Michigan
The University of Michigan Biological Station will host a reading and discussion with me as well as contributors Maryann Lesert and Stephanie Mills.
Details on the UMBS event page.
Tuesday, September 20 – Lansing, Michigan
In partnership with Lansing Community College’s Science Department, Schuler Books (Eastwood) hosts the monthly discussion group Cafe Scientifique, an outreach program to promote public interest in science. This September, the group will discuss fracking and Fracture with contributor Maryann Lesert as their honored guest.
Find a list of Cafe Scientifique’s past events here.
There are still more events in the works, and on Thursday, I’m going into the studio with Maryann Lesert to talk to Lester Graham, host of Michigan Radio’s Stateside program. I’ll post those dates and a link to the interview when I have them!
A frequently updated list of past and upcoming readings can be found at the bottom of our page on the publisher’s (newly redesigned!) website. Be sure to follow both the book and the press on Facebook to keep up with the latest news, and tweet at us @icecubepress, @fractureanth, and @brooktrouting.
The Fracture Tour Continues
Photo by Taylor Brorby at our U Wyoming event
Here’s an update on our Michigan Fracture events, all of which are free and open to the public.
There are a couple more in the works—I’ll let you know when we have the details for you!
Tuesday, May 10 – Grand Haven, Michigan
Join us at the Bookman for a reading and book signing with contributors Stephanie Mills and Maryann Lesert as well as yours truly.
Details on the Bookman’s event page.
Tuesday, May 24 – Grand Rapids, Michigan
The Creston Wellness Center will host an evening of music by Sarah Barker and Max Lockwood as well as readings by contributor Maryann Lesert and myself. With just one week left to gather enough signatures to put fracking on Michigan’s 2016 ballot, the Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan will be on site with petitions.
Find details about this event here.
Tuesday, August 9 – Pellston, Michigan
The University of Michigan Biological Station will host a reading and discussion with me as well as contributors Maryann Lesert and Stephanie Mills.
Details on the UMBS event page.
A frequently updated list of past and upcoming readings can be found at the bottom of our page on the publisher’s website.
Fracture on Tour
Since early February, my co-editor, Taylor Brorby, and many of our contributors have been sharing Fracture with audiences across America–from Pennsylvania to Colorado, from Wisconsin and Minnesota to Texas, and all across Ice Cube Press’s home state of Iowa and Taylor’s home state of North Dakota. Though Ice Cube Press is a “Midwest Book Publisher,” fracking and its impacts know no such geographical distinctions.
I’m looking forward to joining the tour in April, traveling throughout my own home state of Michigan and even all the way to Laramie, Wyoming. All events are free and open to the public.
Stay tuned for additional Michigan events (including Harmony Brewing and Creston Wellness Center in Grand Rapids, The Bookman in Grand Haven, and Schuler Books in Lansing) as we finalize dates, but for now, you can plan on the following opportunities:
Tuesday, April 12 – Grand Rapids, Michigan
Grand Rapids Community College‘s School of Arts and Sciences and English Department will host an evening of music by Sarah Barker and readings by contributors Maryann Lesert and Stephanie Mills as well as me. Details on our Facebook event page.
Saturday, April 16 – Laramie, Wyoming
The University of Wyoming Creative Writing Program will present an all-day event devoted to Fracture, including readings, presentations, and book signings with contributors Kathleen Dean Moore, Rick Bass, and Antonia Felix as well as both editors. Find details about this event here.
Saturday, April 23 – Lansing, Michigan
Everybody Reads will host a reading with contributors Maryann Lesert and Stephanie Mills as well as me. I’ll update this post with a link to the event page soon.
Tuesday, August 9 – Pellston, Michigan
The University of Michigan Biological Station will host a reading and discussion with contributors Maryann Lesert and Stephanie Mills as well as me. Details forthcoming on their event page.
A frequently updated list of past and upcoming readings can be found at the bottom of our page on the publisher’s website.
Fracture in the News
Fracture officially released February 14, and there has been a lot of great media coverage of the book since then, including a review in Flyway: Journal of Writing and Environment, an interview in Orion Magazine, and conversations with public radio.
One recent article we’re excited about is an online review by Thomas Fate for the Chicago Tribune. Here’s an excerpt:
Fracture includes a wide variety of voices and thinking, which is what keeps the book from slipping into what anthologies of social critique can become — cycles of guilt-laden lament, where the language of the activist overwhelms the language of the artist. In Fracture these two viewpoints somehow converge rather than compete, resulting in an innovative and compelling weave of writers who both educate and inspire.
Fracture will also be featured in their Sunday edition.
Another recent article worth calling out is by Adam Burke for Little Village magazine. In addition to promoting tomorrow’s reading at Prairie Lights, Burke sought to understand the significance of the book through the experiences of the editors and contributors. He interviewed both Taylor and me, plus three of our contributors, beautifully illustrating the range of perspectives and motivations you’ll find in Fracture.
“Bringing a book like Fracture into the world is important because our society needs to cultivate healthy, productive ways to talk about big contentious issues like hydraulic fracturing,” Trout said, adding, “We have not attempted to represent every side of the issue, but we have aimed to provide context for conversations about fracking and to illustrate just how complicated the issue is.”
Ice Cube Press frequently updates this page with links to reviews and local and national media reporting on the book.
Fracture features the voices of more than fifty writers. Preview two of them—Debra Marquart and Frederick L. Kirschenmann—in our second book trailer.
We are less than two weeks from our official release date, and those of us who have had the privilege of working on the book are thrilled to share Fracture with the rest of the world.
Enjoy this trailer by videographer extraordinaire Ana Hurtado and my co-editor, Taylor Brorby:
And now get yourself over to Ice Cube Press to order yourself a copy!
Ten November
The SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank forty years ago today. Here’s a poem about it.
“Remember, remember, the 10th of November”-Adam de Pencier, National Post
There is no James Cameron blockbuster, no
Jack and Rose, no never-let-go scene to cement this ship-
wreck into our collective Hollywood consciousness.
What commemorates Big Fitz: an elegy crooned
to a melody Lightfoot cribbed from old Irish folk
songs, a stage play reprised each fall at the local
high school, watercolor likenesses on canvas,
reprints on postcards, throw pillows, etc.
I once saw my sister act in the play. “Saw” is a stretch—
I remember more the map-drawing book that held my
attention during the show: I admired the variety of compass
rose designs, steadied my hands so my contour lines didn’t run
together, asked my mom, in a stage whisper, if we had any tea
bags at home so I could give my map a quasi-authentic stain—
but so is “act” since my…
View original post 65 more words
Fracture Galleys
The Fracture galleys are in!
My co-editor Taylor Brorby, our publisher Steve Semken, and I are hard at work proofing these advanced copies, and we can’t wait to share this powerful book with you. But we’ll have to wait because we want it to be perfect for you. Ice Cube Press will release Fracture on February 14, 2016.
In the meantime, follow us on Facebook and Twitter @fractureanth.
And while you’re at it, here are some more great pages to follow for Fracture updates:
- Ice Cube Press on Facebook and Twitter @icecubepress
- Taylor Brorby on Facebook and Twitter @TaylorBrorby
And, of course, you can find me Tweeting (or sometimes not Tweeting) @brooktrouting.
Fracture Contributor List
Taylor Brorby and I received so many wonderful submissions to Fracture: Essays, Poems, and Stories on Fracking in America and are very thankful to everyone who sent us their work! We are pleased to release our list of talented contributors:
- Rick Bass
- Jan Bindas-Tenney
- Louise A. Blum
- Paul Bogard
- Angie Carter
- Alison Hawthorne Deming
- Michelle Donahue
- Sarah Lyn Eaton
- Antonia Felix
- David Gessner
- Linda Hogan
- Barbara Hurd
- Derrick Jensen
- Jon Jensen
- Robert Jensen
- Michele Johnson
- John Kenyon
- Frederick L. Kirschenmann
- Claire Krüesel
- Ahna Kruzic
- Stephanie LeMenager
- Maryann Lesert
- Patricia Nelson Limerick
- Beth Loffreda
- Mort Malkin
- Richard Manning
- Debra Marquart
- Bill McKibben
- Wayne Mennecke
- Karla Linn Merrifield
- Jeremy Miller
- Stephanie Mills
- Kathryn Miles
- Kathleen Dean Moore
- Rachel Morgan
- Mary Heather Noble
- Andrea Peacock
- Tyler Priest
- Carolyn Raffensperger
- Jacqueline Robb
- Bill Roorbach
- Stephanie Schultz
- Scott Slovic
- Mark Trechock
- Stephen Trimble
- Susan Truxell Sauter
- Vivian Wagner
- Amy Weldon
Plus, the anthology will include work by the editors, Taylor Brorby and yours truly, and an introduction by Pam Houston.
Learn more on the Ice Cube Press website.
Follow us on Facebook for the latest news.
I prefer to get fat on honey
How cool is this? A visual artist created this collage etagami featuring a quotation from “Letters After Achilles,” my essay in Prairie Gold.
So You Wanna Be Anthologized?
My Fracture co-editor Taylor Brorby and I have a few tips for writers who would like to see their work anthologized some day soon.
Read “So You Wanna Be Anthologized” in The Review Review or on the Ice Cube Press blog.
Fracture: Essays, Poems, and Stories on Fracking in America is open for submissions until June 1, 2015. Find our guidelines on the Ice Cube Press website.
“Letters After Achilles” Anthologized Again
I’m very excited that excerpts from “Letters After Achilles” was reprinted in Safe to Chew: An Anthology.
You can order a copy on the Wicwas Press website.
NAR Bicentennial Conference
Are you attending the North American Review’s Bicentennial Conference in Cedar Falls?
If so, check out the Ice Cube Press table at the book fair. Also, come see a publishing panel featuring me, fellow Prairie Gold editor Lance Sacknoff, and Ice Cube Press founder/CEO Steve Semken.
Saturday, June 13
J-3 Breaking into Publishing:
How to Transform a Manuscript into a First Publication
4:15-5:30, Bartlett Hall 0034
Reading in Ames
Thursday, December 11, 2014, at 7:00 pm
Design on Main, 203 Main Street, Ames, Iowa
Bid a fond farewell to fall semester and celebrate our community of writers at Iowa State with the final Emerging Writers Series event of 2014, hosted by Adam Wright. I will be reading nonfiction about my experiences teaching before coming to ISU. Camille Luera-De-Meyers will read poetry, and Audrey McCombs with special guest Michelle Donahue will read fiction.
Bring a cup of something warm, check out the new artwork in the gallery and settle in for a cozy winter evening of storytelling. Free and open to the public.
Stefanie Brook Trout 