After years of research and writing, author Sharon Yntema has published her latest book, Ithaca Area Bookstores: Two Hundred years of Bookstore History in Tompkins County 1819-2019. A compendium of retail operations dedicated to purveying books offers a history of a reading community through the lens of bookstores. Sharon agreed to an interview about her new release. Q: When were the first bookstores opened in Ithaca? The first bookstore in Ithaca was opened in 1819 by Ebenezer Mack, who also founded the Ithaca Journal. His bookstore was small, and located in the area where the Tompkins County Public Library now stands. He imported a few books, according to Ithaca Journal ads at the time, but also owned a paper mill and published books at his printing press. Cornell University was founded in 1865, forty-six years later. Q: How long have you lived in Ithaca and what was the first bookstore you visited in Ithaca? I moved to Ithaca in 1975. The first bookstore I visited was McBooks, which was also the first bookstore I worked in. The owner, Alex Skutt, taught me how to do bookkeeping for the store which served me well in jobs over the next 50 years. In 1980, McBooks Press published the first book I wrote, Vegetarian Baby, which was translated into 6 other languages. I owe my introduction to all levels of a bookstore to Alex. [McBooks Press is now an imprint of Globe Pequot, the trade division of Roman & Littlefield.] I have worked in bookstores since 1978, starting…

Award-winning author Jeannine Ouellette will be in Duluth at the end of October for two literary events — live and in-person, both free and open to the public. On Wednesday, October 26, Jeannine Ouellette will read from her memoir, The Part That Burns, at 6 pm in the Kathryn A. Martin Library Rotunda on the campus of the University of Minnesota-Duluth. Ouellette will share the stage with Tim Moder, an Indigenous poet from northern Wisconsin. The event is sponsored by the Department of English, Linguistic and Writing Studies at UM-D, and it is free and open to the public. On Friday, October 28, Jeannine Ouellette will sign books at Zenith Bookstore (318 N. Central Avenue, Duluth) from 11 am until 1 pm. Jeannine Ouellette is the author of The Part That Burns, a Kirkus Best 100 Indie Book of 2021. Originally from Duluth, Ouellette lives in Minneapolis where she runs Elephant Rock, writing classes and retreats, named after the Duluth landmark in Lincoln Park. She recently published an essay in the Los Angeles Review of Books which featured the old Duluth Zoo. She was married in 2005 at Brighton Beach, and when she became a mother, she made a regular habit of bringing her children to where she was born. “I wanted to share with them my love for the shockingly cold waters of Lake Superior. I wanted to teach them how to stand on rocks and tease the crashing waves, inevitably getting soaked in the process. I needed to…

Duluth-based journalist and creative writer Naomi Yaeger is counting down the weeks to the launch of Blooming Hollyhocks: Tales of Joy During Hard Times. This work of creative nonfiction is the author’s story of her mother, Janette Minehart, who grew up with four siblings in a small Minnesota prairie town during the Depression and came of age during WWII. Not yet available for pre-ordering, Blooming Hollyhocks will be published in October by Beaver Pond Press, an indie publisher in St. Paul, Minnesota. Naomi Yaeger will read an excerpt from her new book on Saturday, October 18, at 12:30 pm at the Nokomis Library at 5100 34th Avenue South in Minneapolis. On October 28 at 6:30 pm in Duluth, Naomi will take the stage at Wussow’s Concert Café with Minnesota author Linda LeGarde Grover to talk about storytelling, resilience, and the ties that bind communities together. They will be accompanied by Terry Larson, Naomi’s husband, who plays folk songs on banjo. Co-hosted by Zenith Bookstore and Wussow’s Concert Café, the event is open to the public. Food and refreshments may be purchased at the café. “Blooming Hollyhocks is a sweet, memory-bending reminiscence of one family’s journey from ‘the old days’ to World War II and the cusp of modernity. Set in The Dakotas and Minnesota, the author charts her family story with clear, uncluttered writing full of historical detail and useful geography besides. But her true goal is the inner workings of the family itself, and how, even in the hardest of times, joy is still possible.” – Will Weaver, author of Power & Light, and Sweetland: Collected Short…