Releasing this month, Blooming Hollyhocks: Tales of Joy During Hard Times by Naomi Helen Yaeger is a work of creative nonfiction telling the story of the author’s mother growing up in a small prairie town in the 1930s and ‘40s during the Great Depression and World War II. “With faith, family, and grit, she rose from heartbreak to hope, offering a story for anyone who’s ever longed to serve, to belong, or to make a difference.” Naomi Helen Yaeger is a Duluth-based writer, reporter, and Earthkeeper. Her work has appeared in the Grand Forks Herald, the Sioux County Index-Reporter (Hull, IA), the Duluth Budgeteer, and nowadays in Duluthian, Positively Superior, and Northern Wilds. She lives in Duluth, Minnesota, where she enjoys the beauty of nature with her husband and their faithful dog. To celebrate the upcoming release, I am pleased to share this Q&A with the author. You discuss it a bit in the “Note to the Reader,” but what did your research process look like while writing Blooming Hollyhocks? Were there any surprising discoveries you made during your research? Naomi Helen Yaeger: My research involved recording my mom and uncle while asking them questions. I also verified as much as possible. She told me she had a big birthday celebration for her 12th birthday, which was on a Friday. Even though the family was Protestant (Methodist), her mom wondered what to serve because many of the Catholics had to have fish on Fridays, and half the town were observant…

Jeannine Ouellette’s new memoir, The Part That Burns, has garnered critical acclaim since its release on February 1. Joyce Carol Oates called it “simply beautiful. Precisely imagined, poetically structured, compelling, and vivid.” Last week Ouellette joined Jo Ann Beard, Katherine Angel, Dantiel Moniz and Michele Filgate for a panel discussion on “Desire” for the Red Ink Series, sponsored by Books Are Magic bookstore in Brooklyn NY. Kirkus gave The Part That Burns a starred review and describes it as “A textured remembrance of a traumatic childhood that also offers affecting moments of beauty.” Ouellette continues her virtual book tour this week with an event sponsored by independent bookstore Magers & Quinn in Minneapolis. Heidi Seaborn will moderate a discussion with Jeannine Ouellette, Lilly Dancyger (Negative Spaces) and Gina Frangello (Blow Your House Down: A Story of Family, Feminism, and Treason). This virtual event will be live on Facebook and YouTube. The following week, Literati Bookstore in Ann Arbor hosts a conversation with Ouellette and author Jennifer Pastiloff on Zoom a week from Thursday on March 25 at 8 pm ET. Jen is the founder of the online magazine, The Manifest-Station, and author of the On Being Human: A Memoir of Waking Up, Living Real, and Listening Hard. Register to get the Zoom link here. Stay tuned for dates and locations to be announced for April events with Jeannine Ouellette and Ethel Rohan who has a new story collection coming out (In the Event of Contact) and with novelist Keisha Bush…

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…