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Washington Square. On air is the audio town square for the Washington Square Review. Lansing Community College's literary journal. Writers, readers, scholars, publishing professionals, citizens of the world, gather here and chat about all things writing.

Hey there.

This is Melissa Ford Luckin, editor for the Washington Square Review. I'm here today with author E.L. lois, whose poem Culpability will be in our Summer 24 issue. L. Lois when out in the Real World Goes by Lisa. Hey, Lisa. Hello. So tell us about your poem. How did you come to write that?

Culpability is an interesting poem because it was actually an essay. It comes out of an essay that I wrote in high school. And it was the first time that I realized that my writing could move people emotionally. So I wrote an essay about a young man that had committed suicide, unfortunately, in a community that I vacationed in with my family. And it was maybe one of the first times that I was aware of tragedy, especially involving a young person. And I was fairly close in a neighborly way, to his family, so it certainly rippled out in the community and with our family. And I wrote. I don't remember what the impetus for the writing was, but I wrote an essay about him and. And read it to my fellow students at my high school in Canada, where I lived. And I moved the students and the teacher. And I remember thinking that that was new for me. I didn't realize that writing could do that. I knew writing could move me, but I didn't realize until that moment that my writing could move someone else.

After you wrote the essay and then you read it aloud, did you do anything else with it? Because it's obvious that the emotions evoked hung with you this whole time. I'm just wondering what happened to the essay.

I don't know, to be honest. I mean, as far as I remember, it was a student assignment, and I certainly haven't hung onto it over the years. I've had a fair amount of transition in my life, and I'm not a terribly sentimental person in terms of possessions. Certainly I'm a sentimental person in terms of emotions and words, but not possessions. So I've lost track of the essay itself. But, yes, I think it was probably my age and my relationship with the neighbor teenager, you know, my friendship with him and my awareness of some of his challenges in life. My family, I think, had probably been quite kind in incorporating him in family events and things that would have involved younger children. And maybe that was a little bit more of his maturity level. So he was older than me. And it just struck me something about it. I Mean, certainly it was a. A very tragic situation, but something about my age and it has stuck with me and it sort of stuck with me on the two sides. You know, one was the tragedy itself and then one. The other side for me as a writer was the fact that I could write about a tragedy and communicate it in a way that others would feel the same intensity of the feeling, or not the same, but they would, they would feel, they would glimpse into what I was feeling and it would move them on an emotional level. And that was very. It impacted me. It was a significant thing in my writing. And I was very young. I didn't actually go on to pursue writing at that point. And I've only recently transitioned towards poetry. So when I was thinking of some things that I would like to write about, I went back to, you know, it must have been like grade 8 or grade 9 and thought I would write about that young man again and his terrible death.

When you started working on the poem and you thought back to the essay and the experience of sharing it, did you find anything about yourself that had changed over the years? The way that you saw it or the way that you thought about what happened?

Yeah, I think in writing poetry, one of the things I've been trying to focus on is the details. There's two aspects of poetry that I love, and one is that you get to put very small details that will evoke an image in the reader's mind or even a sensation like smell or taste. And so there were some small details that I was sort of harkening back to my very fond memories in the cabin that my grandparents had actually built and then the neighbors trailer. And it actually probably would have been my first experience being inside a mobile home or a trailer, that kind of environment that was a little bit new for me. So I have very vivid memories of the neighbors, the grandmother's trailer where the young man would often stay. And so those little details I could put in the poem because that's what I'm doing in my poetry writing. But I also. The part of poetry that really appeals to me, that has sort of been mind blowing in my writing is that I get to leave the white spaces that I don't have to explain exactly the relationship I had with the young man or his family or the context of why my family was in that community. And we were a little bit foreign to the community because we were from Canada and the community was in the US and we crossed the border. And so I could leave out all of that detail, some of which Would have been in my original essay, but didn't need to be in the poem. So poetry is just very, very exciting for me in terms of what you can leave out. And so sometimes I'm just thinking about how I'm honing things down to very specific memories. And I figure if memories are a passion of mine or they come out of something that I strongly remember or sense, hopefully I can communicate that with artistry and words. And I've always enjoyed the craft of words or wordsmithing, so to speak.

So you said poetry is fairly new to you. How many years have you been writing poetry?

Well, that depends how you look at it. So certainly in high school, was encouraged to write a variety of genres, including poetry. As a young mother, I would write Christmas poems as gifts to nieces and nephews. But those were all metered poems. And something about that tired me. I didn't enjoy writing in meter. And so it was about, well, less than two years ago that I was involved in a domestic violence program in my home community. And one of the women there was an adjunct professor at a local community college. And she talked about how poetry had been very healing for her, that she had played around with writing and been able to get out some of the emotion and something about it. It wasn't formal in the workshop I was in, it was. The topic of the workshop was more identification of the key characteristics of intimate partner violence. But something about what she said really resonated with me. So I was wandering and I've always done a lot of writing, a lot of business writing, a lot of prose writing, some freelancing, some copywriting. And so I was wandering around. I do a lot of walking in my community and I thought I'd writing a few poems on my phone. And the liberation that I experienced in being able to write about very, very difficult experiences and leaving that white space was revolutionary. Like, I was 53, 54 at the time, and it was just absolutely revolutionary that I could. I could do this. And so then I went on from there. And I've been writing daily since, editing daily since, and now doing quite a bit of submission with a fair amount of success, actually, which has been wonderful.

That is wonderful. I was thinking about the white space when you started talking about your experience of coming across the poet teacher. That kind of got you started on it. And it seems like when I think about healing and writing, the freedom to only really write down what you want to write down and not have to tell every little thing, I think that's really fascinating. I never Thought of it that way before and I can see how that would be really liberating because when you're talking about some difficult experience, you don't always want to say everything that happened over and over again. That's, you know.

Exactly. Yeah, it can actually be re. Traumatizing. Right. And even in the things that I write. But what it lets me do, I think the other thing about the white space is that I can jump around in chronology or different events. I can jump in and out of the same event. If it gets too close or too overwhelming, then I can sort of, you know, jump out of that topic. And I write quite a bit about nature and about. I live in a very beautiful area, so I'll go for walks and just write about what I'm seeing and feeling in the beauty of nature. So it sort of gives me the healing aspect of what I'm going through at same time as the processing of some of the more difficult things that I've experienced. And you know, culpability as a poem, the one that your publication is going to feature, is an aspect of that. Because I mean, all these years later, it must have been 40 odd years later that I would think about that death. And then I get to play with metaphors. Some of the poems, you know, I'll think about my own variations on death or experiences with death, or you know, I'll pick another, maybe less dramatic theme and I'll explore even some very pedestrian topics that might play into a very interesting metaphor that might have to do with the arts or sports or something else, or politics. And you know, it will bring it home even in terms of linking it to my personal experience and even, even my trauma. So it's been incredibly liberating. I, I, part of me says I wish I had found poetry decades ago. And then the other part of me thinks that maybe I wasn't ready, that I had to live life before I could begin writing this way.

It certainly sounds like it was part of your healing journey and you know, did come at the right time, but delivered by the right person. Are there other aspects of your writing that help with healing?

Yes. Well, I mean, it's just writing's always been very cathartic for me. So even journaling, I, for many, many years I kept a daily journal. And so I definitely have the craving to write. I have to write. So poetry right now is filling that need. And I don't have a burning desire to write other things right at the moment, although I'm in two writing groups. So when I think about healing. The poetry itself came out of a group that was for the organization is literally called a battered women's shelter. And you know, that was a bit astonishing to me. I was not involved in domestic violence. That was of the typical nature that we all think of as a battered woman. And it actually took me a very long time to come to the type of counseling that would address it and identify it very clearly as toxic and intimate partner abuse. So that was a long process in itself. And when I got to that workshop that I learned about, you know, poetry being a possibility for an avenue of healing, that was in a small group that had an ending. And I've actually written another poem about the fact that the battered women's group ended. And I, you know, there was a close knit group of us. There were probably about six or seven of us that were quite close, none of whom were poets. Didn't even actually include the woman who inspired me. But we all looked at each other and said, now what? Like the, the workshop was over, but now what do we do? Right? And for me, I mean, we've all sort of kept in touch and done different things. But for me, I got involved in two writing groups and I think that's been equally as healing. And those writing groups know very little about my past and my need for healing other than what comes out of my poetry. And I'm absolutely astonished. I value highly intimate relationships and getting to know people deeply and well. And I am sorry, stunned at how quickly co writing, and I mean within a writing group, I don't mean writing the same poem together, but you know, if you're sharing your writing and critiquing each other's writing, it's astonishing to me how quickly you get to know someone and how deep you feel a connection with them. So I've got two writing groups. One's online and one is in my local community. And they're both very, very valuable to me.

Your online group, to meet in like, in person via like a webex or something or. Is that all through discussion boards?

Yeah, no, it's. It's online by Zoom. And we meet approximately once a month on that one that that particular group I was actually invited to apply to. So it's like an invitation only group. And that was a huge step for me. I was happy to do it. I have a long history in business and wasn't really intimidated by the process, but I was definitely intimidated by the thought that I might share workshop space or critique other people's work where some of the authors in the group are published authors. There's a couple of people who. Their day job is even creative writing, I would say. So it. It was a big leap forward. It was an honor to be asked, I guess, is the way I would want to put it. And. And that has been just a huge encouragement to me. And probably one of the key reasons why I started submitting my poetry for publication is because that basically saying, these are ready and, you know, the world needs to read some of these. And so it was very affirming and definitely to go back to the healing. You know, often, especially with domestic violence, there's a discrediting of a person in terms of their capabilities or their. You know, you almost live two lives where I had one life at home that was very dysfunctional. But in many scenarios, including work scenarios, I could be very highly functional and very responsible and even have people that were reporting to me and that sort of thing. So was interesting to take this hobby, let's say, you know, my writing and. And the poetry, and to refine it to a place where people were starting to say, this is professional. This should be out there and receive an audience. So I took some, you know, courage and applied my technical training, if you can imagine, is as an accountant. So I took what I knew about, you know, business principles and the strong, getting stronger and iterations and all those things that I knew from systems theory and applied them to my poetry, not only in editing, but also in the application for publishing. And it has gone very well. I'm very, very excited.

So what did that part look like, applying your business experience?

Well, mostly Excel spreadsheets and that sort of thing. There's a lot of detail, you know. Yes. Yeah. And even before. Before I started submitting, what was significant, the crossover between business experience and poetry writing was keeping organized, like, just the invent. I've written so many poems now I'm writing daily and editing daily. So how do I keep that organized? How am I, you know, what am I editing? How many times have I edited it? Where do I move it when I think it's ready to be submitted? I draft all of my poems on my smartphone. I'm doing all of my writing on my phone. But there's a certain time when I move it over to my PC, and then where does it go? How to inventory it, how do I track them? How do I find them? How do I match, you know, which poems would be suitable for which publications when I'm submitting? So there's a whole process to that that I've organized Essentially on business principles. I think of it like maybe a project management task or even a small business where the revenues are very low, but the feel goods are very valuable.

Yeah. It sounds to me like the pieces of your personality are merging together in that experience, because you mentioned before you felt like you were kind of like two separate people, and here you're kind of starting to merge them together.

I hope so. It's been a long haul. Like, I wish. I guess I wish I would agree with the observation, and I wish it would have happened about 10 years ago, more quickly after the dissolution of the relationship. That was so damaging to me because it feels like such a long haul. And I feel. I don't want to use the word old, but, you know, I feel like I'm getting older. I certainly have those moments more often than. Than before. And, you know, it feels like, oh, you know, that why'd this arrive so late? But on the other hand, I think I referred to this earlier, that I think the maturity of life lived had to happen in particular before the poetry could happen. The business experience in the organization, some of that comes to me naturally just by temperament, but certainly a lot of it is by, you know, years of a career and the training and that kind of thing that gave me an organized mind to keep track of all the detail. But it has helped significantly. Like, I've actually talked with other poets and said, well, how do you organize your work and how do you keep track of poems when you have so many? And, you know, I watched a documentary of Emily Dickinson, whose poetry I really admire, and I think she had about 2,500 poems at her death. And there may have been more that were found later. But I was thinking about what it was like for her when she was writing, you know, by hand, on scraps. And how do you organize all that when now we've got Excel and Word and all these programs to help us out. So it's a little bit fascinating to me, and I do like geeking out on those things, I guess.

I would love to see what the. Her office space looked like or where she had all these poems. You know, you can almost imagine them tacked to the wall, you know, in progress, you know, ready to go, you know, already done and published or whatever. It just seems like. Yeah, yeah.

And it seems. I mean, I don't know the biography, and I'm a Canadian, so I'm sort of peeking into US Culture in this. But it indicated that she was. The biography indicated she was writing quite a bit at night. And it was a little bit on the sly and. Yeah, so I wonder how that all worked. And I guess I wasn't. I chuckled a little bit when they said that they'd found more poems long after her death. You know, that. And I think about that every once in a while. I go into my email archives or just this morning I was doing some editing and I edit on my phone, and I'm traveling right now. So when you travel, everything sort of turned upside down. And I happened upon a file in my phone and I started reading what I'd written, and I couldn't even identify it as me. Like, I was reading it and thinking, did I really write this? And got a little excited because it was actually essentially, you know, the terrible first draft that I know what to do now to clean up. So it's kind of a lot of fun. I'm having so much fun. I'm actually semi retired right now, and I'm fairly fortunate to be able to say that I'm semi retired at my age. And so I've sort of devoted a lot of hours to poetry now and to writing, and it has been incredibly revelatory, like I said, or revolutionary in my life, just what it's doing, so. And I think one of the first people to. To speak into, he was actually a prose writer. But I was in a different writing group when I was sort of shopping around, trying to find places to fit last year, and a young man who is a accomplished prose writer, and we were on Zoom. I remember he looked at the Zoom camera and he said, I think Lisa is going to have a great act, too. And something about that just really spoke to me, and I thought, okay, maybe there's a lot of years left, so here we go.

Yeah, for sure. It sounds to me like you're the kind of writer that is not afraid to dig into dark places and to pull from dark experiences. I'm wondering if you ever run into anybody around you that couldn't. That wasn't for them. You know, they're not interested in going into those dark places in workshops, perhaps, or out in the world in your regular space, in regular conversation.

Yes, it's always been a problem talking about some of the more a problem for listeners, but also a problem for me talking about some of the more deep things. And I've always been a bit of a deep thinker. I enjoy what I would call amateur philosophy, you know, thinking about things like that and talking about them. So, yes, I would say in conversation that was always a problem. But in poetry, it's been very, very surprising to me that I don't receive any pushback. And in fact, the deeper I go and the more emotion I pour into a poet poem, the more affirmation I get back and the more people I have saying that something about it reminded them of their own experience or someone they knew. So I've even forgotten many times to put a trigger warning, which is very common in Canada now. I try to remember when I'm submitting or something that I might put a bit of a trigger warning on some of the material. And I'm often forgetting to do that and really getting no pushback. That there's a. I think we're all craving, like we all have very dark sides of our lives that we don't know who to talk about with them. And I think poetry really helps with that. And I think specifically poetry, because we don't fill in all the details and when we read a poem, we can hear the authenticity and the voice, then we can translate it to our own experience without. We can actually overlay our own experience because the, the plethora of details of the author's experience aren't necessarily there. So, yeah, I haven't actually received. I've expected more pushback, let's say, than I have received. And that's because in life I've actually more often received pushback. So poetry has been like this open door for me that makes me realize, wow, I didn't know that talking less could communicate more.

That is fascinating. What I'm thinking when you're talking about the white space is it gives more room for the reader to come in almost like there's not so much of the poet, but there's a little empty space and the reader can come into that empty space and not feel crowded and to feel validated at the same time, which is really fascinating and wonderful.

Yeah, it gives people space, I think, to process. And I've always been a nonfiction reader. I enjoy fiction and you know, certainly I've read a lot of fiction over my lifetime and I'm a very avid reader. I read, I've always read a lot throughout my life, but I. I tend to read a lot of non fiction, so a lot of biography, a lot of history, a lot of just interesting topics in science or sociology. And so it's interesting to me how that has come out because to me, when I'm writing poems, and even the poem culpability that's going to be published in your journal, that it's. There's aspects of it that when I Read it. It almost reads to me like fiction, because I know all of the things that I left out. I left out, you know, my grandma's beautiful log cabin. For the most part, I don't know if it's referred to at all in that poem. And so there's just many details. And I, you know, left out the beach. I've actually just had another poem picked up, and it was published today, in fact, went live today. And it's about the bonfires that we would have at the bottom of the hill. So my grandmother's cabin and the young man's family home and the trailer were at the top of the hill. And we would walk down to the bottom of the hill and go swimming in the mud flats and have bonfires with roasted marshmallows. And so I wrote that as a completely separate poem. That certainly wasn't a heavy poem. It was about the bonfires and us kids, you know, trying to dig for clams and all the rest. And so it's just an amazing poetry, such an amazing adventure. It's just wonderful.

That's awesome. So what kind of things are you working on now? You said you're doing a lot of poetry, obviously. Anything else?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm trying, you know, when you have a really good recipe and you should just really leave it alone. I'm trying to not mess up the recipe right now because it's just so amazing. But what I've done, one of the groups that I participate in online, and I was a little bit utilitarian, very, very businesslike about my approach. So I thought, well, where would I want to be involved in an online writing group if I was going to randomly pick one to join? And so I started focusing on New York City. I thought, well, you know, and I live in Western Canada, so I thought, no, I'll try and figure out New York City. I'd always wanted to come back to New York City. I loved it years ago. So I decided to join the New York City. Well, I was invited to join a group in New York City, and there were a whole bunch of steps in between there that I've eliminated in. In describing this to you. But most of the poets and prose authors in that group live in the New York area. So I decided to join my love of solo travel with New York and visiting these people and taking them for coffee or a meal or whatever. And it's just been such a wonderful experience. And so because I was going to travel solo and because I know that solo travel has ups and downs for especially for a female traveler, solo. And I wanted to keep my spirits and my emotions up and really focused. I laid out a manuscript for a creative nonfiction book that I'm planning to draft later this summer. And it's going to be what's called genre bending, so hybrid between poetry and prose. And I am writing as I go, so I've got probably about 20 or 30 poems already drafted and I'm working on editing those and then a whole bunch of observational prose and some interviews with the poets that I'm meeting up with. So it's just been a wonderful experience.

Sounds wonderful.

Yeah.

I'm calling it and I don't know. So I'll try and say it in an oblique way and you'll get it. So mfa my. And then you can imagine what the middle word might be that starts with an F and alternative. Because I don't have an mfa. So I'm. I'm on a trip for my alternative mfa.

Oh, nice. Okay. So you're. You're creating your own MFA program on the move in New York.

Pretty much. I had a writing. You know, over the years I've taken writing courses and so I had a writing professor many, many years ago. I just took a one off creative writing course and I really enjoyed it. Did very well today. It had some things published out of it. And the professor was just so encouraging. And she actually took me for coffee because I was the oldest student by far in the class and it was just in my local community. And she tried to encourage me to go on for a master's. And I pointed out to her that I have an accounting designation, but I actually don't have an undergraduate degree. And so I pointed that out to her that I didn't really want to go back for my undergraduate degree. And I said, if you can get me into an MFA by challenge, I would certainly do that. And she just looked at me and she says, publish the book. Just get the book published. I like that. Yes. In honor of her, this is what I'm doing.

All right. That sounds awesome. So you let me know that you have a webinar website and perhaps people will be able to, if they're interested in your. Your book as you're moving forward with it, they would be able to find out pieces of information about it on your website for sure.

The book manuscript isn't sold yet. And that's part of me not wanting to monkey too much with the recipe. Right. Because poetry is going really well. I did, I participated actually in a very. Studying poets and Writers webinar last week and got to sort of field the concept for the genre bending manuscript and a lot of positive energy off that. I think our world is looking for, you know, more poetry, more meaningful poetry, more, you know, postmodern, postmodern kind of writing, that kind of thing. And so I think it will go well. But I do feel like I'm on a new path and certainly don't want to spoil the old one.

So it sounds wonderful. And I like that you're honoring other poets along with your own journey.

For sure. They've, they've encouraged me. They're my, they're encouraging me beyond Act 1 to Act 2.

Absolutely. Well, thanks a lot for joining us today. I've had a great time talking with you and now I have a new appreciation for White Space.

Excellent. Glad to talk to you.

Bye for now.

Bye bye.

Thanks for stopping by the audio Town Square of the Washington Square Review until next time, this has been Washington Square on air from Lansing Community College. To find out more about a writers, community and literary journal, visit lcc. Edu wsr Writing is messy, but do it Anyway.

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LCC Connect, Voices, Vibes, Vision Lansing Community College's downtown and west campus offer newly renovated conference and event spaces that can accommodate over 500 attendees. LCC offers convenient locations, free event parking, and on site customer service. For more information about LCC's conference and event spaces, visit LCC. Edu and Search Conference

Feeling froggy? Well, leap into 20 plus podcasts at LCCConnect.org at home with economics is a space where we explore business, workforce and community development initiatives and how they impact our daily lives. I'm your host, Bo Garcia. Find out more and listen on demand. LCC Connect.org

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this is Bob Myers from the Historical Society of Michigan with A Michigan history MOMA it was October 13, 1893, out on Lake Michigan near Arcadia. The schooner Minnehaha was in trouble. The Minnehaha was built in 1880 in Gibraltar, Michigan, south of Detroit. She was one of the largest schooners on the Great Lakes, a four master measuring 199ft long with a 35 foot beam. October 1893 found the Minnehaha in tow of the steam barge Henry J. Johnson out of Chicago with a cargo of 58,000 bushels of corn. She was bound for Point Edward in Ontario, Canada. At the south end of Lake Huron. A terrific storm blew up and that evening the Henry Johnson and Minnehaha were off Point Betsy in northeast Lake Michigan. Battling 90 mile per hour winds. The Johnson's captain sought refuge behind the Manitou Islands, but Dawn found the pair south of Sleeping Bear Point just trying to stay afloat. The Johnson skipper tried to make port in Frankfort, but waves smashed in two of the schooner's hatch covers. Her hold began to flood. The Minnehaha's captain, William Parker, signaled to the Johnson to release the tow line. He set a distress signal and headed for shore, hoping to beach the schooner and save the lives of his crew of six. The Minnehaha slammed into the bottom a quarter mile from shore. One crewman tried to swim for shore but drowned. Others climbed into the rigging as the Minnehaha started to break up in the pounding waves. Captain Parker called for the surviving crew to abandon ship. Local residents and the US Life Saving Service crews from Frankfort and Manistee came to the rescue, but too late. Captain Parker was the sole survivor. In the weeks afterward, wreckage and the cargo of corn washed up along the beach. A local resident, William Irwin, used some of the ship's timbers to build his blacksmith shop. The wreckage of at least 6,000 ships littered the bottom of the Great Lake. That wreckage includes a big section of the Minnehaha's hull, measuring about 169ft long and lying on the beach at Arcadia. Depending on weather conditions, lake levels and the capricious sand, beachcombers can still view the Minnehaha's timbers and reflect on the disaster that took the lives of her crew. This Michigan history moment was brought to you by michiganhistorymagazine.org.

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Lansing Community College Performing Arts is proud to present Summer Stage under the stars featuring a 10 minute play festival directed by Paige Dunkle and Shelley Peterson. A wonderful variety of styles and concepts for this evening of theater including Please silence your cell phones by Natalie Kowalski. A play within a play, this comedic piece pits a die hard actor against that one person in the audience who always forgets to silence their cell phone. Featured at LCC's outdoor amphitheater July 23rd through the 27th at 7pm in the event of rain or extreme heat, performances will move into Dart Auditorium. For more information, visit LCC.edushowinfo. all performances are free to attend.

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You are listening to Written in the Stars, Books and Beyond where hosts from the LCC Library sit down with writers, publishers, entrepreneurs and literary enthusiasts of all types. Join your host, Amy Ewalk, Robin Moore, John and Abby Tebow as we explore the very heart of the written word.

Hello and welcome. Summer is just around the corner and many of us are making our summer plans and looking for new places to explore. We've called in a Michigan travel expert to help us out. Our guest today, Amy Piper, is a travel writer who has published two books, 100 Things to Do in Lansing before youe Die, and her most recent is Secret A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful and Obscure. Welcome to the show, Amy.

Thank you for having me, Amy. I'm so excited to be here and talk about all things Michigan.

Yes, yes.

And I have my co host here with me, John Celige.

Hello. Thank you for being here, Amy.

Thanks.

We're happy to have you. All right, so we're going to kind of dive right in with Some questions today about. About these great books and about your experiences and travel writing and everything. One thing that I really enjoyed about your books is that they're not just a travel manual. You know, they're not just a list of places to go and kind of the old guidebooks that you would used to see. They actually have a very cool explanation and what makes this place interesting. Some of the history and fun facts about that place. So why did you choose kind of that particular style when writing?

Well, the publisher has a series of books and it's kind of that series that dictates the style. And I guess I was kind of surprised as I dug into it. It turned out to be just as much of a history book and a trivia book as it did to be a travel book.

Yeah, it has so many fun history facts and, you know, just really neat stuff in there.

You mentioned the publisher has a series. How did you get writing and working with this publisher?

Well, it all started during the pandemic. Bunch of us travel writers in the Midwest Travel Network were kind of sitting around going, okay, what do we do now? I still had a day job, but a lot of them didn't. And one day a lady that was the co owner of the Midwest Travel Network, Sarah brewers, called me and said, someone's going to call you. Just say yes. Within minutes, a woman named Danelle Gay called me and she goes, will you write the Michigan chapter in a book called Midwest Road Trip Adventures? So that was my first foray into being an author. I'd been a travel writer and blogger to that point. And that book ended up being a bestseller on Amazon. And some of those writers had written with Reedy Press. They said, well, why don't you pitch a book to Reedy? I was like, okay. So I pitched 100 things to do in Lansing. I mean, I knew Lansing well because I had lived here my whole life and we couldn't go to a lot of places at that point. Many places were closed, but. But I was still able to pull on what I knew. And then as things opened up, I was able to quickly, because it was all local, just go. Then that book turned out pretty well for a city book. Finally they said, do you want to write Secret Michigan? And I had gone to Kansas with a woman who was writing Secret Kansas and. And we discovered Kansas things. And I thought, well, this is pretty fun. When they asked me to do Secret Michigan, I was kind of familiar with what it was going to take. And I was really driving around and

going, oh, what's that yeah, that was kind of. Our next question was, so all these places. Did you go to all these places or is it just places you heard about or tell us a little bit about that?

Well, I believe that when you write about something, you can't just sit at home and have any clue to what it's really like. Secret Book was kind of asking people like you, hey, do you know any secret spots? Then it was researching in, like, Atlas Obscura and online and then asking visitors and convention bureaus, what do you have that might be a secret place? Some places, like Traverse City invited me up and took me to various places, and then I could pick and choose. In the case of Traverse City and Indian river, it was very difficult because they had so many secrets that I had to pick. And then finally going home after that and just making sure I had all the facts and digging in and seeing what the most interesting things were about whatever place I went to.

So that leads us kind of to another question. We were thinking about all these places you visited. How did you decide what made it into the book and what didn't?

Oh, my gosh. Up until the day I was sending it to the publisher, I was putting things out and in, I was like, no, I like this story better or this fit better. So there were a lot of places that maybe didn't make it in, because even after I submitted the book to the publisher, I was hooked on finding these secrets. So I was still finding them. One example of that, since this is a series, there's Secret Detroit, Secret Upper Peninsula. Mine was all of Michigan. So I didn't want to repeat the stories that were already in those other books, even though I would tell them with my own spin. So I did not go to the Ford Paquette Avenue plant where they manufactured the Model T till after I submitted the book, because that was in Secret Detroit. I thought, well, I'm going to put some stuff out on Social about various places in Michigan. So I went to that plant, and on the third floor, there was the secret design room that Henry Ford had. And he only allowed about seven design engineers in that room. And rumor had it that if you approached that door on the third floor and you went in to that room or even just approached the door, the next day, you would be fired if you were not one of those seven people. I mean, if you are familiar with the automotive industry living in Lansing, you know, when you start the concepts and the prototypes, everything's secret. So I looked, and that story was not in the Secret Detroit book. And I could not figure out why she didn't put that story in there. Well, finally it was really eating at me that A, I had missed it and B, she hadn't used it. So I looked and I finally figured out they had only just created or recreated that room within the last couple of years. And her book was published before that and that's why it wasn't in there. So I'm sure if she does a second edition, she'll put that in.

So that's a room then that you can. Can visit?

Yes. Okay. The Paquette Avenue plant is a museum now where they have many, many collections of Model Ts. They also have the secret design room and they also have a display of a dealership and what it looked like back in the day. They had palm trees for a relaxing environment because cars were a new thing. And actually I just published an article on a site called Mainly Museums about the Ford Paquette Avenue plan. So that was kind of a miss, but still a great story. So it's out there on social media and that kind of thing.

Yeah, it sounds like you're gonna maybe need a part two for this.

That's what a lot of people have said. Yeah, a lot of people have said. I mean, there are so many people that are part of Michigan that you maybe don't realize. For example, the Cream of Wheat man is buried in Leslie and he isn't in my book. I had him there, took him out. I thought, oh, the marker's not that great of a picture kind of thing. And so, you know, but there are so many people like that you don't know, like Sojourner Truth and Thomas Edison, that you're just like, oh, and the guy who wrote the song, George Bernard, Old Rugged Cross, he wrote that in Michigan. Who knew?

Right, right. That's what's fun about this book. These obscure sort of fun little tidbits about Michigan that like you said, you just would never really know about. So that kind of leads me to a two parter here. So just in general, how long did it take you from the time that you sort of took on writing this book and to visit all these places and then to get it to the publisher in people's hands and then another piece to that is about the research. And like, how long did the research take?

Well, from the time I signed the contract to the time it was. It was about a year and a quarter. And then once you submit the book to the publisher, it takes six months for it to go from being submitted to being published. And during that Final six months. There's back and forth. You have the page edits, the line edits, the edit edits. So that took six months. But it was tough because like, for example, I wanted to do the shipwrecks in Shipwreck Alley up in Port Huron. And you're dependent upon the weather for that. And so I had a time booked to go on the tour and it was in the afternoon and they called me a couple of days before and they said, you know, we can tell already that that tour isn't going to go. If you want to do that, you're going to have to come in the morning. And so it was like, okay, got to go the night before instead of the morning of get a hotel to be able to go do that. And then going to turn Up Rock was another Port Huron thing. Many, many people think that in order to see Turnip Rock, you have to kayak. And it's a about a seven mile kayak ride. The last time I tried to kayak, I ended up in Sandusky Bay. I'm just not physically able to do a lot of the things. I have some mobility challenges. So I was like, but I gotta see it to write about it. So what am I gonna do? Because that was a good story. So I researched and looked for tours and I was able to find a boat tour, kind of like a bigger than a speedboat, but kind of a speedboat pontoon boat that would take you out there and ride you around and bring you back. There are a lot of alternative ways to see things that if you think you're not physically able to do it, don't give up because there's options.

That's a great piece of advice. Yeah. To know, like you said, if you have mobility issues and accessibility issues, that you know, this stuff is not necessarily off limits for you or you know, you can't do it.

So we talked about your process for the book, but going back to like talking about other places, do people come up to you after reading the book or when you're doing book talks and that kind of thing and say like, oh, you should have included this kind of place in it.

Yes, yes they do. I'm trying to think of an example and I can't really off the top of my head, but I have had people ask me why didn't you include this or that? And some of it is, well, maybe I didn't know about it, maybe I couldn't have gotten there. And I'm a firm believer in writing what I've been If you read an article on my blog with a restaurant review, you know that I've been and eaten that food. So I think it's partly a trust issue. I was in Tucson recently. I went to a restaurant in a restaurant tour, and I had this wonderful tres leches cake. And I was raving about this tres leches cake, and I wrote about it in my blog. And I went back to that restaurant with another group I was hosting a group of bloggers for dinner, and I said, oh, order the tres leches cake. And we got the tres leches cake. And I don't know what went wrong in the kitchen.

Oh, no.

But it was not the tres leches cake I had eaten two days ago.

Maybe it was. That was the problem.

Oh, yeah, that's true. Maybe.

So to go off the beaten path, so to speak, here, bear with me. Amy Ewald, as I said a little earlier, I was looking at your blog today and I saw a post about a trip you had taken to Africa and a national park you went to. And I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about your. Your trip to Africa and all the animals you saw.

Oh, yes. Well, this is kind of a scary story, if you will. That same post that I wrote about the wonderful safari that we did in the morning, in the afternoon, we decided, or it was planned in this tour to take a ride down the Chobe River. It was in a maybe 15 passenger boat with seats, and it was a beautiful day. And we're going down the river. There are crocodiles over there and hippos over there. And my big goal was to get the picture of the hippo with the mouth open because I'd missed it a few years ago when I was in Tanzania. And so I was like, I got to get the that picture. And it starts to sprinkle after a bit. Then it starts to sprinkle more. Now, there was a canopy over the top, but I was seated in the front. Everybody else had got on before me and they said, oh, just sit up there. And so I'm like, okay. And it was really low. My feet are stretched out, but I'm not covered at all. So I'm in the front and it starts raining more and raining more. Now, they casually handed us life jackets after we got on. So we're not standing. And I don't know that anybody had their life jackets on. We stopped to do some paperwork at the bank of the river and I tried to put my life jacket on, but it wasn't properly sized for me. So I didn't have a life jacket on. And it starts raining more and more. Then it's thundering and lightning. So they're moving and turning around, and we're begging the tour guide, please take us back. He goes, oh, but we're supposed to be out until 4 o'.

Clock.

He didn't want to get in trouble with his. His boss for keeping us in early. So finally our other tour guide said to him, it doesn't matter. It's a safety issue. Take us to shore. He turned around and we're going. And the rain's pelting by this time. There's thunder and lightning and it's scary. And I literally was screaming, I'm afraid that we're going to drown. And we finally got to the shore. We parked, and we were able to go over several other boats. We had to cross boats to get off of our boat because everybody was doing this. I recounted the story to my daughter and she said, it probably would have been the best case scenario if you had drowned, because remember, there were crocodiles on the side of the banks and there were hippopotamuses. So if we would have gotten into the water, it probably would not have been pretty. That was the scariest. And I still need to write that story for my blog. Absolutely.

It's a good story.

That's a good one.

What's your best travel advice for My best travel advice?

Yeah. You sound like a world traveler here, so. And I'll be traveling kind of solo here, you know. What advice do you have for either a solo traveler or just travel in general?

Well, I personally like to take tours and I like to get involved with the locals because you cannot know the stories that are there. You can look at something and go, oh, yeah, that's nice. But you really have no idea what that is. If somebody isn't giving you the background, I mean, you can research it online, but maybe it's something casual that is not really available. So talk to the locals. Lots of times people are willing to answer your questions. A lot of travel writers just don't like tours. I think they think it's too confining or restricting. I like it because I really get deep into the information.

Yeah. And what's interesting, too, is in your book, the Secret Michigan Book, you have a lot of little tidbits that people have told you and that you talk to and so kind of talking to the locals again and hearing those interesting stories.

Yeah.

So speaking of secret Michigan and summer is coming up here, what is one thing in Michigan people should do over this summer.

Well, I think one of the biggest secrets, or to use a cliche, a hidden gem, is Indian river, Michigan. It's 30 miles south of the bridge. So, well, you might be paying 250, $300 for a hotel room per night in Magana City. You can go to Indian river and go to somewhere like Totem Lodge, which vice president from Marriott bought, refurbished and sold. So it's a cute little motel, but it's got about 10, 12 rooms and beautiful northern Michigan furniture, copper sinks. And, you know, you can go there and there's all kinds of things to do. There's the inland waterway. I don't know if you're familiar with the inland waterway, but it goes from Sheboygan to within nine miles of Lake Michigan. And you can go to Howe Marina, rent a pontoon or speedboat, and then go through that inland waterway. And in Allinson, near Lake Michigan, they have a little museum to that inland waterway. I highly recommend going to Indian River. It's much cheaper, it's nice, and there's a lot of cute little places. They have Big Bear Adventures, which has ATV tours. I tell people, if you want to do a fall foliage tour, yes, you can go to the Tunnel of Trees and everybody and their mom and pop will be there. But if you go to Big Bear Adventures in Indian river and go on one of their guided ATV tours, they have a guide. They'll drive and you can drive yourself. And you're going right through the woods and the colors are bursting around you.

That sounds like a good one. Yeah, that sounds great. Yeah, I'll have to check that one out. What's coming up for you, Amy? What are you working on? What's in the near future for you?

Well, I'm working on two. I have contracts for two more books. I have a contract for small town, Michigan. 50 small towns in Michigan. Probably going to feature places like Williamston and Quincy and some little towns around Michigan, up to 15,000, but preferably under 10. And so we'll be looking at that. Places like Chelsea. And then I'm going to do another book that is somewhat similar to Secret Michigan in that its history, it's called Unique Eats and Eateries of Michigan. It'll be places that have good food. But the stories behind the restaurant are what's going to be key, like Legs Inn in Northern Michigan and Gandy Dancer in Ann Arbor. So where am I going next? Tomorrow I'm leaving for Ohio for a couple days and then I'm going to Nebraska in June.

Wow. You got summer plans too.

Lots of summer travel.

But then July and August has got to focus on Michigan to get the book research done. Pictures.

Yep.

So if listeners want to read your blog or check out your books, what's the best place for them to visit? Where can they go to do that?

Well, my blog is followthepiper.com my name is Amy Piper, so follow the piper.com it's easy to remember. And then all of the local bookstores hooked novel concept. All of the local places have both Secret Michigan and 100 Things to Do in Lansing. Even Schuler's and Barnes and Noble. All of all of the local ones have it.

Wonderful. Well Amy, thank you for joining us today. We've really enjoyed listening about your travels and hearing about Secret Michigan and your other books. So thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you for having me.

Thanks for being here, Amy.

You have been listening to Written in the Stars books and beyond. Visit LCC Edu Library to find the titles discussed in this episode. You can find previous episodes of Written in the Stars and other LCC connections. In the words of Miguel d', Amuno, I hope, reader, we shall meet again and we shall recognize each other.

This has been a presentation of LCC Connect, a weekly program that features the voices, vibes and vision of Lansing Community College. All shows featured on LCC Connect are recorded at the WLNZ studio located on LCC's downtown campus. Each program is podcast based and can be heard anytime@lccconnect.org if you or someone you know would like to be a guest on one of our shows, connect with us by emailing LCC Connect at lcc Edu.