That moment on book tour when you’re on your way to a county jail to discuss reading, writing, and self-employment with a group of men behind bars and this sign is posted 300 yards from the front door. They had some questions… Thank you to the literacy volunteers, county staff, and law enforcement crew who…View post

Every week the Wisconsin State Journal runs “Roughneck Grace,” a weekly column written by Mike (many of the columns will be adapted from Mike’s Tent Show Radio monologues). This week’s column “Young Authors Warm an Old Heart” can be seen online here.

I’m tickled with how this discussion begins; the reader admitting she was assigned my book in grad school and “I didn’t enjoy it.” Then another story unfolds… I’ve been doing this for decades and continue to be caught off guard by how kind, thoughtful, and reflective readers can be, and how they give authors their…View post

Mom faithfully trucked us to and from the Chetek library. I met my wife in the Fall Creek library. And one day back in the late 1980s when I realized I wanted to be a writer but didn’t know where to begin, I went to the Library in Eau Claire and checked out my first…View post