Böcker utgivna av Afton Historical Society Press,U.S.

The memoir of a small-town childhood by one of Minnesota’s favorite writers, now published for the first timeI’ve always thought of the Red Owl Grocery Store in Plainview, Minnesota, as my training ground, for it was there that I acquired the latent qualities necessary to the novelist: from my dear German father, endurance, patience, resilience, and sound working habits, and from my dear Irish mother, the fun of picking individuals out of a crowd and the joy of finding the precise words to describe them. No one took more nourishment away from that store than I.Beloved Minnesota novelist Jon Hassler, who chronicled small-town Midwestern life in such popular novels as Staggerford, A Green Journey, and North of Hope, left the manuscript for one important story unfinished when he died: his own. Days Like Smoke: A Minnesota Boyhood is Hassler’s previously unpublished memoir of his youth in rural Minnesota during the 1930s and 40s, giving us his memories and experiences through a writer’s acute and detailed observations. He remembers piano lessons, small-town secrets, his passion for movies, and his holy duties as the only altar boy at St. Joachim’s. He imagines how Sylvia Pofford spent the night of the prom that they did not attend together, and he recalls Miss Glaswitz, his unmarried neighbor “who kept . . . a neat, overfurnished house on Broadway, in each room of which was a glass-covered dish filled with hard candy,” who “surprised us all by selling it and marrying a cattle buyer from St. Paul.” With chapters organized by simple themes such as houses, lessons, and groceries, and ever attuned to the idiosyncrasies of the people around him, Hassler reviews his early years and occasionally reveals when a particular neighbor, teacher, or friend inspired a character or scene in his writing.Will Weaver, another successful writer devoted to rural Minnesota, first met “Mister Hassler” as his older sister’s English teacher in Park Rapids. Weaver gently edited Hassler’s unfinished manuscript and contributed a moving foreword that gives readers biographical information about the author as well as describing the literary connections with his life and, above all, his empathy for the real residents and imagined characters of small-town Minnesota.

An illustrated art biography of one of Minnesota’s best-known feminist artists “I have been called an artist who represents both a strengthening influence in society and a proactive agent of social change. I work in specific places in the world exploring nature and place, and I work in my studio, where I explore the feminine psyche and archetypes of women.” With these words Hazel Belvo describes the prevalent themes and the significant resonance of her extensive artistic career. She arrived in the Twin Cities in 1970 from the East Coast, where she participated in the art world and activism of New York City, as well as the intellectual communities of Cambridge. She joined the Women’s Art Registry of Minnesota (WARM) in 1976 and soon became a strong voice in this nationally recognized feminist collective.Belvo’s art ranges from delicate, sensual pencil drawings to monumentally expressionistic paintings, most notably of the Spirit Tree, an iconic cedar sacred to the Ojibwe along Minnesota’s North Shore of Lake Superior. In the first book-length study of this groundbreaking feminist and artist, art historian Julie L’Enfant reviews Belvo’s focus on nature, spirituality, mythology, and eroticism during more than forty years of making and teaching art in Minnesota.

A vibrant review of the international career and passionate spirit of a longtime Twin Cities artist The prolific artistic production of Vesna Kittelson always maintains autobiographical connections: her installations of deconstructed books and her luminous drawings of fountains recall her childhood in Split, Croatia; her early color field paintings represent people and places she remembers; her war paintings portray the tragedy and emotion experienced in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as her reactions to the 9/11 attack in the United States; the brilliant botanical watercolors in her artist’s books result from her research on Charles and Emma Darwin; and her dynamic cutout portraits of her students reveal bonds with fellow artists and immigrants of a later generation. A vital participant in the Minneapolis arts community for decades, Kittelson demonstrates her strong passion for creativity through her ever-evolving practice and extensive international career. Contributors: Heather Carroll, Minnesota History Museum; Wendy Fernstrum; Joanna Inglot, Macalester College; Lyndel King, Weisman Art Museum; Camille LeFevre; John Lyon, Walker Art Center; Kerry A. Morgan, Minnesota College of Art and Design; Marcia Reed, Getty Research Institute; Susannah Schouweiler, Weisman Art Museum.