Between the Lines: By Bus, With Chickens

by Zinta Aistars

for WMUK 102.1 FM
Southwest Michigan's NPR affiliate



Between the Lines is my weekly radio show about books and writers with a Michigan connection. It airs every Tuesday at 7:50 a.m., 11:55 a.m., and 4:20 p.m. (or listen anytime online), on WMUK 102.1 FM, Southwest Michigan's NPR affiliate. I am the host of Between the Lines.

This week's guest: Jan Brett

Author Jan Brett's decorated tour bus

CREDIT PENGUIN-RANDOM HOUSE

As Jan Brett begins her 23-city national tour in a bus decorated front-to-back with her own illustrations, she reflects on what inspires her – and about a surprise guest traveling with her. Alf, one of the roosters that the children’s book author and illustrator raises, will travel with her as Brett meets with fans of all ages. 

“Alf will have a girlfriend with him,” Brett says. “Or wife. They have a nice box they will live in, with a perch in it, and on my day off I put them in a wire pen so that they can get some sun. We took a bunny along another year, because the kids love it!”

Alf, along with a myriad of other creatures, appears throughout Brett’s newest children’s book, Gingerbread Christmas (Putnam, October 2016). It's the story of Gingerbread Baby, who pops out of the oven and brings a gingerbread band to the town Christmas festival. Everyone enjoys the joyful holiday music — until they catch a whiff of the gingerbread smell and realize those musicians are delicious cookies.

Brett has written and illustrated 35 books for kids that have sold more than 40 million copies. She says each book takes about a year of work to create the detailed illustrations that bring it to life.

“When I have an idea, I think about whether it will sustain me for a whole year,” Brett says. “I want to be able to feel like there’s this discovery, this curiosity, there’s learning … all these things are going to build up this momentum.”

Jan Brett

CREDIT PENGUIN-RANDOM HOUSE

Brett's books often feature wildlife she enjoys having at her two-acre home in Norwell, Massachusetts. But she has a special love for chickens and raises exotic breeds that she sells and shows. Brett has about 60 chickens, including Silkies, Buff Brahmas, Cochins, Silver Phoenix, and Polish varieties.

“But my biggest inspiration is ..."

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LISTEN TO BETWEEN THE LINES ON AIR. (8:58)

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Between the Lines: A Life of Adventure

by Zinta Aistars

for WMUK 102.1 FM
Southwest Michigan's NPR affiliate



Between the Lines is my weekly radio show about books and writers with a Michigan connection. It airs every Tuesday at 7:50 a.m., 11:55 a.m., and 4:20 p.m. (or listen anytime online), on WMUK 102.1 FM, Southwest Michigan's NPR affiliate. I am the host of Between the Lines.

This week's guest: Kathleen Stocking

Kathleen Stocking has traveled the world, and dug deep into her own community in Michigan's Leelanau Peninsula for what she calls a "bone- deep" understanding of people. She's written about her discoveries along the way in a trilogy of memoirs. The latest is The Long Arc of the Universe: Travels Beyond the Pale (Stocking Press, 2016).

“My first book was about my peninsula, the Leelanau Peninsula,” Stocking says. “I was writing then for Detroit Monthly magazine, so a lot of that book was columns published by Detroit Monthly. Then I received several awards and did the next book about my state, Michigan, and a lot of islands, because I was always curious about the offshore islands. Then, with my children being grown, and being very curious about the rest of the world, I accepted a fellowship from the William James Foundation and worked in the prisons of California.”

Stocking says she wanted to understand why so many people in the United States are behind bars. Teaching creative writing inside the prison helped her do that. Stocking relates the stories of inmates, many doing time for murder and other violent crimes. She soon found that the inmates were like anyone else, anywhere. 

Kathleen Stocking in 1975

CREDIT KATHLEEN STOCKING

They broke down in tears speaking of their children and the other loved ones they had left behind. They longed for the simple pleasures of life: a good meal, a long walk in nature. Stocking says writing became the key for many inmates to open up what was locked up inside. Stocking’s stories about working with inmates open her new book of travels beyond her home territory.

“From there, curiosity took me to El Salvador, a couple tours in the Peace Corps, and traveling in between, coming back again and again to the Leelanau Peninsula,” she says. “I just wanted to understand the larger world. I was curious about ... "

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Between the Lines: Working Invisible

by Zinta Aistars

for WMUK 102.1 FM
Southwest Michigan's NPR affiliate




Between the Lines is my weekly radio show about books and writers with a Michigan connection. It airs every Tuesday at 7:50 a.m., 11:55 a.m., and 4:20 p.m. (or listen anytime online), on WMUK 102.1 FM, Southwest Michigan's NPR affiliate. I am the host of Between the Lines.

This week's guest: Dustin M. Hoffman

Dustin M. Hoffman

CREDIT CARRIE ANN HOFFMAN

He may teach in academia now but for ten years, Dustin M. Hoffman painted houses in Michigan. Hoffman’s story collection, One-Hundred-Knuckled Fist (University of Nebraska Press, 2016) won the 2015 Prairie Schooner Prize for his gritty portrayal of painters, carpenters, roofers, firemen, ice-cream truck drivers, the homeless, and the retired. In short, for the invisible 99 percent. 

“We often come to fiction for escapism,” Hoffman says. “We want to see some kind of life that is more interesting than our own, maybe a little more opulent, or something surreal or fantastic. But I think this is a mistake with many new writers. Readers are actually very interested in this world. There can be escapism in the nine- to-five world as well.”

Hoffman tapped into his years working in construction and house- painting to develop the colorful working-class characters in his sixteen stories.

CREDIT UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS

“It was an interesting time to be working in construction,” Hoffman recalls. “I was doing it right up until 2007, so right up against the housing bubble and the recession. From 2004 to 2006, we couldn’t build houses fast enough. And then, a weird thing happened. Just as I was leaving, those houses went into foreclosure and whole subdivisions would have for sale signs up. And a lot of my friends lost their jobs.”

Hoffman says that experience, “tinged with a sense of guilt as we were building these irresponsible houses,” brought him to the world he wanted to write about. He was fascinated and haunted by the way that line of work burgeoned and then quickly vanished. Hoffman says it brought out vivid aspects of the personalities around him, the bonds between workers, and their intimate conversations. He says they remain invisible to the world because, if they do their work right, they fade into the background. The smooth drywall in a house, the perfect paint job, the expertly shingled roof, are all forgotten when they're done right.

And yet, invisible as that expert touch may be, Hoffman says ...

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