Between the Lines: Bringing Black History Alive

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: Sonya and Sean Hollins

Sonya and Sean Hollins

CREDIT SHAMIEL HOLLINS

We’ve all heard stories about the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman, and Sojourner Truth. But there are others about African-American history. Writer Sonya Hollins and her husband Sean Hollins, a graphic designer, have created a series of children’s books about African-Americans in Michigan who aren’t necessarily famous but whose stories are inspiring. The first is Benjamin Losford and His Handy Dandy Clippers. They published the book through their own company,Season Press, LLC, in January 2016. It's illustrated by Kenjji Jumanne-Marshall.

One of the reasons the couple decided to publish the series is because they feel the books fill a gap in traditional history books.

“A lot of kids learn history about people like Martin Luther King, Harriet Tubman - a lot of people that are traditional in history,” says Sean Hollins. “But this book is bringing out a story about people who are right in our own community. We can touch the things they built. This brings history a lot closer.”

Benjamin Losford, the main character in the book, was rescued from a Kentucky slave plantation by his fugitive father, who had escaped earlier. The family moved to the town of Edmore in Michigan, where the father made a living as a barber for the white men in the community. 

CREDIT SEASON PRESS

While Benjamin was not initially impressed with barbering as a career, he learned the trade and eventually became one of three generations in the Losford family who gained respect for their work, and as the first African- Americans in their community. Their barber shop became the ...

READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE AT WMUK.

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

LISTEN TO THE COMPLETE INTERVIEW. (21:40)

BROWSE OTHER BETWEEN THE LINES INTERVIEWS.

Between the Lines: Phillip Sterling's Island

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: Phillip Sterling

Phillip Sterling

CREDIT CASSIE KOTLARCYZK

Phillip Sterling likes his writing short. In his poetry, he captures the passing image. In his prose, he writes a quick vignette, enjoying the word play. But he passes on the novel; it's just not his thing. Instead, Sterling has gained acclaim for his collection of flash fiction, In Which Brief Stories are Told, and even shorter "micro-fiction," Animal Husbandry. He wrote his newest poetry collection, And for All This (Ridgeway Press, 2015) while he was artist-in- residence on Isle Royale in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

On Saturday, June 25, from noon to 4 p.m., Sterling will lead a workshop called "Flash Fiction Writing" at Kazoo Books on Parkview Avenue in Kalamazoo. The event is for youth in grades 7 through 12 and costs $35.

“Gloria Tiller, the owner at Kazoo Books, wanted to aim the workshop toward youth,” Sterling says. “It’s really fun. We do a number of exercises that focus on the basic structure of a very short story, which is very similar to a paragraph. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end, even though it is very short.”

Sterling says flash fiction tends to be around 500 to 800 words long, although magazines that publish the genre set their own rules for length. Some pieces have as many as a thousand words.

Sterling writes both poetry and prose, but when it comes to choosing between them, he jokes: “It depends on ...

READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE AT WMUK.

LISTEN TO BETWEEN THE LINES ON AIR. (8:47)

LISTEN TO THE COMPLETE INTERVIEW. (19:06)

BROWSE OTHER BETWEEN THE LINES INTERVIEWS.

Between the Lines: Erasing Memories

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: David Means

David Means

CREDIT BEOWULF SHEEHAN

What if you could erase painful memories forever? But if you did, you lost the good memories as well as the bad? In his long-awaited novel, Hystopia (MacMillan, 2016), David Means creates an alternate history in which veterans returning from war have their trauma “enfolded” to erase painful memories.

But for some veterans, the process doesn't work because their trauma goes too deep. Means, who grew up in Kalamazoo, sets the novel in Michigan although he now lives in New York.

Means, who teaches at Vassar College, is the author of four short story collections:A Quick Kiss of Redemption; The Spot; Assorted Fire Events (which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for fiction); and The Secret Goldfish that was short- listed for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Prize. Hystopia is his first novel.

It's written from the point of view of a Vietnam veteran who returns home to Michigan. Means explains: “He’s from Benton Harbor. He imagines a world in which there is a drug that allows you to enfold, or tuck inside your brain, your PTSD, your trauma. That allowed me to create where these characters have a story, but they’re not sure what it is.”

CREDIT MACMILLAN

The setting for the novel is in the time of President John F. Kennedy, who in this alternate history is still alive, having survived several assassination attempts. In his third term, Kennedy establishes a federal agency called the Psych Corps to cure the scourge of mental illness.

The book's plot centers on the vet’s loss of his sister.

“It’s actually a very personal story for me,” Means says. “I wanted to write about ...

READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE AT WMUK.

LISTEN TO BETWEEN THE LINES ON AIR. (8:41)

LISTEN TO THE COMPLETE INTERVIEW. (12:22)

BROWSE OTHER BETWEEN THE LINES INTERVIEWS.