by ndsupress

A Safe Place

. . . where-in we share “A letter to Lance Richey,” author of Champagne Times: Lawrence Welk and His American Century (NDSU Press 2025) from Allan Burke, Secretary-Treasurer, Friends of the Welk Homestead, Inc., presented here with Allan’s permission.

Author Lance with a photo of Lawrence.

Lance,

I found one of your statements in the recent radio interview so profound that I spent considerable time transcribing it. I’m sure there is a way to transcribe it instantly with AI, but I did it the old-fashioned way by listening, typing, rewinding, listening, typing . . .

Here’s that section, which I’d like to title “A Safe Place”:

“Lawrence gave the people what they wanted. He was an entertainer. He wouldn’t describe himself as an artist. He loved Jazz music. He loved Dixieland. But he said, ‘I don’t play much of that on my television show because the audience wants something different.’

“Lawrence’s greatest success on network television actually came in the most tumultuous times, the 1960s. He hit the Top Ten of all television programs in 1968. In 1969 when the nation was coming apart at the seams with the Baby Boomer revolution, with the Vietnam War, with the civil rights movement. Because everyone knew for one hour a week I can check into Lawrence Welk and I’ll hear music I recognize, I won’t have politics in my face, and I can just for a moment step away from all the turmoil and enjoy a show that presents to me the America that used to be or that I imagine used to be. That was Lawrence’s secret.”

This section is what I think could be the heart of a marketing campaign for the [Welk] biography and documentary.

The times we live in today, highlighted by this week’s assassination of Charlie Kirk and earlier by the shootings of Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband (not to mention school and other shootings), call for “A Safe Place.” At the risk of being declared sophomoric, I believe Public Television can provide that with the Welk documentary and The Lawrence Welk Show, and NDSU Press can market Champagne Times: Lawrence Welk and His American Century.

It seems to have gone unnoticed that The Lawrence Welk Show by Joyful Voices drew an estimated 600 people to the Welk Homestead on June 1. This past Sunday, Joyful Voices’ Lawrence Welk Hoedown drew several hundred people to a steamy machine shed at the South Central Threshing Show at Braddock, N.D. Contrary to the notion that Mr. Welk’s fans are dead, none of the people at the show in Braddock appeared to have left this life. In fact, there was some dancing at the end of the show.

In my opinion, public television stations across the country should be adding The Lawrence Welk Show . . .

Just some thoughts.
The best to you and Carol,
Allan


P.S. from Suzzanne Kelley, Publisher, NDSU Press: Here are some links to the Prairie Public documentary about Lawrence Welk (viewed already by 37,000+ people!) and the NDSU Press publication of Lance’s book Champagne Times: Lawrence Welk and His American Century. The biography (a 3-volume limited edition [just 500 copies, autographed and numbered], printed as hardcovers in a beautiful protective slip-case) contains photos and stories beyond the documentary with more insights to Welk’s motivation, aspirations, and success-driven route from farm boy roots to becoming a media mogul millionaire. A history of Lawrence Welk–North Dakota’s and the nation’s eminent entertainer of his time–is also part of a month-long exhibit at the NDSU Memorial Union Gallery, showcasing unique historical objects and running through October 9. For parking as the guest of NDSU Press, email NDSU.Press@ndsu.edu to obtain a free pass. 

by ndsupress

How Our Books Go from Us to You

Note from NDSU Press Publisher, Suzzanne Kelley

Here is Emma Borah, Graduate Research Assistant in Publishing, taking care of sales and communications during the 2024 Western History Association conference in Kansas City. Hosting an exhibit table at conferences and book festivals is one way we are able to get our books into the hands of readers.

Almost every time we sign on a new author, they ask about our methods for distribution. This is a good and important question to ask. Authors (and their presses!) want to make sure that their books are getting into the hands of readers everywhere. Our authors are much relieved when I share the following information about our distribution practices.

  • All of our books (since 2015) are available at Amazon, which works with us as a wholesaler. When Amazon receives orders for our books, they will then send us a list of the books we are to ship to one of their multiple distribution hubs. We receive that list every Monday at 3:00 a.m. We can only send Amazon the books that they request.
  • Ingram Content Group also works with us a wholesaler, meaning they place orders with us when they receive orders from third parties, usually from bookstores.
  • Follett School Solutions and Higher Education Follett work with us as wholesalers, too, filling orders for public schools and university or college bookstores.
  • Baker & Taylor places orders with us for libraries across the United States.
  • We sell direct to public libraries and bookstores (at discounts to each). For the past couple of years, we’ve opened subscription accounts to public libraries that want to receive a copy of every book we publish. As soon as we have those books in hand, we ship them off to the subscribing libraries. We also gift a copy of every book to the eleven higher education institutions in North Dakota. We send those gift copies to the North Dakota State Library, and they take care of placing the copies with the universities.
  • We sell direct to individuals at our online store, at various conferences and book festivals, and at our own events, such as the POPP Poetry reading event that will take place this coming Saturday, December 12, and at our annual NDSU Press Party. Our 10th Annual NDSU Press Party is scheduled for May 3, 2025.
  • We even give some copies away! If a book editor from a journal requests a copy, we send it, no charge. Likewise, if a faculty member at any college or university is thinking about using one of our titles as required reading for their classes, we’ll send a desk copy to that faculty member.

With the various vendors that are involved, we spend a lot of time on fulfillment: accepting purchase orders; picking, packing, and carting orders to delivery points; and then invoicing the companies in a variety of ways that meet their requirements for record keeping. We try to send out all orders within two business days of receiving them.

So, that’s the distribution scoop for NDSU Press!

by ndsupress

Giving Day Lasts 1,890 Minutes This Year!

Every minute counts. Gifts received between 8 a.m. Dec. 3, 2024, and 3:30 p.m. Dec. 4, 2024, count toward the NDSU Giving Day totals. Fun fact: NDSU Giving Day 2024 will last 1,890 minutes to commemorate the year NDSU was founded!

Your contribution to NDSU Press supports the publication of award-winning scholarly and literary books. We hope you’ll consider our cause today…or sometime within the remaining number of minutes. 🙂

Follow this Donate Now link, scroll down to Arts and Sciences, and find NDSU Press General Fund.

On behalf of our authors, staff, and students, I THANK YOU.

Suzzanne Kelley
Publisher, NDSU Press
Associate Professor of Practice

by ndsupress

Hello, Emma!

NDSU Press is pleased to introduce you to our new Graduate Research Assistant in Publishing, Emma Borah.

Emma is a graduate student at NDSU, seeking her MA in English. She is a recent graduate from NDSU with a BA in English, a minor in History, and the Certificate in Publishing. In her free time, Emma enjoys reading, creative writing, playing video games, and making coffee. She is also a fan of Chicago Manual of Style and digging into the 18th Edition!

In addition to Emma’s in-house duties for marketing, publicity, and fulfillment (she’s the one who ships out our orders), Emma has been representing NDSU Press at various conferences. So far, she’s hosted our exhibitor tables at the annual meeting of the American Society for Ethnohistory (Fargo, ND), the Northern Great Plains History Conference (Sioux Falls, SD), and the North Dakota Library Association Conference (Bismarck, ND). Upcoming events include Rain Taxi’s Twin Cities Book Festival (St. Paul, MN), and the Western History Association Conference (Kansas City, MO).

by ndsupress

Marjorie Buettner, Winner of the 2024 Poetry of the Plains & Prairies Award

It is with great pleasure that we announce the winner of our 2024 Poetry of the Plains & Prairies (POPP) Award, Marjorie Buettner, for her chapbook collection “Dakota Dreaming.”

Marjorie (Junkert) Buettner, born in Bismarck, North Dakota, is an American Pushcart Prize–nominated, award-winning haiku, haibun, tanka, and sijo poet. Her work has been published throughout the U.S., Canada, and the U.K., and she has won prizes in the James W. Hackett International Award for Haiku (2000 and 2003), the Harold G. Henderson Awards (2002, 2004, 2007, and 2011), the Robert Spiess Memorial Haiku Award (2003, 2004, 2005), the Robert Frost Poetry Festival (2008 and 2009), and the Kusamakura Haiku Competition (2006), among others. She has taught haiku and tanka at The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis and presented poetry workshops throughout Minnesota. She is a former editor for the online journal Contemporary Haibun Online, and she frequently writes book reviews for haiku and tanka journals. Seeing It Now, a collection of haiku and tanka, appeared in 2008; her collection of haibun, Some Measure of Existence (2014), won first place in the Mildred Kanterman Merit Book Awards and was also nominated for the Minnesota Book Awards. Buettner lives in Chisago City, Minnesota.

In keen competition, thirty-eight submissions for this year’s POPP Award were narrowed down to six finalists. As seen in this photo, they are, clockwise from top left: Carol Kapaun Ratchenski (ND), “A Place Made of Space”; Caroline Wellman (IL), “Just Before Sunrise”; Steve Gerson (KS), “There Is a Season”; Carmen Dressler Ward (NC), “Rhythms in the Wind”; Buettner; Lance Nixon (SD), “Round the Sun’s Paddock: A Prairie Year.”

 

Our finalist judge, Brendan Stermer (winner of the 2023 POPP Award with Forgotten Frequencies and finalist in the 2024 Midwest Book Awards), had this to say about Buettner’s manuscript:

“Dakota Dreaming” returns us to the ancient core of poetry as spiritual quest. But this book offers no standard hero’s journey – no daring descent into the underworld, no triumphant, hopeful return. It offers, rather, a gathering of visions received by one who has learned to dwell indefinitely in the liminal space between realms. While much of the collection is written in the Japanese haibun form, Buettner’s imagery is rooted deep in North American prairie soil. Her poems are like “abandoned houses which let the gold of afternoon light filter in through open windows,” offering some brief, imperfect respite for “those of us who have lost our way.” And when the daylight fades and the darkness becomes complete, Buettner guides us: “I borrow the light / of snow.”

As our 9th POPP Award winner, Buettner will receive our standard university press publishing contract, $400 ($200 for winning, $200 for serving as our next finalist judge), ten comp copies, 50 percent author discount, and national distribution. Her chapbook will be letterpress printed in fall 2024 at The Hunter Times (located at Bonanzaville in West Fargo) and The Braddock News Letterpress Museum (located in Braddock, North Dakota). For more information about the POPP Award and our letterpress printing projects, check out this previous NDSU Press story, Land of Sunlit Ice, and this video: Thunderbird and The Land of Sunlit Ice, produced by Sandbagger News.

With congratulations to all six finalists and Marjorie Buettner, and with appreciation to all the poets who submitted their work, we invite poets to consider submitting their manuscripts to next year’s POPP Award competition (January 17 through March 17, 2025). We do not charge an entry fee.

by ndsupress

Wish Us Luck!

Note from NDSU Press Publisher Suzzanne Kelley

Will we take Gold or Silver? Or maybe one of each or two of one–since one of our titles is a finalist in TWO categories: History and Multicultural! Whatever way, we’re fine with the outcome! This Friday, April 26, 2024, the Independent Book Publishers (IBPA) Award winners will be announced during the dinner and ceremony being held in Denver, 6:00 to 9:00 P.M. CDT. This celebration of “the best in independent book publishing” is an exciting gala to attend for publishers and authors alike, but alas we cannot be there in person. Instead, you’ll find us tuning in at 8:15 P.M. CDT, as that is when the hosts will livestream the announcements via their Facebook page.

And who is our charmed finalist author? Historian John M. Shaw, whose debut book is garnering great attention! NDSU Press published In Order That Justice May Be Done: The Legal Struggles of the Turtle Mountain Band of Pembina Chippewa, 1795-1905 in July 2023. We hope you’ll tune in to the award announcements, too, and maybe even cheer us on!

 

In Order That Justice May Be Done is available from our NDSU Press online store, Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Amazon, and your favorite independent bookseller.

by ndsupress

Every Book Has Its Last Chapter

Note from NDSU Press Publisher Suzzanne Kelley

This morning the news is all over town, blasted on the front page of our newspaper and filling our Facebook threads: “Zandbroz Variety, home to whimsy and charm in downtown Fargo for 33 years, will close in June.” 

Our whole community of readers is pasting and posting the news, waxing nostalgic for the significance of this integral space in our downtown. It’s the OUR that has us reeling. Reminiscence after reminiscence declares the personal touch the store’s proprietors and staff and bookstore dog (shout-out to Willow) have had on its customers. When we cross the threshold and step onto the wooden floor, we know we’ve entered a welcoming and enticing domain.

Every book lover knows that last chapter is coming. With that same dread and enchantment, we watch the Danzes make their exit.

by ndsupress

Good Prose: On Reading, Writing, & Publishing in 2024

Note from NDSU Press Publisher Suzzanne Kelley

Recently, Lonna Whiting, Communications Consultant for The Arts Partnership, asked member partners and artisans what books they liked best from 2023 and what they plan to read in 2024. I replied to Lonna with updates about some of our NDSU Press titles–past, present, and future–in an interview she published in the Arts and Entertainment section of The Fargo-Moorhead Forum, “Check out this list of the best reads for 2023.” We’re thankful for the attention provided to our press publications.

Lonna’s query got me to thinking about other kinds of reading that I conduct over the course of a year. As my TBR list for 2024 grows, I cannot help but think about books read previously–manuscript submissions under consideration for publication and books that help to inform which books we acquire, books that aid us in the professionalization of our work at NDSU Press, books that help us to stay au courant in the machinations of the publishing industry and in trends of scholarly and literary nonfiction, fiction, poetry, and translated publications. 

As the editor in chief for NDSU Press, I have the privilege of reading heaps of manuscripts before they come to the publication stage. Working through submissions can be a daunting task as we now receive more than one hundred submissions annually. I count my lucky stars to have the assistance of Dr. Kyle Vanderburg, Composer in Residence and Assistant Professor of Practice in the Challey School of Music. Kyle, a recent graduate of the Certificate in Publishing and a published composer, assists with our online submissions portal by tracking submissions, securing blind peer reviewers, and taking part in the first reads of submissions. 

Because our press has a regional mission, we are steeped in works about our state and the northern plains region. Happily, I love reading such works! But when I want to escape responsibility for edits and marketing, I reach for books outside the scope of our mission, but often within the scope of publishing as a field of study.

It’s hard to narrow my favorite reads from 2023 to just a few, but I’ll start with my top choice: Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver—a fabulous story that I did not want to end! I also loved Also a Poet, by Ada Calhoun, which I listened to as an audiobook. Calhoun’s biographical-memoir about her father (and her relationship with him) mesmerized me with her reading and her inclusion of audio excerpts from old-fashioned tape-recordings preserved from when her father was a younger man and she was just a child. I’m choosing, too, The Editor, by Stephen Rowley, a sweet, farcical fiction on the relationship between author and editor, with his editor being none other than Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

I’ve just finished reading Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction, by Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd. This memoir by an author and his editor is a lovely back-and-forth narrative about building relationships and trust. The subtitle says this book is about the “art of nonfiction,” and it is, but my biggest takeaway is that the book is about the art of being a writer working with an editor and vice versa. Particularly on point for me, the editor, is a comment from p. 157: “[T]he ability to preserve the distinction between the writer and the writing is a skill the editor needs more than the writer does.” Kidder thus reminds us of the vulnerability of the writer, and that–as an editor–I must be cognizant of that vulnerability at every turn, because the distinction between the writer and the writing is not one that the author is always capable of making. The chapter called “Memoir” is one I especially recommend! 

I generally begin my New Year’s picks for reading by going to the National Book Awards winners and finalists, but right now I have on my desk two titles next in the queue. First up is The Pages, a novel by Hugo Hamilton that I just picked up at Full Circle Books. Described on the jacket as a “formally inventive novel,” with a storyline that takes place in the 1930s and is about “a book–a 1924 edition of Joseph Roth’s masterpiece Rebellion–[that] narrates its own astonishing life story.” I am intrigued by the notion of a book as narrator! Hamilton’s writing drew me in, and so did his connections that focus on censorship…apparently a timeless topic. Next on my TBR list is Index, A History of the, by Dennis Duncan. The perfect play of an index entry in the title won me over, and I’m eager to see how this story unfolds.

In addition to books, I subscribe to The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and Publishers Weekly, all of which keep me up to date on current writing trends and topics and new and not-so-new authors in fiction and nonfiction. With these resources, I’m always spying new books for my reading list. AND, I’m always looking for recommendations from readers! Feel free to reply with YOUR recommended read. 🙂