Every author has one of those places where it all began. What is now Beagle and Wolf books in Park Rapids, Minnesota, is that place for me. Beagle and Wolf was originally two stores — Beagle Books in the small town of Park Rapids and Sister Wolf books in the
“My god! You look just like someone I used to know, except a lot older.” “Funny, I was thinking the same thing about you!” And so went the good-natured ribbing among those of us at the Lone Dog Road reading at Four Pines bookstore in my old home town of
You can’t go home again? I don’t want to hear it. When I get to Red Lake, I’m home. I can’t explain it. Bemidji, the town where we spent 25 years, feels distant, even in its familiarity. But Red Lake, where I spent only three years, makes me feel like
Here’s all you need to know: a 30 mile drive back up to my old haunts and a radio interview with my one-time student, Gary Jourdain, known as The Rez Dog. Or for those of you who don’t know him so well, “Mr. Dog.” Other than seeing the legendary Dog,
No bookstores or book signings today, just the 250 mile drive from the upper eastern corner of the state to the western edge of the forests where the land begins to open into the prairies. It’s forest roads the whole way — two lane asphalt winding through pines and lakes,
Grand Marais This is a tiny jewel — both the town and the bookstore. Drury Lane Books could be right out of hobbit land or a children’s book of nursery rhymes. It sits right on the edge of the Grand Marais harbor, which is one of the few places along
Zenith Books. Duluth Ah, Duluth. One of the most confounding cities I have ever known — equal parts rust belt industrial grit and magical child of Lake Superior, the most brooding, most changeable, most spiritually powerful of the great lakes. People compare Lake Superior to the ocean, but it is
Subtext Books at the University Club, St. Paul What a wonderful start. An evening reading at the University Club of St. Paul — a stately, century-old members-only European style social club situated on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi river valley in an oak and stone mansion designed by the same