Poe Cottage Dearborn Inn, Michigan

There’s hardly a day goes by that I don’t stumble across (or are gently pushed in that direction) a Michigan author or a book about Michigan. Take yesterday, for example, I learned that the writer of the hit television series “Breaking Bad” attended Interlochen Academy as a teen. The writer, Vince Gilligan, is one of featured authors at the National Writers Series in Traverse City this Winter. And all this time I  thought he just dated Bonnie Jo Campbell. Those who have read Campbell’s “American Salvage” will see this connection. This morning, an article on Edgar Allen Poe in the Wall Street Journal triggered one of my favorite Michigan literary connections at the Dearborn Inn. It’s one of my dreams to spend a sleepless night there in the Poe Cottage. To my delight, I just finished reading the Scribners’ 1932 Award Winning short story, “The Big Short Trip”  by Lansing author and might I add Communist spy, John Herrmann. It made me suspicious that an University of Michigan playwright Arthur Miller might have stumbled across it at one time and based his 1949 play, “Death of Salesman” on this short story. And just for clarity it’s not likely that Arthur Miller was a spy. He was a sympathizer to use the term of the day.

So when Lousie Cooley, director of the Evening College at MSU Alumni Association, finally talked me into making a presentation on Michigan Literary History as part of the Evening College’s offerings I said yes. I’ve given the presentation twice before, once to a gathering of writers and once to a Bay View library club, so it wasn’t like it is a big deal, but I’ve been refining it so it can be used as sort of an informal tour book for literary geeks. Here’s what the promotional material says about the program:

Join Bill Castanier, literary journalist and founder of the Michigan authors’ literary blog for a book lover’s tour of Michigan. Discover details and little-known facts about more than 100 Michigan authors, poets and playwrights. Did you know that one Michigan author was not only a member of Hemingway’s “Lost Generation” but was also a Communist spy? And that Carl Sandburg called Michigan home until some goats made him move! During this classroom “tour,” you will travel from Niles to Calumet and back exploring authors who lived in Michigan, vacationed in Michigan or when visiting Michigan took home memories that lasted a lifetime. You will learn what triggered authors such as Mark Twain and Flannery O’Connor to write scathing letters back home about their visits to Michigan and which author first wrote about Michigan mosquitoes! And last but not least you will discover the Michigan author who started out in a log cabin and what prompted another author to build a castle for himself.

If you can, join me Tuesday, April 17, 6:30–9 p.m. at 102 Kellogg Center, 1 session, the session is  $45. If nothing else you’ll go home with an interesting an unusual reading list.

Register here.