Tag Archives: Wade Rouse

Support Free Educational Programming by Sipping Cocktails and Having a Good Conversation

Author Wade Rouse

By Angela Peavey

Saugatuck Center for the Arts

 

Enjoy cocktails, heavy appetizers, and conversation with a New York Times best-selling author at Martinis & Musings with Wade Rouse on Sept. 21 from 6 – 8 p.m. at the Saugatuck Center for the Arts, 400 Culver St. Priced at $100 per person, all proceeds support free educational programming at the Saugatuck Center for the Arts (SCA). Very limited space, RSVP at 269-857-2399 or hannah@sc4a.org.

 

During this private cocktail party, Rouse will read from his newest novel “The Hope Chest” – an international best-seller that’s set in Saugatuck-Douglas – share hilarious, poignant tales from his life as an author and dish never-before-told tales of being on a book tour. Guests also receive a signed book.

 

“The noted art colony and beachside tourist town of Saugatuck, Michigan, beautifully springs to life in this gentle story of lifelong love along with the emotional support and care that families and friends can provide,” wrote the Library Journal in its review of “The Hope Chest.” “Life with ALS is also respectfully but vividly portrayed. It is refreshing and soothing to read about truly good people emerging from major life hardships with strength and dignity.”

 

Rouse is an internationally best-selling author of seven books, including his latest novel, “The Hope Chest.” Rouse writes under the pen name Viola Shipman – his grandmother’s name – to pay tribute to the woman whose heirlooms, life, lessons and love inspire his fiction and inspired him to become a writer and the person he is today. Rouse’s work has been selected multiple times as a Must-Read by NBC’s “Today Show”, featured on E!, and has been chosen three times by the nation’s independent booksellers as an Indie Next Pick.

 

On the shelf: ‘America’s Boy: A Memoir’ by Wade Rouse

By Lisa Boss, GRPL Main

And heeeeeere’s “Miss Sugar Creek”!!

Summers in the late ’60s, with the extended family at the idyllic log cabin on Sugar Creek in the Missouri Ozarks, always include a special 4th of July beauty pageant. Wade, now age 5, has always been a judge, when what he really wants to be is a contestant. So, taking matters into his own young hands, when his family comes back from fishing he announces in all his finery, “I am Miss Sugar Creek!” He’s decked himself out in his grandma’s red heels, his mom’s bikini (fitted with duct tape), jewelry, and has a tin foil crown, sash and scepter.


“The moment my family comes in, I wave my scepter and graciously thank them for their decision. They stare at me, blinking in slow motion, trying to act like nothing is wrong, like it is perfectly natural for me to be standing there in a bikini and heels, like a tiny boy Phyllis George.”
 

Eventually, his adored older brother, springs into action:


“Todd, a true country boy, moves toward me, shaking his head, grabbing the scepter from my hands and motioning with it for me to walk the length of the cabin.


“There he is, Miss Sugar Creek,” he sings off-key.”


I liked Rouse’s memoir so much that I read it twice in one week. It’s a short book, telling the story of one of those families that are both ordinary and extraordinary.

You might be fooled into thinking it’s just a humorous book at first, because Rouse is just rib-achingly funny, but, much like Bill Bryson’s Thunderbolt Kid, it’s an extremely well-written look at another time in America, involving three generations and their interactions within their changing culture. I hate to say trite things like, “I laughed, I cried”, but that’s exactly what I did. A must read!

On the shelf: ‘At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream’, by Wade Rouse

 By Marie Mulder, GRPL-Main

After chronicling his escape from rural life growing up gay in the Ozarks with his memoir, America’s Boy, Wade Rouse finds himself on three acres in the middle of the woods just outside of Saugatuck, Michigan. While vacationing in Michigan, Wade and his partner, Gary, decide on the spot to leave their hectic urban life in St. Louis, build a home and create Dz Wade’s Walden.

Dz Wade faces raccoons (literally head-on), wild turkeys (which he comes to adore), his addiction to tanning, cable and lip gloss and his real relationship with Gary. In the end, he finds himself disgusted with the tourists who act . . . exactly like he did when he first arrived in the country. Reading and re-reading Thoreau, Wade sets out to learn 10 life lessons along the same path as Walden.

At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream is a funny, heartfelt, sincere memoir that will appeal to anyone, gay or straight, who finds themselves outside of their comfort zone.

New York Times bestselling author Wade Rouse reads excerpts from ‘The Charm Bracelet’

Wage Rouse, author of "The Charm Bracelet" and a resident of the Saugatuck area.
Wade Rouse (pen name, Viola Shipman), author of “The Charm Bracelet” and a resident of the Saugatuck area.

New York Times bestselling author Wade Rouse will appear at a private cocktail fundraiser hosted by the Saugatuck Center for the Arts, 400 Culver, Thursday, Sept. 8 from 6-8 pm.

 

Limited tickets, which are $100 per person, are available for the event; to reserve call 269.857.2399 or go to www.sc4a.org.

 

Guests will enjoy heavy appetizers, drinks, and conversation with Rouse. The author will also read from his newest bestselling novel, The Charm Bracelet, and guests will receive a signed copy to take home.

 

The Charm Bracelet has been chosen three times by the nation’s independent booksellers as an Indie Next Pick and has been called a “Must-Read” by NBC’s Today Show. The novel was inspired by Rouse’s grandmother and he chose his grandmother’s name — Viola Shipman — as a pen name to honor her.

 

charm_bracelet_lgThe Charm Bracelet touches on the importance of family as an elderly lady, Lolly, shares stories about her life with her daughter and granddaughter. She tells tales commemorated through a charm bracelet she received from her mother at a young age.

 

“We’re just delighted to work with Wade for this special event,” said Saugatuck Center for the Arts’ Executive Director Kristin Armstrong. “This is a wonderful opportunity for conversation with him in an intimate setting. Wade is so supportive of the educational work the SCA does with children in our West Michigan communities – we’re honored to host him for the evening.”

 

Proceeds from this event help fund free educational programs for Pre-K through 12th graders at the Saugatuck Center for the Arts.

 

Spring into these book selections from locally owned Schuler Books & Music

lovecraftcovThe staff of Schuler Books & Music offer a few book selections that are certain to add some color and fun to your spring.

 

Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff

Reviewed by Jim Tremlett, Schuler Books, Lansing

 

It’s the 1950s in America, and horror is everywhere — especially if you’re Black. But there are mystical threats afoot, too: the kind that pit family against family in a race for the hidden truths of existence. Winners take all, losers serve forever.

 

When Atticus Turner’s unpleasant father goes missing, he and his family must trek to a mysterious, New England town to find him. What they encounter there sets the entire Turner family down a weird path, indeed. For the magical clan that awaits there once owned their ancestor, and still has macabre plans for “their” family.

 

But these are the Turners, and this is Jim Crow America. They’ve handled worse threats in their everyday lives than sorcerers’ schemes and otherworldly beings. These modern-day magicians are in big trouble — they just don’t know it yet…

 

Spooky, heartfelt, and subtly sinister, Lovecraft Country deftly accomplishes Ruff’s primary mission of turning sci-fi tropes on their head. Some of the book’s vignettes are better than others, but they all succeed in maintaining a pulp noir feel — echoing H. P. Lovecraft’s brand of cosmic horror without stealing from him outright.

 

More importantly, it brings the real horrors of relatively-recent American history home to a generation that might otherwise believe recent attempts to whitewash that era. Given Lovecraft’s own considerable racism, and recent controversies concerning his place in the horror canon, this is a victory all in itself.

 

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The Charm Bracelet by Viola Shipman

Reviewed by Aubrey Dolinski, Schuler Books, Lansing

 

The Charm Bracelet by Viola Shipman – the pen name of popular Michigan memoirist Wade Rouse, in honor of his grandmother — was inspired by the author’s grandmother and her charm bracelet. The novel’s grandmother is sassy, one-of-a-kind Lolly, whose daughter and granddaughter come for an unexpected stay at her cabin in a small northern Michigan resort town. They are all at turning points in their lives and find inspiration in the stories behind the charms on Lolly’s bracelet. They gain a new appreciation for each other and the simple things in life. With its vivid depictions of Lake Michigan, this is the perfect book for a weekend getaway and also great for Mother’s Day.

 

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Tuesday Nights in 1980 by Molly Prentiss

Reviewed by Pierre Camy, Schuler Books, Grand Rapids

 

It will be very difficult to find a book this year as vividly descriptive and deeply moving as Tuesday Nights in 1980. A successful art critic whose talent is due to a singular disability, a painter who selflessly left his sister in Argentina, and a young woman from Idaho eager to prove herself, meet, fall in love and clash in 1980 New York. Their worlds collide in an explosion of colors, smells, lies and betrayals. Molly Prentiss offers a breathtaking portrait of a city and of the freedom its artists enjoyed compared to the events that were unfolding in Argentina and all the people who were disappearing at that time. This is a superb novel that I will not soon forget.

 

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Thirst by Benjamin Warner

Reviewed by Pierre Camy, Schuler Books, Grand Rapids

 

At the risk of sounding silly, reading Thirst is going to make you very thirsty. This is a compliment to author Benjamin Warner’s descriptive talents. Imagine a time in the near future when all means of communication, electricity and especially water are no longer available. How long will you survive and how long before the world erupts into total chaos? Although this is speculative fiction, the lack of water is a highly relevant topic — as exemplified in last year’s excellent novels The Water Knives by Paolo Bacigalupi and Gold, Fame, Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins — and this novel is as scary as scary can be.

 

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Run by Kody Keplinger

Reviewed by Holly Frakes, Schuler Books, Okemos

 

Agnes and Bo are the most unlikely friends. Agnes is partially blind and lives with loving, yet overprotective parents. Bo is a wild child whose parents are either absentee or outside the law.

 

But these two girls form a strong friendship, filling in the gaps for each other in their respective lives.  Bo brings adventure and freedom to Agnes, and Agnes gives Bo a sense of belonging and trust. Set in a small town where both girls dream of nothing but escaping, they will test their loyalty to the limits.

 

This beautiful teen novel explores the depths of female relationships, and celebrates that special bond you have with that one person who gives you unquestionable acceptance.  I highly recommend it.