Tuesday, April 01, 2025
Monday, March 31, 2025
Publishing Portal--March 31, 2025
The latest news from Eckhartz Press, and a chance to peek into some of the great previous offerings from our humble little publishing company.
=The seventh (and possibly final) edition of EveryCubEver is out now! Author Rick Kaempfer will be making the media rounds in the coming weeks. Today (March 31) he is on WGN Radio with Bob Sirott. He'll be on two podcasts this week as well (we will post those when we get links), and he'll be on WLS Radio with Ray Stevens a week from today (April 7). Oh, and you'll undoubtedly find Rick at Wrigley Field on Friday afternoon for the Cubs home opener. Remember to follow Rick on Facebook (Just One Bad Century), Blue Sky (rickkaempfer.bsky.social) and X (RickKaempfer) for daily EveryCubEver featurettes and updates.
=This Saturday is the Book Launch party for Mark Wukas and his brilliant new novel The Kiss of Night. It's been getting incredible reviews, and has been our best seller for the past few months. Wukas' dramatization of the daily life of a Chicago City News Bureau reporter really jumps off the page. Come on out and get a personally autographed copy from Mark. He'll be at is/was brewing from 1-3pm on Saturday. Details below...
Thanks to everyone who came out last Tuesday night for Jim Slusher's event at the Mount Prospect Public Library...
April 2nd is Children's Book Day, and though we aren't primarily a children's book publisher, we have published a few. Thank you to Ken Korber (featured in CEO Weekly), Tom Latourette, Scott Redman, Butch Zeppo, Dena Mendes, and Manton Clue for their contributions!
=Two big events that happened this week in history are chronicled in The Loop Files. Jonathon Brandmeier held a big party at the Chicago Theater for his 5th anniversary at the Loop (1988), and then at the same place for his tenth anniversary in 1993. The stories of those memorable broadcasts are told in the book. Here are a few photos too...
=Loop sportscaster Jim Shorts is also celebrating a birthday this week (April 1). Rick interviewed him live on the air in 1993. The translated transcript of that interview is here. Kevin made Rick do it in German.
=This week in 2018, Eckhartz Press staged our biggest book launch party ever for the release of Cubsessions by Becky Sarwate and Randy Richardson. It was standing room only at Murphy's Pub and a who's who of Cubs-related folks attended. It's clearly the only book launch party we've held that attracted the Budweiser Clydesdales.
=This week in 2013, John Landecker appeared on WCIU-TV to discuss his book Records Truly is My Middle Name.
=It was also a bittersweet week for John. His good friend Roger Ebert passed away. John appeared on Roe & Roeper's show on WLS Radio to talk about Roger. John also discussed Ebert in the pages of his book. We offered up that section as a free excerpt.
=April 4, 1968 was the day that Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Landecker was doing a radio show with Martin's good friend Stevie Wonder when that news came across the wire. He tells the story in his book. You can read it here.
Jerry Krause
=The man Bulls fans booed even after his death, Jerry Krause, would have been celebrating a birthday this week. Would you believe that Krause appears in three different Eckhartz Press books? Chet Coppock devotes an entire chapter to Krause in Your Dime My Dance Floor. Rich King discusses the late Bulls GM in his book Ike and Me. He also tells that story in this podcast. And finally, Chuck Swirsky's Always a Pleasure also delves into the legacy of Jerry. He even has a picture.
=This week in 2014, Joel Daly appeared on the air at WGN Radio to discuss his memoir. It was an evening appearance on Pete McMurray's show.
=This week in 2009, his TV station (Channel 7/WLS-TV) aired this time capsule of Joel's career...
=This week in 2007, the American Army housing area in Heidelberg Germany known as Mark Twain Village was officially closed down. Several crucial chapters in the novel Back in the DDR take place there. RIP to a time and place gone by.
=This week in 2015, Kipper McGee's well respected analysis of the media in America, Brandwidth, was released.
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=Both of these Chicago icons (Chet Coppock & Norm Van Lier) are no longer with us, but they live on in the pages of Chet's book. Norm would have been 78 years old this week (April 1).
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