Pat Colander in the Chicago Tribune

Congrats to Eckhartz Press' very own Pat Colander for this piece by Philip Potempa in the Chicago Tribune...

Editor and author Pat Colander of Miller has a new book that is generating plenty of ink and also accolades in the publishing field. She grew up on the south side of Chicago and graduated from the University of Illinois and Purdue University Calumet, the latter of which just welcomed her as a new faculty member in the communication department. Her new book is called "Hugh Hefner's First Funeral and Other True Tales of Love and Death in Chicago" (2015, Eckhartz Press, $15.95).

Colander was a writer for both "The Reader" and "The Chicago Tribune" in the 1970s and 1980s, and several of those most strange stories she penned serve as the yarns of love and death in Chicago that are featured in her new book. The book title is taken from her details of the shocking death of Bobbie Arnstein, the executive secretary to Hugh Hefner and hailed as the woman behind the man who created the men's magazine empire. Other tales in the book range from a tour of the old Cook County morgue and the investigation that led to the capture of the Tylenol tampering killer.

On Saturday night, Colander was one of the winners at Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year awards ceremony. On Jan. 28, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., she will be discussing and signing copies of her book at Miles Books, 2819 Jewett Ave. in Highland. FYI: (219) 838-8700 or www.eckhartzpress.com

Colander is also still fascinated by the death of candy heiress Helen Brach, who was the subject on one of her earlier books, "Thin Air: The Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Helen Brach," published in 1982. Colander said even though the book has been optioned five times for film rights, she was never impressed with any of the finished screenplays. Actors Tom Berenger and Richard Gere were connected with previous potential movie versions.