The latest news from Eckhartz Press, and a chance to peek into some of the great previous offerings from our humble little publishing company.
Our Newest Author!
=Welcoming Frank Mathie into the Eckhartz Press author stable...
=The other chance to meet an Eckhartz Press author will be in River Forest on August 1. Jim Elsener (Sirens in the Loop) will be appearing at the River Forest Public Library at 2pm. He'll be talking about the history of the City News Bureau of Chicago. (Photo: Jim and Eckhartz Press co-publisher David Stern)
=July 28 is Walter Jacobson's birthday. The legendary broadcaster got his start in the journalism business like many of his contemporaries, working for the City News Bureau of Chicago. Naturally, Walter is mentioned in the book Sirens in the Loop.
=Did you know he was also a Cubs bat boy in the 1950s?
Disembodied voices. Moving objects. Mind-reading. We jump right into Vicki Atkinson’s Slivers with her characters besieged by supernatural forces they don’t understand. The slivers are getting bolder; a terrible tension is building. With Atkinson’s “in-the-moment” storytelling, I felt it almost immediately.
Over one week in the summer of 1973, we see the three protagonists struggle against not only the slivers, but the emotional exposure of a terrible family secret shattering everything they once knew.
Slivers is a story of discovering one’s true identity. These characters can finally face the truth of who they are and their roles in protecting the ancient Hiraeth. There is magic and mysticism, and strong intuition at play.
As the story progresses, Slivers gave me writer Anne Rice vibes. Humans and entities finding a fragile peace and work to share a common ancient history. Love that! I enjoyed so many details of this highly creative storyline. I hope Atkinson continues on this track.
As a fan of supernatural stories, Slivers delivers.
=Got this note from The Best of Words on Birds author Jeff Reiter...
Last
Saturday my wife and I attended a big fundraising gala at the Chicago Four
Seasons — a benefit for the International Crane Foundation and also an 80th birthday
party for George Archibald. George is ICF's co-founder and he gave me a blurb
for the back of my book. One of my columns is about him ("Crane
Crusader," p 196). The event emcees were Bill Kurtis and Donna
LaPietra. The event raised $1.5 million for ICF! Below is
a photo of my wife (Catherine) and me with George. Notice Catherine's
crane jacket, which she made herself! George's tie is pretty cool,
too. All I could muster was an ICF lapel pin. I've been a member
and donor for many years. ICF is based in Baraboo, Wis, and is a truly a global
organization, dedicated to protecting the world's 15 species of cranes.
=Yes, it's true we didn't release an updated EveryCubEver this year. However, we are featuring Cubs Hall of Famers this year on their birthdays by posting their entries from the book. Two of them were born this week in history: Joe Tinker (July 27, 1890) & Leo Durocher (July 27, 1905).
Joe Tinker 1880–1948 (Cubs 1902-1912, 1916, Cubs manager 1916)
Tinker was the shortstop for the Cubs dynasty of 1906-1910, and he had many dramatic hits along the way, including the first homer ever hit in a World Series (1908). He was the big slugger from that dynasty era, leading the team in homers for the entire decade of the 00s (with 22). He also served as the player/manager for the Cubs in their first season at Wrigley Field (after serving in the same capacity in the first two seasons the ballpark was open — then with the Federal League Whales). Ironically, Tinker didn’t get along with his double-play mate Johnny Evers. What caused this unfortunate rift? According to Tinker, Evers started it because he ditched Tinker once and got a cab without him…which was of course unforgivable. They didn’t speak to each other for thirty years. After his playing days, Tinker became a wealthy businessman but lost it all in the stock market crash. Then in 1938, Tinker and Evers were asked to broadcast the World Series together. Both later admitted being more nervous about seeing each other again, than they were about their maiden broadcasting voyage. But when they saw each other, they smiled and hugged. They enjoyed a tearful reunion, and after that became friends once again. In 1946, they were inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame together (along with the deceased Frank Chance). Evers died the following year, and Tinker the year after that. In death they are always remembered together, but in life, they spent most of their time apart.
Historical Note: On the day Colonel Tom Parker was born in the Netherlands (real name Andreas Van Kykjk) in 1909, Joe Tinker made history when he hit foul ball at West Side Grounds. It went over the roof and smashed a car windshield, the first recorded time a windshield was smashed by a baseball. There were only 300 cars in the entire city of Chicago at the time.
How did people really feel about Leo Durocher? A quote from Jack Brickhouse: “In the early days Leo was an SOB, but a sharp SOB. By the time he finished in Chicago he was just an old SOB.” Suffice it to say, Leo was not beloved. When he was a player, he once gave Babe Ruth a black eye. He was such a taunter that he was thrown at by Cubs pitchers…while he was in the dugout. And he didn’t suddenly become Mr. Nice Guy when he became the Cubs manager. He punished players that beat him at Gin Rummy (especially Ken Holtzman). He once ripped the phone out of the dugout in Houston and threw it onto the field because he was upset at a scoreboard cartoon (1965). He set up a folding chair in the dugout in 1967 so his buddy Frank Sinatra could watch the game from there. His third base coach walked out on him in the middle of a game (Pete Reiser). He left the team in June 1969 for his bachelor party, and blew off two more games to visit his new wife’s (Lynne Walker Goldblatt) kids in Wisconsin. Leo was fired in July of ’72. He was fired for the same reason he was fired everywhere else he had ever worked. He couldn’t zip his ever-famous lip. If ever a person deserved a nickname, it was Leo ‘The Lip’ Durocher.
=August 2, 2019 was a double media day for the book: a morning show in Elgin, then an evening appearance at Club 400 in Lake in the Hills with former Cubs reliever Pedro Strop.
=What a day last year (July 27) for your humble Chili Dog MVP team (authors John Owens and David Fletcher, photographer Ken Smoller, publishers Rick and Dave). We were in Cooperstown, New York, for the induction ceremony of Dick Allen, the subject of our book Chili Dog MVP. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. 54 Hall of Famers were there, including Fergie Jenkins who helped our guys sell the book. What a weekend!
=Dr. Fletcher also appeared on Minutia Men Celebrity Interview.
=There was one sad note: While we were still in Cooperstown (July 28), we got word that Ryne Sandberg had passed away. We will always remember where we were when he heard that sad news. Of course, Ryno appears in several Eckhartz Press books, including Randy Merkin's Beyond the Glass.
=This week last year Mark Wukas appeared at a book club on the South Side for a dozen ladies who enthusiastically enjoyed The Kiss of Night. One of them even baked special cookies for the event.
=The Kiss of Night is now also selling at the Book Cellar in Lincoln Square (Chicago).
=Mike and Jeff Gentile's best explanation yet of what Mob Adjacent really means...
=Happy birthday (July 29) to Mob Adjacent co-author Mike Gentile. Mike is the elder Gentile brother.
=Tuesday (July 28) is Eckhartz Press co-founder Rick Kaempfer's birthday.
=On the tenth anniversary of his first novel's ($everance) release (August 1, 2017), Rick updated the "Who Owns What in the Media" section from the back of that book. Here's radio. Here's the rest of traditional media. Time for another update next year.
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=It's the anniversary (August 1, 1974) of a certain Chicago-themed song hitting #1 on the Top 40 charts. This song is also featured prominently in the pages of Doug E. Jones' novel Take Me Back to Chicago. If your Daddy was a cop, on the East Side of Chicago. Back in the USA. Back in the Bad Old Days. You'll surely love this one by Paper Lace.
=This week in 2018 (August 2), Eckhartz Press released retired Judge Michael Ian Bender's book Protecting Children. It provides unique insight into aiding children of divorce, custody, and parentage disputes so that they grow into healthy adults.
=Duane Scott Cerny owns one of Chicago's funkiest antique stores, and it inspired him to write the highly acclaimed Selling Dead People's Things. The book came out this week in 2017 (August 2). You can get a good feel for Duane's larger-than-life personality in this podcast interview. The man's an absolute stitch.
=This week in 2014, Bruce Bohrer had a book signing in one of the most obvious places imaginable, Murphy's Bleachers. Several of his old Cub-usher colleagues showed up to say hello. So did at least one former Cub, Rick Sutcliffe.
=One of the people featured in Chuck Swirsky's book Always a Pleasure is celebrating a birthday this week (July 28). Former Bulls coach and long-time basketball announcer Doug Collins is a Swirsky friend and confidant. Another famous basketballer is former Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. It's his birthday this week too (July 31).
=Two of the people Chet Coppock wrote about in Your Dime My Dance Floor have birthdays this week. Neither of them were really sports people, although the late Irv Kupcinet (July 31) did do color commentary on Chicago Bears games (with Jack Brickhouse) for many years. Would you believe that Chet also knew Arnold Schwarzenegger (July 30)?
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=This week in 2019, two Eckhartz Press authors, Deb Tokarz and Janet Sutherland, appeared on the same radio show, Playtime with Bill Turck...
=This week in 2021, Chicago media writer Robert Feder wrote about Eckhartz Press author Margaret Larkin in his Daily Herald column. Here is what he wrote...
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=This week in 2021, Paul M. Banks was making the rounds promoting his soccer book Transatlantic Passage. One of the stops was the Sports Beezer show (July 28). The following day (July 29) he appeared on WGN-TV News with Larry Hawley.
=What on earth could tie these two books together? The answer is Steve Trout. The former Cubs pitcher appeared in the book Cubsessions, and We Have Company author Bobby Skafish came out to that massive book launch party. Here's a photo to prove it...
=Trout is celebrating a birthday this week (July 30). Three of the rock stars Bobby features in his book are also celebrating birthdays this week, Rat Scabies (July 30), Robert Cray (August 1), and Jim Capaldi (August 2).
=One of the most rewarding days in publishing is the day the author gets his or her first copy of their book. To Nudge the World's Jim Slusher had that moment this week in 2024. So what did he do with his first copy? Naturally, he gave it to his mom. Jim's mom passed away just a few months later, but she got to see her son become a published author. That's her in the photo below...
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=This week in 2013, we lost one of our authors, Felizitas Sudendorf. Her book about her courageous immigration to America was a big early hit for us. It was the only book we ever released on our imprint, Helgard Press. She combined war stories with old German recipes. It was a revelation. When she passed away, we wrote this tribute to her. We have since lost a few other authors including Tony Fitzpatrick, Chet Coppock, Joel Daly, Pat Colander, Dena Mendes, Alex Burkholder and Mark Gelinas. All of their books live on at Eckhartz Press.
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