Mount Marty Faculty Member Publishes New Book
January 17, 2020
Over the winter break, faculty member Jim Reese published his latest work Bone Chalk, which was swiftly met by stellar reviews and a sellout on Amazon.
Described by Reese as an eclectic collection of essays that cover “anything from being the college mascot for all the wrong reasons to working in prisons for the last twelve years,” Bone Chalk has an underlying message of learning by immersion and untraditional teachers. Reese, who grew up in Omaha, also depicts his experience transitioning from life in a major city to that of a small town, which was compounded by his desire to fit in with his wife’s family—farmers in Hartington, Nebraska.
Reese has previously published multiple books of poetry. But after examining authors he admired, such as David Sedaris, Reese realized that he wanted to write nonfiction essays, which enable him to spend more time telling stories and exploring character and voice.
The essays gathered in Bone Chalk were written over the span of approximately eight years. After compiling the essays during a sabbatical taken last year, Reese received offers from multiple publishers and eventually selected Stephen F. Austin University Press.
Reese joined the Mount Marty English department after attaining his Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2006. At Mount Marty, he has worked with students on the literary journal Paddlefish and has brought students to the minimum security federal prison in Yankton, where he teaches creative writing through a program supported by the National Endowment of the Arts.
“I like it [at Mount Marty] because we really care about our students. We pay a lot more attention to each individual student and try and work with each of them and prepare them for a world of work.”
Follow one of the links below to support a member of the Mount Marty faculty and reserve your copy of what Kirkus reviewed as “an eclectic, appealingly no-nonsense set of appreciations of the heartland.”
Links to Purchase:
Receive a 30% discount with the code 3B when purchasing from the distributor: https://www.tamupress.com/book/9781622882038/bone-chalk/
The book is currently available as a pre-order on Amazon, and it is expected to restock on January, 24, 2020: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1622882032/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i0