MSU Press will be attending the 77th Annual Upper Peninsula History Conference in Marquette, Michigan from June 25-28, 2026. We will be presenting our Michigan-centric books of all genres, including those in fiction, historical perspectives, scholarly studies and our Discovering the Peoples of Michigan book series.
Phyllis Wong and Lynn Liberato, two of MSU Press’s own authors, are presenting at the UP History Conference and their books will be available for sale at the MSU Press booth. As well, John Smolens, Phyllis Wong, and Lynn Liberato will all be available for book signings on Saturday, June 27th.
Use code MSUP20 for 20% off book purchases.
Saturday, June 27th: John Smolens will be signing books from 10:00-10:30 A.M.
JOHN SMOLENS has published thirteen works of fiction: twelve novels and a collection of short stories. Three of his novels, Wolf’s Mouth, Day of Days, and A Cold, Hard Prayer, were selected as Library of Michigan Notable Books. He lives in Marquette, Michigan. His newest book, Possession(s), was released January 1, 2026.
Possession(s): In settings familiar and foreign, from the shores of the Great Lakes to rural Ireland and Scotland, the boulevards of nineteenth-century Paris, and an ancient Italian hill town, John Smolens’s stories delineate our fears, doubts, and uncertainties, tempered by irony, humor, and tenacity. The collection’s title, Possession(s), suggests an overarching duality that connects these fourteen disparate narratives, which include stories first published in magazines such as the North American Review, the Madison Review, and the Southern Review. In “prose that is an understated marvel” (Publishers Weekly) and through a wide range of compelling voices, each story resonates with compassion and honesty, often turning on unexpected encounters with a stranger, a place, the past, and sometimes with oneself, offset by a recognition that the future holds few assurances other than the promise of mortality. In their search for love, reconciliation, and acceptance, the characters in Possession(s) strive to find understanding and peace.
Saturday, June 27th: Phyllis Wong will be signing books from 11:15-11:30 A.M.
On Saturday, June 27th, from 10:15-11:15 A.M., Phyllis Wong will be presenting “Gossard Girls: The Women Who Shaped the Upper Peninsula.”
PHYLLIS MICHAEL WONG has held roles as a historian, an educator, and thirty-year member of the university level academic world, including as First Lady at Northern Michigan University (2004–12) and San Francisco State University (2012–19).
We Kept Our Towns Going: WITH A FOREWORD BY LISA M. FINE, MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY—Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is known for its natural beauty and severe winters, as well as the mines and forests where men labored to feed industrial factories elsewhere in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But there were factories in the Upper Peninsula, too, and women who worked in them. Phyllis Michael Wong tells the stories of the Gossard Girls, women who sewed corsets and bras at factories in Ishpeming and Gwinn from the early twentieth century to the 1970s. As the Upper Peninsula’s mines became increasingly exhausted and its stands of timber further depleted, the Gossard Girls’ income sustained both their families and the local economy. During this time the workers showed their political and economic strength, including a successful four-month strike in the 1940s that capped an eight-year struggle to unionize. Drawing on dozens of interviews with the surviving workers and their families, this book highlights the daily challenges and joys of these mostly first- and second-generation immigrant women. It also illuminates the way the Gossard Girls navigated shifting ideas of what single and married women could and should do as workers and citizens. From cutting cloth and distributing materials to getting paid and having fun, Wong gives us a rare ground-level view of piecework in a clothing factory from the women on the sewing room floor.
Saturday, June 27th: Lynn Liberato will be signing books from 2:45-3:15 P.M.
On Saturday, June 27th, from 1:45-2:45 P.M., Lynn Liberato will be presenting “Unconventional: The Life and Service of Ruth Gibson Butler.”
LYNN LIBERATO received a 2024 State History Award for her article “Con-Con’s Petticoat Revolt: Women at the 1961 Constitutional Convention.” She is a retired Michigan attorney who has written on several topics related to Michigan history and judicial commentary.
Michigan’s Con-Con 11 highlights the contributions of the eleven female delegates to the 1961–1962 Michigan Constitutional Convention. As the first female delegates to a state of Michigan constitutional convention, these pioneers demonstrated that women were more than capable of helping to revise Michigan’s highest law. Their examples encouraged other women to enter politics during a time when few women held state or federal public office. Following the women’s Con-Con journey over seven and a half months, the book offers a general overview of what a state constitutional convention is and what it means to be a delegate. Michigan’s Con-Con 11 both educates the reader on constitution-making and sheds new light on an exciting moment in Michigan political history.
| Title | Author | Price | Sale Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Michigan’s Con-Con 11 | Liberato | $32.95 | $26.36 |
| Possession(s) | Smolens | $19.95 | $15.96 |
| We Kept Our Towns Going | Wong | $19.95 | $15.96 |
| Title | Author | Price | Sale Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| A Cold, Hard Prayer | Smolens | $29.95 | $23.96 |
| Anarchist, The | Smolens | $19.95 | $15.96 |
| Day of Days | Smolens | $19.95 | $15.96 |
| Out | Smolens | $26.95 | $21.56 |
| Wolf’s Mouth (hardcover) | Smolens | $26.95 | $21.56 |
| Wolf’s Mouth (paperback) | Smolens | $19.95 | $15.96 |
| Title | Author | Price | Sale Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dead Moose on Isle Royale | Holden | $24.95 | $19.96 |
| Many a Hand (paperback) | Rosentreter | $39.95 | $31.96 |
| Retracing the Dragoon Trail in Iowa (paperback) | Mason | $34.95 | $27.96 |
| Roy Reuther and the UAW (paperback) | Reuther | $39.95 | $31.96 |
| This Magnetic North | Mulherin | $34.95 | $27.96 |
| To Your Posts! (paperback) | L. Nelson | $37.95 | $30.36 |
| Visiting Mackinac | Boles | $37.95 | $30.36 |
| Wrecked | T. Nelson with Podair | $29.95 | $23.96 |
| Title | Author | Price | Sale Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 16th Michigan Infantry | Crawford | $49.95 | $39.96 |
| Accidental Reef and Other Ecological Odysseys | Heasley | $27.95 | $22.36 |
| Alexis Rockman | Friis-Hansen | $34.95 | $27.96 |
| Architectural Missionary | Brisson | $46.95 | $37.56 |
| As Sacred to US | Morseau | $24.95 | $19.96 |
| Bkejwanong Dbaajmowinan/Stories of Where the Waters Divide | McGahey II | $24.95 | $19.96 |
| Cleveland Architecture 1890-1930 | deNobel Love | $59.95 | $47.96 |
| Cold, Clear, and Deadly | Visser | $24.95 | $19.96 |
| Contested Territories (hardcover) | Beatty-Medina & Rinehart | $39.95 | $31.96 |
| Environmental Ethics in the Midwest | Smith & Ferkany | $44.95 | $35.96 |
| Everyday Klansfolk | Fox | $38.40 | $30.72 |
| Fishing Line, The | Meints | $39.95 | $31.96 |
| Founding Mothers of Mackinac Island, The | Weller | $32.95 | $26.36 |
| French and Indians | Englebert & Teasdale | $25.95 | $20.76 |
| Great Women of Mackinac | Croghan | $37.95 | $30.36 |
| Imprints | Low | $29.95 | $23.96 |
| Ink Trails | D. Dempsey & J. Dempsey | $19.95 | $15.96 |
| Ink Trails II | D. Dempsey & J. Dempsey | $19.95 | $15.96 |
| Invasion, The | Lewis | $24.95 | $19.96 |
| Manoomin | Barton | $29.95 | $23.96 |
| Mémoires of Michilimackinac | Brandao | $54.95 | $43.96 |
| Merchant John Askin, The | Carroll | $39.95 | $31.96 |
| Michigan Railway Company | Krentel | $69.95 | $55.96 |
| Michigan’s Company K | Cassidy | $44.95 | $35.96 |
| Mid-Michigan Modern, Expanded Edition | Bandes | $39.95 | $31.96 |
| Northern White-Cedar | Storm & Kenefic | $34.95 | $27.96 |
| Ogimaans | de Saint-Exupéry | $22.95 | $18.36 |
| Ottawa Stories from the Springs | Webkamigad | $24.95 | $19.96 |
| Our Precious Corn | Webster | $34.95 | $27.96 |
| Pere Marquette | Meints | $44.95 | $35.96 |
| Railroads for Michigan | Meints | $68.40 | $54.72 |
| Reconciliation in a Michigan Watershed | Heffner & Warners | $29.95 | $23.96 |
| Sail, Steam, and Diesel | Hirsimaki | $79.95 | $63.96 |
| Sailing into History | Boles | $39.95 | $31.96 |
| Ships and Shipwrecks | Gebhart | $29.95 | $23.96 |
| Sixty Years’ War | Skaggs & L. Nelson | $24.95 | $19.96 |
| Soldiers of Fort Mackinac, The | Porter | $39.95 | $31.96 |
| Something Spectacular (paperback) | Tanner | $25.99 | $20.79 |
| Stick Houses (paperback) | Fletcher | $24.95 | $19.96 |
| Tragedy and Triumph on the Great Lakes | Gebhart | $29.95 | $23.96 |
| Twelve Twenty-Five | Keefe | $49.95 | $39.96 |
| Western Journals, The | Lewis | $49.95 | $39.96 |
| Wilderness, Water, and Rust | Elder | $39.95 | $31.96 |
| ISBN | Title | Price | Sale Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9780870135835 | African Americans in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9780870135842 | Albanians in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9780870135972 | Amish in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9780870136672 | Arab Americans in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9780870136214 | Asian Indians in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9780870138126 | Belgians in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9780870137426 | Chaldeans in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9780870138249 | Copts in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9780870137877 | Cornish in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9781611860948 | Danes and Icelanders in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9780870136207 | Dutch in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9780870135811 | Ethnicity in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9780870138447 | Finns in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9781611860306 | Finland-Swedes in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9780870135828 | French Canadians in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9781611861983 | French in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9780870136191 | Germans in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9780870136795 | Greeks in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9780870138812 | Haitians in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9781611861198 | Hmong Americans in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9780870136443 | Hungarians in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9780870137648 | Irish in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9780870135996 | Italians in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9780870135989 | Jews in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9780870136450 | Latinos in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9780870137549 | Latvians in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9780870138133 | Lithuanians in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9781611860191 | Maltese in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9780870136665 | Mexicans and Mexican Americans in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9780870138782 | Norwegians in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9780870136184 | Poles in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9781611863406 | Romanies in Michigan | $14.95 | $11.96 |
| 9780870137754 | Scandinavians in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9780870136894 | Scots in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9781611861419 | Serbians in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9781611862546 | Slovenes in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9780870136436 | South Slavs in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9781611860412 | Swedes in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9781611864472 | Ukranians in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
| 9780870138256 | Yankees in Michigan | $12.95 | $10.36 |
