2024 in lit — and what to look forward to in early 2025

It’s been a very good year for Lansing’s literary scene. In February, Kalamazoo-area author Bonnie Jo Campbell visited Michigan State University during her extensive release tour for “The Waters,” which was a National Book Award finalist. The atmospheric novel, set in a fictional swamp in southern Michigan, revolves around a cult-like family of women and a community that both disparages and loves them.

The author also made return trips to Lansing in April for the annual A Rally of Writers conference; in September for the city’s inaugural book fest, Lansing Lit; and in November for the release of the paperback version of “The Waters,” which people referred to as “the one with the snake on the cover.” The book was named one of the best of the year by Oprah Daily and The Washington Post.

It’s been a longtime dream of Lansing-area booksellers to host a literary festival, and this year several bookstores and other retailers were able to rally together to host the three-day Lansing Lit festival, which featured a range of author appearances and many other book-related events.

In April, the Library of Michigan held its annual Night for Notables reception to honor its Michigan Notable Book award recipients. This year’s list included “Everything is Just Beginning,” by Lansing author Erin Bartels; “Warrior Girl Unearthed,” by award-winning author Angeline Boulley; and “Girls and Their Monsters,” by Audrey Clare Farley, which reads like a true-crime story as the author tells the chilling story of Lansing’s Morlok quadruplets. The keynote speaker was Stephen Mack Jones, a thriller writer and two-time Michigan Notable Book award winner. Jones is a Lansing native and MSU graduate who resides in the Detroit area. The 2025 winners’ list will be released in early January, so watch for that announcement in an upcoming article.

Later in the year, MSU Libraries completed the long-awaited and desperately needed move of its Special Collections from the basement of the Main Library to the third floor. The new space offers more room and is equipped with climate control and fire suppression.

In October, Michigan Humanities held a discussion between seven of its Great Michigan Read authors at the Wharton Center’s Pasant Theatre. The entire program can be viewed on the Michigan Humanities’ YouTube page. At the event, writer Curtis Chin’s memoir about growing up in Detroit, “Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant,” was announced as the 2025-‘26 Great Michigan Read.

I calculate that from the early 2000s to 2024, I’ve interviewed more than 1,000 authors for City Pulse, with a focus on authors from Michigan or authors who write about Michigan.

Early in the new year, I’m interviewing two authors who will be appearing at Michigan State University. One is Pero G. Dagbovie, MSU’s vice provost for graduate and postdoctoral studies and dean of the graduate school, whose book “Forever in the Path,” set to be released by MSU Press in February, details the history of the Black student experience at MSU. The other is Detroit-area letterpress printer Amos Paul Kennedy Jr., who will be in residence at MSU Libraries in February. Kennedy will spend a week leading workshops and demonstrations and will also exhibit a pop-up display of his work.

Finally, Michigan State University’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Celebration Planning Committee is leading a fundraising effort with the hopes of donating more than 1,000 books on the topic of social justice to Lansing School District libraries. More information on donating can be
found at givingto.msu.edu/crowdpower/dr-martin-luther-king-commemorative
-celebration. A hint to the planning committee: 2025 marks 60 years since King spoke at MSU on Feb. 11, 1965. His uncle, Joel Lawrence King, was pastor of Lansing’s Union Missionary Baptist Church; while visiting his uncle, the civil rights icon spoke at area churches and at the Lansing Civic Center in 1957 to a sold-out audience.