Skip to content

Great Lakes Review

Writing and photography from the Great Lakes region

  • Home
  • Poetry
  • Fiction
  • Nonfiction
    • Narrative Map Project
    • Interviews
    • Essays
  • About
    • About Great Lakes Review
    • Contact
    • Masthead
    • Frequently Asked Questions
    • Buy Print Issues
    • Donate
  • Submit
  • Home
  • Poetry
  • Fiction
  • Nonfiction
    • Narrative Map Project
    • Interviews
    • Essays
  • About
    • About Great Lakes Review
    • Contact
    • Masthead
    • Frequently Asked Questions
    • Buy Print Issues
    • Donate
  • Submit

Category: Nonfiction

Grandville, Michigan: The Rose Room
Narrative Map Project / Nonfiction

Grandville, Michigan: The Rose Room

May 25, 2017February 18, 2020

This essay was an honorable mention in the 2017 Narrative Map College Student Writing Contest.  Kelley hoisted the door open and a ding promptly followed. We peered around the empty shop, the vacancy of other people was unimportant because we …

Read More
Grand Rapids, Michigan: First Lessons on Lost Things
Narrative Map Project

Grand Rapids, Michigan: First Lessons on Lost Things

May 19, 2017February 18, 2020

This essay was an honorable mention in the 2017 Narrative Map College Student Writing Contest.  Setting courses for sailboats taught the boy about scars: the lake was a gouge in the earth, the sailboats left fluid white gashes in the …

Read More
Saugatuck Dunes, Michigan:  A Sweet Beginning at the Bitter End Coffeehouse
Narrative Map Project / Nonfiction

Saugatuck Dunes, Michigan: A Sweet Beginning at the Bitter End Coffeehouse

May 16, 2017February 18, 2020

This essay was an honorable mention in the 2017 Narrative Map College Student Writing Contest.  The exterior looked how I felt: dirty red brick, tired neon signs, a dead tree, and a lot of ashtrays. Every time I went, the …

Read More
Battle Creek, Michigan: The Smell of Cereal After Goodbye
Narrative Map Project / Nonfiction

Battle Creek, Michigan: The Smell of Cereal After Goodbye

May 10, 2017February 18, 2020

This is the third place winner in the 2017 Narrative Map College Student Writing Contest.  As a teenager, I cringed at the idea of staying in Battle Creek. I looked down on the people who grew up in Battle Creek, …

Read More
Paradise, Michigan: A Journey North
Narrative Map Project / Nonfiction

Paradise, Michigan: A Journey North

May 2, 2017February 18, 2020

This is the second place winner in the 2017 Narrative Map College Student Writing Contest.  June 12: I’m getting in the car and driving north soon. The road feels like home in a different sort of way than my parent’s …

Read More
Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse, Michigan: Just Watch
Narrative Map Project / Nonfiction

Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse, Michigan: Just Watch

May 2, 2017February 18, 2020

This is the first place winner in the 2017 Narrative Map College Student Writing Contest.  I settle down on the beach near the Old Mackinaw Point Lighthouse and take my camera out of its protective case. The sun has just …

Read More
“Tangents Are The Point”  Q & A with Milwaukee author Todd Lazarski
Interviews

“Tangents Are The Point” Q & A with Milwaukee author Todd Lazarski

March 16, 2017February 5, 2020

Q&A with Milwaukee author Todd Lazarski (pictured above at a Dunkirk social club) as he romanticizes and sometimes denigrates: Chris Paul; sarcasm’s hidden kindness; self-destruction as research; necessary meanness in food writing; and thoughts of his father, dead at 39 …

Read More
Seul Choix Point, Michigan: Of Shells and Strata, Time and Terrain
Narrative Map Project / Nonfiction

Seul Choix Point, Michigan: Of Shells and Strata, Time and Terrain

January 29, 2017February 21, 2020

This essay is part of the Great Lakes Review’s Narrative Map project.  I’ve been tracking the Niagara Escarpment, a geologic formation that arcs from Wisconsin through upper Michigan and Ontario past Niagara Falls into western New York. In the Upper Peninsula, …

Read More
Living in Michigan, Dreaming Manhattan: A Meditation on Memory and Place
Essays / Nonfiction

Living in Michigan, Dreaming Manhattan: A Meditation on Memory and Place

January 4, 2017September 23, 2020

This essay, published in the 2015 issue of the Great Lakes Review, was an honorable mention in The Best American Essays series, edited by Jonathan Franzen. We reprint it here with permission from the author.  Someone once said that if …

Read More

Posts navigation

Previous 1 2 3 … 11 Next

Great Lakes Review

  • About
    • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Contact Us
  • Donate
  • Essays
  • Narrative Map
  • Past Issues
  • Submit

Archives

Header photo by Gillian DiPofi

Copyright © 2021 Great Lakes Review.