Mankato's Supportive Community

 Terri DeGezelle has savored an author’s dream come true. Not in New York City, nor Minneapolis. The unimaginable has happened in Mankato, Minnesota.

DeGezelle has written a whopping 51 books for Capstone Press and Picture Window Books, divisions of Mankato’s family-owned Coughlan Group. Being a local author for a local publisher, she’s been able to have in-person collaborations with her editors.

“We’ve been able to enjoy a bagel or muffin together,” she said, describing the chats she’s had over works-in-progress. “It’s nice to put a name and face together.”

DeGezelle is quick to note the occasional irony in her proximity.

“They employ some out-of-town and out-of-state editors who work from home,” she said. “In those cases, I’m in the same boat, working by phone or email.”

DeGezelle and fellow children’s author Jan Neubert Schultz belong to the same writers’ group. All seven members are published, five in the children’s realm.

Just ask Schultz about Battle Cry, her latest YA historical novel, to see how the Mankato area serves its writing community.

“The Betsy-Tacy Society hosted a book release party for Battle Cry, at the Tacy House on April 1, the first day of its release,” Schultz said. “[Society director] Julie Schrader did a lot of publicity for it, including making and hanging posters all around town. She also had a cake decorated with the book jacket art across the top and handled the sales of the book. How congenial is that?!”

A review copy of her book and a press release about signings dropped off to the Mankato Free Press resulted in a lengthy article on the front page of their Sunday edition. A Mankato radio station gave Schultz an on-air interview the day of her book signing at Barnes & Noble. Two St. Peter banks publicized Schultz’s signings on their flashing signboards. Her St. Peter writing group hosted the book release festivities.

“As with the Twin Cities writing community, the Mankato-St. Peter writing community is outstanding,” Schultz said. “We think of ourselves as a branch of the Twin Cities community.”
This “branch” reaches beyond city limits with events such as the Deep Valley Book Festival. The third annual event will be scheduled Saturday, November 11, at Mankato’s Midwest Wireless Civic Center. Twenty authors from all genres are already scheduled to participate in the day-long event featuring talks, readings, panel discussions, and entertainment.

The Betsy-Tacy Society’s Schrader offers her wide-ranging support to the Festival. The outgrowth may be due, in part, to seeds of inspiration sewn by Dr. Louisa Smith, English Professor Emeritus at Minnesota State University Mankato.

“When I first came to Mankato, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven,” Smith said. “Maud Hart Lovelace was one of my favorite authors and I got to teach her books to at least 200 students a year at Minnesota State University. I developed the writing for children course and was able to bring in the owner of Creative Education books, Tom Peterson, to talk with my students, as well as Marion Dane Bauer and Nancy Carlson. We added a topics class in children's literature, a middle school literature class. With a colleague, I took students to England and Ireland where we met children's literature writers such as Philip Pullman and Raymond Briggs. So if one wanted to learn about the field of children’s literature and its writers, there were multiple opportunities.”

Smith praised former fellow faculty member Doris Pagel, who founded the State Book Reviewing Center for Children’s and Young Adult Literature.

“It is now housed in the basement of the [MSU] library but it is open to anyone who wants to use it to get a sense of the current direction of publication in the field.”

Smith termed Mankato “affordable and pleasant,” adding, “There are good places to hole up and write, kind of like J.K. Rowling did in Edinburgh. The two city libraries have plenty of space.”

Society director Schrader believes Mankato is still the place Lovelace remembered with so much affection.

“She’d be very at home here,” Schrader said. “She’d be very welcomed. She’d be happy to know there’s such support for children’s literature and literacy.”

-Tom Owens, author