Michigan Notable Books Author Tour: John Counts, "Bear County, Michigan"
Schedule
Sat Jun 06 2026 at 11:00 am to 12:00 pm
UTC-04:00Location
Boyne District Library | Boyne City, MI
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Michigan Notable Books2026 Author Tour
John Counts: Bear County, Michigan
Coffee and brunch refreshments (bear claws, etc.) provided by the Friends of the Boyne District Library.
Registration required. SPACE IS LIMITED.
https://tockify.com/boyne.district.library/detail/847/1780758000000
Finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection • Named a 2026 Michigan Notable Book • Chicago Review of Books best short story colletion of 2025
"John Counts understands rural Michiganians . . . [this] page-turner gives glimpses into the lives of his Michigan-based characters: the brave, the misunderstood and the criminal." —Detroit News
"Bear County, Michigan is simultaneously familiar and utterly new in its sharp execution . . . Counts is a prime example of Michigan’s modern literary renaissance." —Chicago Review of Books
Following desperate characters in desperate circumstances in the rural Midwest
In these colorful, darkly comic stories, veteran journalist and crime reporter John Counts takes readers to an often-ignored part of the country: a fictional Great Lakes coastal town in northern Michigan defined by beauty and bleakness. The cast of characters in these connected stories ranges from addicts to backwoods misfits to ruined lumber families, all bound together by their desire to obtain something just out of reach. Big Frank breaks out of a rehab facility trying to outrun grief. The women in the village of Brotherhood grapple with sterility resulting from an environmental calamity. A local politician must convince her mother to leave a nudist colony. And in the final, sweeping story, a splinter group from the local tribe attempts to reclaim its ancestral land by force. The people of Bear County and their predicaments encompass the wildly original and yet totally ordinary truths about American life off the beaten track.
JOHN COUNTS is an award-winning journalist who has published fiction in the Chicago Reader and Printers Row. A Michigan native, he grew up trout fishing in the Northwoods and playing in punk bands. He lives in Whitmore Lake with his family and works as an editor at MLive.com.
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Where is it happening?
Boyne District Library, 201 E Main St,Boyne City, Michigan, United StatesEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
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