Book Launch -Mike Stinson in conversation with Poet Brad Anderson
Francie & Finch is pleased to welcome writer Mike Stinson, in conversation with Brad Anderson, to our bookshop on Thursday, October 29th at 5:30. They will be discussing life, writing, and Mike’s new book Much Needed Rain.
About the Poets:
Mike Stinson, a retired psychotherapist, has engaged in various genres of writing, including an ongoing poetry feature for a small-town newspaper and a personal-interest column called Walking the Dog. He has had many poems published in a variety of journals and anthologies, as well as a collection of baseball haiku in a chapbook titled extra innings. He enjoys photography, writing, road trips, sports, exploring small towns, and putting on many miles of “gravel travel” while taking in marvelous Nebraska landscapes and sunsets.
About Mike’s work:
Stinson doesn’t need to travel far in order to find what’s important for the human spirit. Wherever he is, he easily but thoroughly pays attention to detail, raising the light of any countryside toward brilliant clarity, and the body and soul responds with appreciation. —David Wyatt, author of Evening All of a Sudden
Like Siddhartha, or a braided stream, Mike has meandered on midwestern backroads, and we’re lucky he stopped occasionally and fished around in his gym bag or tackle box to find a pen and write this guidebook, in whihc he shares his lifelong journey, finding a way to open up countless other, even more necessary, senses. I’m happy for all of us-Mike’s poems prove we Earthlings still have a chance. —Greg Kosmicki, founder of The Backwaters Press
Brad Anderson started writing poetry as a means of survival during his late wife, LuAnne’s, journey through Alzheimer’s. Poetry helped him deal with her loss. Brad’s poetry has been published in Voices From The Plains, The Gilded Weathervane, The Good Life Review, and The Sugar House Review. His chapbook, Flour Water Salt & Time from FarmGirl Press, was released on July 15, 2026. Brad lives in Lincoln, Nebraska, and enjoys volunteering at Larksong Writers Place.
About Brad’s Work:
In Flour Water Salt & Time, Brad Anderson admires his father’s “sure hands, his careful skill.” These same attributes are very fitting for this fine collection of poems. This is the song of our neighborhood. Enjoy what Brad lifts up and preserves for us. —Marjorie Saiser, author of The Track the Whales Make
Flour Water Salt & Time grounds us in the act of being human: there’s sweetness and salt, grief and humor, local community and the vast universe. The poems “When The Bleeding Hearts Bloom” and “Shoot The Moon” seamlessly blend family and memory. In the title poem, Anderson guides us along his meditative flow, the process of feeding and hand-working the sourdough. Then shaping and baking, transforming its earthly ingredients into something that satisfies more than the senses, it’s more like holy communion. —Twyla M. Hansen, author of Inventions Of Love Nebraska State Poet 2013-2018