Mittenlit.com: All about books and authors with a tie to Michigan
by Nina Misuraca Ignaczak • 10.24.2010
As a lifelong Michigan resident, I was intrigued to stumble upon Mittenlit.com, a book blog devoted to reviewing books and literary events with a Michigan connection.Mittenlit.com is co-written by a father (Bill Castanier) and son (Ben Castanier) duo who reside in the literary-rich Michigan centers of Ann Arbor and East Lansing, respectively. Reviewed genres vary widely, and the connection to Michigan can be based on topic, setting, or author. Recent reviews have included The Sweetness of Freedom, a book published by Michgan State University Press presenting oral histories on the late nineteenth- and early- twentieth immigrant experience, You Don’t Look Like Anyone I Know by Hope College writing professor Heather Sellers on living with prosopagnosia, or face blindness, and Boiling Point, a thriller by Michigan writer Karen Dionne.
The blog is two years old and has amassed over 700 posts. Typical daily exposure ranges from 500 to 1000 site visits. Bill was inspired to launch the blog after writing a weekly literary interview for the Lansing City Pulse. He now receives 10-20 emails per day pitching ideas for the blog, mostly from librarians, bookstores and authors.
Bill thinks literary blogs are filling an important void left by the cutbacks in traditional media, and claims to have learned more about books by reading blogs than through other, more traditional outlets (with the exception of The New York Times and Publisher’s Weekly). He also feels genre and niche blogs are more knowledgeable about their content than traditional literary reviewers.
Bill and his son give community presentations on Michigan literary history and are active in community literary events: Bill serves on the board of the KerryTown BookFest in Ann Arbor, and Mittenlit.com helped to launch a children’s book festival in East Lansing.
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This is an awesome article and I’m so proud of Mittenlit for shedding light on Michigan’s wonderful literary community!