With help from Pondside Manor’s quirky, twentysomething kitchen worker Foster Kresowik, Pondside resident Robert Kallman creates the World of Pondside, a video game that delights the nursing home’s residents by allowing them to virtually relive blissful moments from days long past—or even create new ones.

One-legged Duane Lotspeich is overjoyed when he can dance the tango again. Octogenarian Laverne Slatchek cheers on her favorite baseball team from the stands at Candlestick Park with her beloved husband—who died years ago. Even the overwhelmed Pondside administrator escapes her job by logging into a much more luxurious virtual world.

Robert’s game enlivens the halls of Pondside Manor, but chaos ensues when he is found dead, submerged in the pond, still strapped into his wheelchair. If any resident witnessed his death, they’re not telling—either covering up or, quite possibly, forgetting. And it’s far from clear to anyone—including the police—if the death of this brilliant man, who suffered from ALS, was suicide or murder.

When Robert’s video game goes dark, its players grow desperate. The task of getting it back online falls to young Foster, who enlists help from a raucous group of residents and staff. Their pursuit—virtual and real—has unintended consequences, uncovering both criminal activities and the final wishes of Foster’s friend Robert. From Pondside Manor, this unlikely bunch of gamers embarks upon an astonishing journey—blissful, treacherous, and unforgettable

Packed with sharp wit and compassion, The World of Pondside is a rousing, perceptive, and utterly original novel.

The Six-Minute Memoir: Fifty-Five Short Essays on Life

This collection of 55 short essays culled from two decades’ worth of Mary Helen Stefaniak’s Alive and Well column in The Iowa Source—many of them read by the author in six-minute spots on Iowa Public Radio—delivers more joy than many books twice its size. Each essay invites readers into the ordinary life of a woman “with a family and friends and a job . . .  and a series of cats and a history, living in one old house after another at the turn of the 21^st century in the middle of the Middle West.” Many of the essays are laugh-aloud funny. A toddler rubs elbows (linguistically speaking) with French deconstructionists. One future is lost—and another gained—for lack of the right sort of clothes. In these pages, we find feline philosophizing, scrounging on a grand scale, and recycling ahead of its time. Happiness theories are tested and sometimes found wanting. One great aunt presides over 19 acres of pecan grove profitably strewn with junk. A borrowed hammer rings with the sound of immortality. Famous poets pipe up where you least expect them. Living and dying are found to be two sides of the same remarkable coin.

What’s more, writing prompts at the end of the book invite readers to search their own lives for such moments—the kind that could have been forgotten but instead are turned, by the gift of perspective and perfectly chosen detail, into treasure. The Six-Minute Memoir encourages people to tell their own stories even if they think they don’t have the kind of story that belongs in a capital-M Memoir. This book is just what everyone needs.

About the Author:

Mary Helen Stefaniak is a writer of fiction and essays whose work has appeared in many publications, including The Iowa Review, EPOCH, The Yale Review, AGNI, and The Antioch Review, and in several anthologies, including New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best 2000 & 2006 (Algonquin Books) and A Different Plain (University of Nebraska Press). She has also served as a commentator on Iowa Public Radio, a columnist for The Iowa Source, and a contributing editor for The Iowa Review. She teaches in the M.F.A. program in writing at Pacific University in Oregon and in the International Summer School at Renmin University in Beijing, China.

Her previous novel, The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia (W. W. Norton), received a 2011 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for books that make “important contributions to our understanding of racism and human diversity.” Juror Rita Dove described the novel as “a rollicking tale that manages to speak seriously to the tragedy of ignorance and the damage caused by fear.” The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia was also selected by independent booksellers as an Indie-Next “Great Read.”

Her first novel, The Turk and My Mother (W. W. Norton), received the 2005 John Gardner Fiction Book Award from Binghamton University and was recognized by the Wisconsin Library Association for Outstanding Literary Achievement. It has been translated into seven languages.  Her collection of short fiction, Self Storage and Other Stories (New Rivers Press), received the Wisconsin Library Association’s 1998 Banta Award for Literary Excellence, and her novella, “The Turk and My Mother” (EPOCH, Fall 2000) was shortlisted for the O. Henry Prize.

A native of Milwaukee, Mary Helen divides her time between Iowa City, where she and her husband John live in a 165-year-old stagecoach inn they restored, and Omaha, where she is Professor Emerita of English and Creative Writing at Creighton University.

This event will be moderated by Kali White VanBaale, a Des Moines-area creative writing professor and award-winning author of novels, short stories, essays, and articles.

This event is co-hosted by the American Association of University Women.