Scroll down for links to order books online.
Summertime Souvenirs ($12) is available at the Volume One Local Store and Flora's Books & Bread.
Home Field Advantage ($10) is also available in person at the Volume One Local Store, Dotter's Books, Flora's Books & Bread, and the Chippewa Valley Museum.
Sit Down and Stay Awhile: My Aunt Lil, a Small Town Bar, and a Lifetime of Polkas ($10) is also available in person at the Thorp Area Historical Society. More copies will be printed when time permits.
Summertime Souvenirs
Why buy souvenirs? Because people want to remember a place, a feeling, a moment—and they need a little help. With Summertime Souvenirs, author Ken Szymanski sets out to do what souvenir coffee mugs and T-shirts can’t: tell the stories from life’s small turning points, especially ones that might otherwise fade away. From Tilt-A-Whirl rides to softball fields, from lake shores to wedding dance floors, Szymanski turns fleeting memories into lasting stories.
But Summertime Souvenirs is more than a memory collection—it’s about what those moments leave behind. And it’s an invitation to dust off your own forgotten summers—the ones that shaped you in subtle ways. From childhood to parenthood, from fresh starts to the final innings, summer always goes too fast.
Don’t let it slip away without a souvenir.
“In Summertime Souvenirs, Szymanski seeks, as we all do, a sense of permanency within the fleeting moments of our lives. Fitting, then, that he chooses Wisconsin summers, that shortest of seasons, as his backdrop. His prose is characteristically breezy and bedded with meaning. Like that favorite family photo album bulging with memories, these stories are precious souvenirs you’ll want to return to time and again.”
-Andrew Patrie, author of Clumsy Love: A Father’s Journey Parenting His Transgender Daughter
“Forget the gimmicky trinkets. Ken Szymanski’s Summertime Souvenirs isn’t a shoebox full of time-capsule knickknacks stashed in the back of the closet. With each footrace down memory lane, he reminds us that totems and talismans—like Lake Superior agates and autographed baseballs—have no power without a backstory. Both musing and amusing, he reminisces his way through the bygone dog days to find deeper truths about his friends, his family, and himself. Summertime Souvenirs offers the best from Szymanski’s wheelhouse: hometown transcendentalism shimmering with nostalgia.”
-Matthew Mabis, author of Letters to Matt LaFleur
Order here: https://www.thelocalstore.org/summertime-souvenirs.html
Sit Down & Stay Awhile
Ken Szymanski, the official 2020-2025 Writer-in-Residence for the city of Eau Claire, is releasing his latest book, Sit Down and Stay Awhile: My Aunt Lil, a Small-Town Bar, and a Lifetime of Polkas. The book tells the life-story of Lil Kaczmarek, who for 52 years was co-owner of Leon & Lil’s tavern in Thorp, WI. Lil is now 96 years old and still a celebrity in Thorp. Sit Down and Stay Awhile is not a history lesson; rather it’s like sitting down at the bar with a great bartender on a slow Saturday afternoon, listening to a series of great stories spanning the decades.
NOTE: This book is out of stock in most locations, but it will be reprinted soon.
Order here:
https://www.thelocalstore.org/sit-down-and-stay-awhile-my-aunt-lil-a-small-town.html
Home Field Advantage
Home Field Advantage contains short nonfiction tales that either take place in Eau Claire or are about the people of Eau Claire. There are stories about music, sports, education, family, unconventional romance, a heist, a couple of chase scenes, a Christmas Eve sibling smackdown, twists of fate, redemption, and some stumbled-upon truth.
Everything about the book—from production to the people in it—is 100% local. Earlier versions of some of the stories have appeared in Volume One and Barstow and Grand. Others are exclusive to the book.
To order, click on this link https://www.thelocalstore.org/home-field-advantage.html or visit the Volume One Local store for in-person shopping.
