Prose & Photos Paint 50-year Portrait of Apps Family Farm
Celebrated rural life author Jerry Apps beautifully documents his family’s 50-year love affair with their 120-acre farm in a new Wisconsin Historical Society Press book, Roshara Journal: Chronicling Four Seasons, Fifty Years, and 120 Acres (Hardcover, $29.95, ISBN: 978-0-87020-763-1). The book features poignant entries drawn from the Roshara farm diary Apps has faithfully kept for the past 50 years. Apps’s observations are paired with 130 stunning photos of the farm taken by his son Steve Apps, an award-winning professional photographer. Together, they sketch a moving family portrait of a Midwestern farm.
Their photographic diary captures month-to-month and decades-long changes to the landscape and farmstead, from nurturing a prairie restoration to maintaining a large garden that feeds three generations, and from observing wildlife species by the dozens to supporting a population of endangered butterflies.
In the tradition of Bernd Heinrich in Maine, Barry Lopez in the Canadian Arctic, and Aldo Leopold just an hour down the road in Baraboo, father and son combine observation, experience, and reflection to tell a profound story about one place in the world. Through their poetic documentation, they remind us how, despite the pace of modern life, the seasons continue to influence our lives in ways large and small.
SPECIAL EVENTS
Tuesday, June 7, 2016 — An Evening with Jerry Apps
Time: 7 pm
Location: Cambria Fire Station Community Center, Cambria. Author Jerry Apps shares stories from the farm, including some from his newest book, “Roshara Journal,” a photographic diary created with son Steve Apps, a professional photographer, that chronicles the Apps family’s 50-year love affair with their farm near Wild Rose, Wis.
Tuesday, June 28, 2016 — “Telling Your Story, A ‘Roshara’ Example” with Jerry App
Time: 7 pm
Location: HotelRED, Madison (free parking). Mystery to Me book store in Madison welcomes Jerry Apps for a discussion on how Apps weaves his stories into books, including how he drew from his own 50 years of journal entries to chronicle the story of his family farm in the new Society Press book “Roshara Journal.” Apps will also share tips on how to capture personal experiences in a journal and how to turn those personal experiences into cherished tales — written and oral — from his newly released how-to book, Telling Your Story (Fulcrum Publishing). Celebrate the June release of both of these new Jerry Apps titles — and meet “Roshara Journal” photographer Steve Apps! — at this special joint book event! A book signing will follow.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Jerry Apps is the award-winning author of more than 50 books on rural life. A professor emeritus in agriculture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he is featured in three, hour-long TV documentaries, including the Emmy Award-winning Farm Winter with Jerry Apps. He and his wife divide their time between a home in Madison, Wis., and their farm, Roshara.Steve Apps is an award-winning photographer and chief photographer for the Wisconsin State Journal. He has spent more than 30 years as a photographer. His photo coverage of the Green Bay Packers has been recognized five times by the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Media: For a review copy of “Roshara Journal,” to interview Jerry Apps or Steve Apps, or for more information, please contact Kristin Gilpatrick, Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 816 State St., Madison, WI 53706; 608-264-6465; email: kristin.gilpatrick@wisconsinhistory.org.
The Wisconsin Historical Society Press, publishing the best of
Wisconsin history and culture since 1855 as a division of the Wisconsin Historical Society
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To Order
For retail and wholesale orders: Contact the Chicago Distribution Center at 800-621-2736 Fax: 800-621-8476 Email: custserv@press.uchicago.edu
For individual orders: Order by phone toll free at 888-999-1669, shop online atwww.wisconsinhistory.org/shop, or shop in person at the Wisconsin Historical Museum Shop, 30 N. Carroll St., Madison WI 53703
