Troy Place, an IME faculty specialist, will be holding the first local book signing for his debut novel Pizza Pie and Politics: How Mitchell Moon Lost His Childhood at the Barnes and Noble on South Westnedge in Portage on Sat., May 26, from 2 to 4 p.m. The novel – which takes place in Battle Creek, MI, and Chicago – was released in January by Publish America of Baltimore, MD.
Cynthia Halderson, Senior Research Assistant for Science and Mathematics Program Improvement, described Pizza Pie and Politics as “a coming-of-age story of a college graduate and two buddies who decide to spend one last summer in the pizza shop where they’ve worked since high school.” They postpone self-awareness, relationships, and careers in favor of “a few more months of ritualized guy stuff.” She called the novel “a good read – well-crafted, funny as slapstick at times, and faithful to the bumpy road of human understanding.”
Writing has always been one of Place’s goals, and he has already published several pieces. Two of his short stories have been published in literary magazines, one in the Dickinson Review, a Dickinson College publication in Pennsylvania, and one in Xero, a literary magazine in Florida. Three of his poems have also been published.
Place has also written about 10 articles for Salem Press, an encyclopedia company, on a variety of topics including writer Jim Harrison, playwright David Auburn, murder-mystery writer Stuart Woods, Ford Foundation history, the Sydney Harbor Bridge, the Air Force X-20 Dinosaur project (a precursor to the Space Shuttle), and CAD-CAM technology.
Among his other writings are conference proceedings and a journal article about Orwell’s 1984 in Explicator. He recently submitted a journal article to Writing Across the Curriculum. “It’s about getting students to track down original information” and based on what Place had discussed in class.
Inspiration for Pizza Pie and Politics came to him at a wedding reception one summer when he and his friends seemed to be serving as groomsmen on an almost bi-weekly basis. “One of my friend’s dads suggested we hire ourselves out as groomsmen,” he said. He originally planned to write a book of short stories. “I thought that this story would be the fifth in a book of short stories, but once I had completed about fifty pages of it, I realized that I had a novel,” he said.
IME faculty specialist Troy Place with a copy of his first novel, Pizza Pie and Politics: How Mitchell Moon Lost His Childhood, a coming-of-age-story that takes place in Battle Creek and Chicago
One of his favorite writers is Jim Harrison, the former Sports Illustrated writer of Legends of the Fall. “I’ve read a lot of him since college,” Place said. He also enjoyed Charles Dickens. “I read a lot of Dickens in college and his work has led to my writing about young people,” Place said.
Prior to accepting a full-time position in the IME department in 2003, Place taught writing and communication classes part-time for WMU in the IME and English departments, freshman comp and research writing at Kellogg Community College, and English at Kalamazoo Valley Community College.
Place earned a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in critical studies in the teaching of English at Michigan State University. He and his wife, Nicole Place, reside in Battle Creek with their two children: Amara, 6, and Colton, 1.
Pizza Pie and Politics can be purchased at Publish America.com. Amazon.com, and Barnes and Noble.com. or ordered at any Barnes and Noble.
Place has not yet started a new novel, but he is considering it. “I’m thinking it will be something related to high school and basketball,” he said. He can be reached via email: troy.place@wmich.edu
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