Memoirs of Judge Wood, our man at Wounded Knee

The late Harlington Wood, Jr.’s remarkable life

Many people in Springfield, who hold a variety of views about politics and law, have praised the late Harlington Wood as an individual of integrity and accomplishment. Wood’s memoirs, An Unmar

A family tells its story, and you can tell yours

Here’s a book you’ll love. I’m stating up front it’s by a good friend, Rosie Roach Miller, who grew up in Belleville, graduated from Millikin, married a vet from Springfield w

The end of the world is just the beginning

When I looked up Internet data on this new book, lo, I found a whole Rune Universe out there, lots of materials, much associated with this author. After a bunch of entries came this volum

Could you confess to a crime you did not commit?

False confession happens more often than you think. Here’s how.

In the summer of 1989, a 19-year-old Waverly woman, Melissa Koontz, disappeared late at night after leaving work on the far west-side of Springfield. What followed was a series of events in

A new form of Southern slavery led to Northern race riots

Forced black labor in U.S. industries gave rise to virulent racism

During and immediately after Reconstruction in the South, the same entrepreneurs and bankers who had built the Confederacy's munitions and armament plants during the Civil War

My mother, the columnist, journalist and historian

Springfield author remembers a Naperville icon

Why would Naperville commission a life-size bronze statue of an elderly woman in a cardigan, place it on a downtown stone bench, and have a city ceremony in 1999 in her honor? Why, in a 200

Springfield aviation makes history

New photo book reflects author’s passion for planes

To say that Job Conger is into airplanes would be an understatement. In fact, Conger's interest in aviation could easily be considered a love affair. It began with him photograph

‘Thought leader’ offers seminars here

You don't have to go along with the crowd

Sometimes the evening news reminds me of a decades-old school incident when My Group was unkind to Their Group, to put it mildly. I have excuses about immaturity and adolescent angst, but th

Telling the story of the 1908 riot

Springfield’s Melinda McDonald describes the horror from a unique perspective

This novel of historical fiction, on the Springfield race riot of 1908 by Springfieldian Melinda McDonald, is told from a unique point of view. Sheba Tully, a young black woman, obtains a ho

Quite a rush

Two university-affiliated literary magazines showcase Springfield talent

Some college literary magazines exist primarily to publish the scribblings of a group of friends. I edited — OK, perpetrated — a couple of them back in the d