Iowa Author Mike Palecek to Speak in Cedar Falls January 26

"Mike Palecek poses powerful questions. He has constructed a masterpiece in [Looking for Bigfoot]. It deserves to be read. It's exhilarating and terrifying. It's realer than real."  — January Magazine


Iowa’s Mike Palecek, author of the critically-acclaimed Looking for Bigfoot, is slated to appear on January 26 as part of the University of Northern Iowa's Final Thursday Reading Series, 7:30 p.m. in Cedar Falls, at Bought Again Books/Vibe Cafe, 909 West 23rd Street  [319-266-7115].

Palecek will be reading from his most recent novel, “LOOKING FOR BIGFOOT," published in 2005 by Howling Dog Press.

Looking for Bigfoot was named one of the Best in Fiction for 2005 by January Magazine.  Here’s what they had to say:

In my review of this fine book I discussed my preference for fiction rather than non. Mike Palecek had supplied an argument for me within the book, that "good fiction ... is a more accurate way of saying the truth than the actual stating of facts" and that the fiction writer "can say what the reporters are too chicken to." Current events may be giving the lie to these statements as the news has become just as strange as fiction. However this enhances rather than diminishes the value of a book I consider the best of the year. It's about survival and searching. It's about truth, injustice and the American way. -- Chuck Gregory

In the story, the Bigfoot phenomenon also serves as a metaphor for wondering whether Oswald killed Kennedy, whether we actually walked on the moon, whether Bush and Cheney were complicit in the attacks of 9/11 ... whether the whole American Dream is just a bad nightmare.

BIGFOOT tells the story of an eastern Iowa man who runs an Internet radio talk show from his home, the rented farmhouse at the "Field of Dreams" movie tourist site.

To order or read more about the book, click here.

PALECEK, 50, IS THE AUTHOR OF SIX NOVELS, all from a leftist, progressive angle, five set in Iowa. He lives with his family in northwest Iowa. He was the Iowa Democratic Party nominee for the United States House of Representatives for the Fifth District in the 2000 election. Palecek lost to the Republican incumbent, but was able to gather over 65,000 votes [29%] in a conservative district on an anti-military, anti-prison, pro-immigration platform.

Palecek works at a group home for disabled adults in Hull, Iowa. He has also worked as an award-winning reporter for the N'West Iowa Review and the Cherokee Daily Times.

DURING THE 1980S, PALECEK SERVED FIVE TERMS in county jail and federal prison for acts of civil disobedience at Offutt Air Force Base in protest of the United States military.

Also check out his book, The Last Liberal Outlaw, about a small-town Iowa reporter.