There "are stories to be concocted..." Zelke Windau tells us. And the stories, concocted from memories and echoes, unfold here as sweetly as a scoop of Neapolitan ice cream. With glints of humor and all the perspective the decades deliver, the poet captures a Chicago childhood that feels almost archetypal, complete with Studebakers, hollyhocks and a rainbow-layered gelatin salad, studded with fruit.

Sarah Sadie, author of We Are Traveling Through Dark at Tremendous Speeds (LitFest Press 2016)

Revisit Marilyn Zelke Windau's 1950's childhood memories, growing up in the Chicago, through the delightful and poignant poems in Hiccups Haunt Wilson Avenue. Travel back to the Chicago Public Library, nut cups, piano lessons, Magic 8 Balls, alleys, hollyhock dolls and the air raid drills at Mayfair School. You'll enjoy the trip.

Bruce Dethlefsen (Wisconsin Poet Laureate 2011-2012)

Any Midwesterner who grew up in the mid-20th century will find themselves in the lines of Marilyn Zelke Windau's poems in Hiccups Haunt Wilson Avenue. From summer camp to hordes of neighborhood kids playing hopscotch on the sidewalk, her images-the sights, sounds, smells, even the scritch-scratchy textures of her Wilson Avenue neighborhood-evoke a feeling of nostalgia so truthful that I found my own life revealed.

Dawn Hogue, author of A Hollow Bone
About the Author: Marilyn Zelke Windau, the middle child of three, grew up on Wilson Avenue in Chicago, where all the houses were bungalows made of brick and looked very much the same. Elm trees arched the street where she and her siblings played chalked games of hopscotch, four square, and concentration.

She remembers those youthful days of antics and lessons, and records them here, dedicating these poems to her newborn grandchildren.

At age thirteen she started writing poetry in high school study hall as well as in the dry bathtub of her family home with a pillow and a pencil. Her poems have been published in many print and online venues since 2007, when she was encouraged to get them out of a desk drawer to share.

Her chapbook Adventures in Paradise (Finishing Line Press) and full-length, self-illustrated manuscript Momentary Ordinary (Pebblebrook Press) were both published in 2014. Owning Shadows (Kelsay Books) was released in 2017.

Zelke Windau lives in Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin-still very close to her beloved Lake Michigan. She is a retired public-school art teacher, the mother of three daughters, and the wife of an environmental engineer. She enjoys traveling, volunteering at the local art center for children's workshops, assisting in maintenance of public gardens, and helping to make poetry public through combined visual art and poetry exhibits.

She adds her maiden name when she writes to honor her father, who was also a writer.