Professor Emeritus of English at Longwood University in Virginia, Michael Lund conducts writing workshops with Home and Abroad, a free writing instruction program for veterans, active-duty military, and families hosted by Longwood University’s Department of English and Modern Languages. At the same time, he continues to add to his own body of work. Listed here are recent publications.
“Turtles,” a short story, will appear in the 2023 Anthology of the Military Writers Society of America. It comes from Lund’s The Persimmon Rivers Novels, a series set in the Tidewater region of North Carolina that highlights the contribtions of veterans from different eras. Staffordshire, a village of 2000 nestled on an inland bay formed by a North Carolina river, is another dying American smalltown, yet individuals are drawn together—instinctively? mysteriously? magically?—to rebuild a community and a tradition.
“Blue Smoke War; White Bones Men,” a Memorial Day 2021 Op-Ed appears in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
“Counter-weight,” a commntary, appears in the December 2020 issue of Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine. On that page is a link to “Bees,” a short story that was published in the November issue.
Middle West Press, in cooperation with “Line of Advance” literary journal, has published in October 2020 an anthology of Col. Darron L. Wright Award-winning prose and poetry. It will include Michael Lund’s short story, “Left-hearted.” (see below)
“Cane Do,” a short story, has appeared in Penultimate Peanut. Read it here: https://www.penultimatepeanutmagazine.com/october-2020-issue-13
Michael Lund’s essay, “My Grandfather’s Thumb,” appeared in the anthology Why We Write: Craft Essays on Writing War (2019) in both print and Kindle e-book formats. The Middle West Press LLC project is in partnership with the Military Writers Guild. Lund’s work places his own experience as an Army correspondent in Vietnam in the Lund family history.
“Lost Losses”appears in the September 2018 issue of Junto Magazine, a quarterly literary magazine that provides a professionally cultivated, cross-medium creative outlet.
“Classification” appeared in the premier issue of Crux Magazine a biannual magazine that share’s people stories. The theme of the Winter 2017 issue is Community.
Michael Lund’s short story, “Old Soldier,” is included the anthology On the Back of a Motorbike: Stories and Poems from Southeast Asia, published by Literary Concept (October 7, 2016)
“Left-Hearted,” a short story, appears in Line of Advance, February, 2016.
Route 66 Déjà Vu, a novel, will explore the confirmations and revisions of individual and collective history for a generation that grew up in the ’50s and ’60s in a small Missouri town on The Mother Road. The occasions are a 50th high school class reunion and the 100th birthday of one classmate’s mother, the matriarch of her family and a representative of the Greatest Generation. Central to Route 66 Déjà Vu are the stories of the class’ male and female Vietnam veterans, which are integrated into the longer narrative and present a distinctive perspective on the American Dream. Current events make their experience relevant to soldiers from many nations who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A native of Rolla, Missouri, Michael Lund was a US Army correspondent at Fort Campbell, KY, (1969-70) and in South Vietnam (1970-71). He is the author of numerous scholarly publications on the Victorian novel, two collections of short stories–How to Not Tell a War Story (2012),
Eating With Veterans (2015),
–and a number of novels inspired by The Mother Road, including Route 66 to Vietnam: A Draftee’s Story (2004),
Growing up on Route 66 (1999), and Farewell, Route 66 (2017. They are available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other outlets. https://www.amazon.com/Michael-Lund/e/B001K7XZU4?ref_=dbs_p_pbk_r00_abau_000000http://.