“I treasure personal totems. The J. Geils Band’s album Bloodshot came out on red vinyl in 1973, and when I slide that bright record out of the sleeve, it takes me back to when I was a raw poet inspired by their R&B lyrics. Also, the greasy metal sign, ‘COVER,’ that I stole from the assembly line at Ford’s. It hung above my machine while I welded covers onto axle housings. Also, birch bark cut from a tree in Northern Michigan during a family vacation. I wrote my name on it when I was a child. These magical objects take me back to those pivotal times and places to which I sometimes need to return as a writer, and as a person.”
—Jim Daniels, author of Trigger Man: More Tales of the Motor City (Michigan State University Press, 2011)