MEA member Chad V. Broughman worked in early morning hours for 12 years to complete his work of historical-fiction, The Fall of Bellwether, and he pushed past challenges to get it published. But he still finds it hard to talk about himself in pitching the book to readers.

This spring the 25-year English teacher from Harbor Springs stood before 75 people at his book launch, “when suddenly I started talking about the pursuit of dreams, and the discussion became so much easier. I never knew so many people have put their dreams on a shelf.”

A few years ago, Broughman had stopped looking for a publisher for his manuscript when a mentor asked him to send it out one more time.

“It sounds cliched, but it actually happened: I sent it out one more time, to the First Novel Prize out of London, and it made the top five from hundreds of submissions.”

The near-miss spurred him on to find his match with indie publisher Anamcara Press. Set in a post-Civil War fictional Michigan town between Marquette and the Keweenaw, his story follows five intertwined characters connected by the novel’s “original sin”: townsfolk hanged two women for a crime they didn’t commit.

A reviewer compared it to Cold Mountain, a 1997 novel later adapted for film, and Broughman sees parallels in the brutality “but also the mercy. Amongst the brutal things that happen, hope floats up in this book.”

Now at work on a second novel, he still enjoys talking of dreams in promotional appearances. “Maybe in the end this is about me telling people, ‘Knock it off. Don’t make excuses. Get your dream down off the shelf.’”