The Crystal Falls Community District Library, in partnership with the U.P. Publishers & Authors Association, has scheduled author events with winners of the UP Notable Book List. The 41st event is with Harrison, whose novels have sold more than 2 million copies and have been published in more than 25 countries and in 13 languages.

They have achieved bestseller status in the U.S., Germany, Scandinavia, Spain and Japan. Her first novel, “Mother Earth Father Sky,” was a Publishers Weekly national bestseller, an Amazon number-one bestseller and was selected as an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults.

To take part, contact librarian Evelyn Gathu in advance at egathu@crystalfallslibrary.org, or by phone at 906-875-3344. They recommend borrowing a copy of the book from the local library or purchasing from a local bookseller in advance to get the most out of the event.

Harrison was raised in the U.P. and lives in Pickford with her husband, Neil, a retired high school principal. A graduate of Pickford High School and Lake Superior State University, Harrison was named an LSSU Distinguished Alumna and served eight years on the University’s Board of Regents. She was an adjunct instructor of creative writing and advanced creative writing and worked in the public relations department as the university writer and acting department head.

The cover of “The Midwife’s Touch.”

Harrison has written six novels set in ancient Alaska. Her other novels include “Sisu,” a National Advanced Readers Book, and “The Midwife’s Touch,” which was selected as a semi-finalist in the 2023 Society of Midland Authors’ national literary awards adult fiction competition. It was also an Amazon top 10 bestseller and named a 2024 Upper Peninsula Notable Book. In 2023, she was inducted into the Upper Peninsula Literary Hall of Fame.

“‘The Midwife’s Touch’ is a great read that ranges from a rough community in the Ozark Mountains in the backwoods of Missouri, where a Cherokee midwife and healer who also possesses a version of the ‘Royal Touch’ to change the lives of people births, an exciting heroine given the strange Native American name China Deliverance Creed. The Cherokee midwife trains China as her apprentice and, also, passes on the mysterious witchery of the Royal Touch to her. The time frame for this passionate tale of mystery and the supernatural is just prior to the Civil War and eventually moves to the Gilded Age following the war in New York City as China grows to use of her gifted ‘touch’ as well as her nursing skills — some of the most vivid scenes in the story deal with the details and suffering in breech birthing midwifery,” Mack Hassler wrote in a review at U.P. Book Review. “This is a necessary agony that God gives us that runs parallel as a metaphor for the agonies in our country of the Civil War to transform us into a better Nation. The whole tale ends with trust, love, as well as a modern version of the ‘supernatural touch’ that by the end of the 18th century was considered pure chicanery and had been removed from any mention in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer by 1732. But like some other horrors of earlier times, it had survived in the backwoods culture of the Ozarks along with the vicious predation in American history that it took us to rid ourselves of slavery. China’s long story, with a more or less happy ending, is a gripping American story from our culture of the 19th century.”

More about the U.P. Notable Book list, U.P. Book Review and UPPAA can be found on www.UPNotable.com.