By MARK BUTZOW

Indiana Correspondent

CANTON, Mich. — Terri Schlichenmeyer is a prolific writer whose “The Bookworm Sez” book reviews run regularly in Farm World, as well as other newspapers. She usually is commenting on others’ works – but as of this month, she’s an author herself.

The Wisconsin native has completed The Handy Wisconsin Answer Book, and it is part of a series from Visible Ink Press, based in Canton, Mich. The publisher had been after her to take on the project for years, and she finally agreed if it would let her split the research and writing with a co-author. Visible Ink agreed, she talked longtime friend Mark Meier into helping, and the rest is history.

And politics. And sports, and business.

“It includes things you should know if you’re coming to Madison, Milwaukee, La Crosse, Wisconsin Dells, and Eau Claire,” Schlichenmeyer explained.

She doles out tantalizing morsels about those destinations, connecting mustard with Madison, bowling with Milwaukee, and cycling with Sparta. And in tiny Cataract, Wis., there are some interesting concrete and glass sculptures worth visiting.

At 400 pages, the book covers a lot of ground – and of course, farming is part of that.

“You can’t talk about Wisconsin without talking about Wisconsin cows and Wisconsin cheese. Wisconsin is America’s Dairyland,” Schlichenmeyer said, adding that rural Wisconsin residents who made special efforts to support U.S. efforts in World Wars I and II are showcased in the book.

The Handy Wisconsin Answer Book is available at all the usual booksellers.

Meanwhile, it’s back to other people’s books for “the Bookworm.” Schlichenmeyer reads at least four and sometimes six books a week, depending on their size. You might not realize this if you only see her reviews here, for example, but she chooses the books based on the needs and interests of a wide range of audiences.

“I work with six funeral-director magazines, 17 LGBTQ publications, 20 business publications, four health-related pubs, and 30 African-American publications,” she said. A lot of community newspapers also are clients.

Not all clients receive all the reviews she produces each week. A self-help book on coping with grief might just go to magazines affiliated with the funeral industry, while a novel with a young widow as a central character could go to the daily newspapers, the funeral director organizations, and Farm World.

“There are a surprising number of books on grief, elder care, and green burials,” she said. “My favorite genre to read is medical stories, I’m a big science geek, and also like pop culture of the 20th century.”

This career of hers is nearly two decades old, and she happened upon it without really planning it out.

“I spent many years working in radio, as a disc jockey. I transitioned to TV, and I worked as master control operator. Then I was a copywriter in radio,” she said, writing advertisements for several stations.

It was during this time she started giving book reviews on the air for a talk-radio station, and a friend asked if she would write them down for use in her newspaper. She agreed.

“After six weeks, I started doing my homework, and I found no one was doing book reviews on anything but Stephen King and the latest Grisham novels.” She recognized there were many extremely good books being produced that weren’t getting enough attention – and that’s when The Bookworm Sez business was born.

And it all happened in rural Wisconsin, which, as she’ll tell you in her book, claims the first kindergarten in America and played a big role in the Underground Railroad. Won’t all this knowledge come in handy when visiting the Dairyland to the north?

The Handy Wisconsin Answer Book by Terri Schlichenmeyer & Mark Meier, 400 pages, c. 2019, is published by Visible Ink Press and is available wherever you buy books.