Jane Simon Ammeson is a freelance writer who specializes in travel, food and personalities. She writes frequently for The Times of Northwest Indiana, Mexico Connect, Long Weekends magazine, Edible Michiana, Lakeland Boating, Food Wine Travel magazine , Lee Publications, and the Herald Palladium where she writes a weekly food column. Her TouchScreenTravels include Indiana’s Best. She also writes a weekly book review column for The Times of Northwest Indiana as well as food and travel, has authored 16 books including Lincoln Road Trip: The Back-road Guide to America’s Favorite President, a winner of the Lowell Thomas Journalism Award in Travel Books, Third Place and also a Finalist for the 2019 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards in the Travel category. Her latest books are America’s Femme Fatale: The Story of Serial Killer Belle Gunness and Classic Restaurants of Northwest Indiana.
Her other books include How to Murder Your Wealthy Lovers and Get Away with It, A Jazz Age Murder in Northwest Indiana and Murders That Made Headlines: Crimes of Indiana, all historic true crime as well Hauntings of the Underground Railroad: Ghosts of the Midwest, Brown County, Indiana and East Chicago. Jane’s base camp is Stevensville, Michigan on the shores of Lake Michigan. Follow Jane at facebook.com/janesimonammeson; twitter.com/hpammeson; https://twitter.com/janeammeson1; twitter.com/travelfoodin, instagram.com/janeammeson/ and on her travel and food blog janeammeson.com and book blog: shelflife.blog/
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Polar Express Celebrates 30 Years of Holiday Adventure
It’s been three decades since The Polar Express (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 1985) first came chugging into our lives, enchanting us with the story of a young boy who boards a train on Christmas Eve to take a fateful and reaffirming journey. In the book which has sold over six-and-a-half million copies—and later the film adaptation…
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City Creatures
Gavin Van Horn did not grow up in a city and he didn’t expect, after graduating college with a doctorate from the University of Florida with a specialization in Religion and Nature, to end up living in Chicago, the third largest city in the United States. He also didn’t expect, outside of occasional pockets of…
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Drew Barrymore opens up in 'Wildflower'
Drew Barrymore would like us to learn more about her which seems like a very good idea. After all, this versatile actress, though only 40, has been around a long time starting at age six when she starred in the 1982 movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial directed by Steven Spielberg to the soon-to-be released Miss You…
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David Axelrod: Believer
Believer: My Forty Years in Politics (Penguin 2015; $35), tells the story not only how the powerhouse political consultant David Axelrod first came to politics (he was inspired by John F. Kennedy) but also his journey with Barack Obama starting from when the latter was an Illinois state representative with a failed try for the…
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Living a Meaningful Minamalist Life
As the old jokes goes, a millionaire on vacation in Mexico tries to convince a fisherman that he should start a business selling his fish, work 60 to 70 hours a week running it, make tons of money and then he can do anything in the world he wants. The fisherman says what would I…
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When Hollywood Landed at Chicago's Midway Airport
When was the last time – if ever – someone suggested driving to the airport to grab a bite to eat. If you’re like me, the answer is never. But before transcontinental flights, planes stopped at Midway Airport to refuel and luminaries such as Katherine Hepburn, John Wayne, President John F. Kennedy and his equally…
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Historic preservationist writes book about the history of Chicago's parks
In the 1830s, Chicago, though still a village had aspirations not only to become a city but one with glorious parks as well. “They adopted the Latin phrase ‘urbs in horto’ meaning city in a garden,” says Julia Bachrach, historian and preservationist for the Chicago Park District and author of The City in a Garden:…
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Barefoot Contessa Foolproof
You buy the ingredients, maybe spending a little more than you should – but the recipe looks great and you’re having friends over you want to impress. Back home in your kitchen you start cooking following the recipe step-by-step. It should be perfect but it’s not. There’s too much liquid in the cake batter, not…
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Dennis Lehane
“Some years later, on a tugboat in the Gulf of Mexico, Joe Coughlin’s feet were placed in a tub of cement,” writes bestselling author Dennis Lehane, in the opening paragraph of Live by Night (William Morrow 2012, $27.99), his recently released novel. It’s a situation that makes Joe realize “almost everything of note that had ever…
