Calumet Editions

  • Protecting Mama

    Protecting Mama

    Léonie Rosenstiel battles a court-appointed guardian for her mother, who has Alzheimer’s, while centuries-old family myths and miscommunication complicate every step. Her mother wants their story told, but the courts insist guardianship records remain sealed—forever. After years of Kafkaesque struggle, Léonie and a brilliant, unconventional attorney go to war with the system to expose the guardianship swamp and help others navigate it.

    It reads almost like a thriller

    —Jack Canfield, co-author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series

  • Shattered

    Shattered

    In the 1970s and 80s, John C. Donahue was hailed as a brilliant, difficult theater visionary, and his Children’s Theatre Company and School (CTC) reached national acclaim. Behind the curtain, however, the institution harbored more than two dozen sexual perpetrators. Donahue’s 1984 arrest for abusing students nearly ended CTC—yet the culture of complicity endured and the full truth was buried. In this memoir, Laura Stearns confronts her own childhood abuse at CTC, unpacks decades of institutional harm, and charts a trauma-informed path toward strength—calling for safer spaces for young artists.

    Laura’s writing serves as a flotation device to carry the reader over a tumultuous tale.

    —Cordelia Anderson, MA, executive board member of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children

  • Souls Speak

    Souls Speak

    This updated second edition of Souls Speak revisits the 1967 disappearance of three boys in Hannibal, Missouri—case that sparked the largest cave search in U.S. history, yet found no trace. A later investigation draws in three psychics who independently point to serial killer John Wayne Gacy as an early suspect. The mystery culminates in a newly discovered deathbed confession that expands Gacy’s known victims—and finally reveals what happened to Hannibal’s missing boys.

    a likely resolve to an unsolved mystery

    —Mike Daak

  • The Family That Couldn't Sleep at Night

    The Family That Couldn’t Sleep at Night

    A prize-winning collection of true crime by Bruce Rubenstein, featuring “The Milwaukee Avenue Massacre,” the Chicago Magazine exposé that helped free four wrongfully convicted men. Other cases include modern piracy and murder (“Danny’s Boat”), the sociopathic O’Kasick robbery gang, Hollywood’s most dangerous stalkers (“Star Stalker”), and a serial killer behind a string of hobo slayings (“Last Train”).

    best crime writing I have ever read

    —D on Amazon