Wade Rouse

HARBOR TOWNS Suttons Bay

Twelve miles north of Traverse City is Suttons Bay, a quaint waterfront village bursting with local charm and idyllic scenery. Several beaches, warm bay waters, and acres of surrounding orchards make this place a true paradise from spring until fall. The downtown is full of local boutiques, restaurants, and even a vintage movie theater the community saved from closure. Whether meandering along the main drag — St. Joseph Street — exploring the shops and art galleries, dining at a local eatery, or paddleboarding on the calm azure bay is your ideal way to spend a day, you’re certain to enjoy the relaxed pace of life in this bucolic town.

STAY

To really immerse yourself in the rustic up north, lifestyle Century Farm Cottages offers a stay on an old farm in adorable refurbished log cabin or stone cottage. Rates are $195/night during peak season.centuryfarmcottages.com

Wild Cherry RV Resort is a dreamy getaway for all RV owners, with acres of land and surrounding forests, proximity to several local wineries, and even a small lake on-premises. Prices range from $65+ nightly during the summer months. www.wildcherryresort.com

For an upscale experience in Northern Michigan wine country, the Black Star Inn allows visitors to stay nestled beneath a hillside of vines and boasts stunning pastoral views. Your stay here includes gourmet breakfast and a bottle of wine, as well as a nightly hospitality hour. Rates range from $450+ per night. www. blackstarfarms.com/inn

MUSTS FOR YOUR MOUTH

While there is no shortage of restaurants in Suttons Bay, there are a few iconic places that dish out memorable meals and experiences.

Wren, located in the old fire station, offers an intimate but never stuffy fine dining experience with a rotating menu based on locally sourced ingredients and chef Adam McMarlin’s superhero ingenuity. www.wrensuttonsbay.com

A Massive Mary on the rooftop deck of Boone’s Primetime Pub is a must-try, especially after a long day of boating or beaching. It’ll cost $17, but it’s basically a full meal and a drink — and it comes with a beer chaser. boonesprimetimepub.com

Sitting on the blooming, sun-dappled garden patio at Martha’s Leelanau Table feels (and tastes) like a getaway to an everythingfrom-scratch European bistro and, accordingly, the wine menu is wonderfully expansive. marthasleelanautable.com

DON’T LEAVE TOWN WITHOUT …

Bellying up to the bonfires with a beer and Smores kit at Hop Lot Brewing Co., where you’ll feel like you’re glamping in the woods while your kids toss a football or play with any number of yard games within sight but slightly out of earshot. hoplotbrewing. com

Renting a bike and rolling a paved, flat 22 miles from Suttons Bay to Traverse City is a splendid way to spend a morning. Too pooped to pedal back? You and your bike can catch a ride on the BATA bus. Search Leelanau Trail at www.traversetrails.org and check out the Bike-n-Ride stops on Route 10: www.bata.net

Strolling through Bayside Gallery, a whimsical and endearing local shop bursting to the sidewalk with garden décor and more. www.baysidegallery.net

Taking in the spectacular forest and bay views while sipping hard cider on the deck of Suttons Bay Ciders (just south of town). www.suttonsbayciders.com

Opening wide for a generous scoop of Grandma Lin’s Ice Cream, located next to Roman Wheel Pizza. You’ll feel like you’re back in the olden days, and Grandma herself will probably be there serving you.

DOCKING

The Suttons Bay Public Marina features 40 transient slips, as well as a shower facilities, WiFi, super close access to the best beach in town with a playground and picnic areas, gasoline, pump-out services, water, electricity, a dog run, and walking distance to the entirety of downtown. Search “Suttons Bay Harbor” at www.michigan.gov/dnr.

Meet the Master of the Northern Michigan Beach Read

Wade Rouse — aka Viola Shipman

By Emily Tyra

How’s this for a pure northern Michigan experience: Pick a sugar-sand spot on one of the area’s big water beaches and settle in with a summer read that’s actually set on our shores. Viola Shipman — pen name of bestselling writer Wade Rouse — has a new novel following the lives of four women who met at a fictional summer camp in Glen Arbor in the ’80s. “The Clover Girls”, part of a multi-book deal with HarperCollins/Graydon House, came out May 18, but it’s just one in a line of novels Rouse has set in northern Michigan’s beach towns.

Rouse, who pens his heartfelt fiction under his grandmother’s name, didn’t begin as an author until age 40, but he quickly found acclaim. He is the noted humorist of four memoirs, including “It’s All Relative,” a finalist for the Goodreads Choice Awards in Humor (Tina Fey and Betty White beat him out!).

His books have sold over a million copies worldwide, have been selected as Must-Reads by NBC’s Today show, and featured in USA Today, The Washington Post and on Chelsea Lately. But as far flung as his fandom is now (he’s especially beloved in Germany), Rouse — who lives in Saugatuck —never strays from his setting of Michigan resort towns.

“I work to make the coast of Michigan a living, breathing character all its own in all of my novels,” he explains. “The resort town is central to the story line and often as big of a character as my protagonists.” Here’s more from Rouse on why that’s resonating, even with readers who have never laid eyes on the Mitten:

Northern Express: “The Summer Cottage” follows a woman in the wake of her divorce, converting her parents’ aging lakeside Saugatuck home into a B&B. “The Recipe Box” follows a New York chef who returns to her family’s multi-generational orchard in Suttons Bay. Is it true one of your readers asked if these places could really be so quaint and beautiful?

Rouse: Yes, a funny email prompted me to reply to her … with photo evidence. She asked, is the water in Michigan really that blue, are the towns really that cute? She, of course, wants to plan a vacation here now. People in Michigan love that the novels are set in our coastal towns, but now I see those hooks — and how the beauty here resonates in people’s souls — reaching all over America. I want to do for the Up North/Great Lakes area of the country I love and call home what some of my favorite authors — Elin Hilderbrand, Nancy Thayer and Dot Frank — have done for Nantucket and Lowcountry South Carolina.

Express: Any specific spots in Glen Arbor that will stand out in “The Clover Girls”?

Rouse: I kind of made up where the summer camp is; it’s nestled up there by the dunes. Michigan readers especially will connect the dots. But there are some very specific snippets: restaurants people will notice, there is a scene at the end of the book in Leland, and the Sleeping Bear Dunes, Cherry Republic as well as Cottage Book Shop — one of the quaintest indie bookstores in the world, housed in a historic log cabin.

Express: Is that your favorite Leelanau book store?

Rouse: Seriously, I love all of them! Michigan is blessed when it comes to having some of the nation’s best independent bookstores, from Saturn Booksellers in Gaylord to McLean & Eakin in Petoskey. In Leelanau … Bay Books, Cottage Books, Leelanau Books … I go to all of them.

Express: We are calling this a beach read, but to be fair, “The Clover Girls” themes run a little deeper …

Rouse: “The Clover Girls” centers on forgiveness, not only of others but also ourselves, and about how our friends guide us and help us rediscover who we were and who we still can be. A lot of love stories have been written, but I wanted to write a love story about friendship.

Express: And setting it at a summer camp in Glen Arbor helps deliver that tale?

Rouse: It’s about four very different girls who become best friends at summer camp in the 1980s until life and adulthood — as it too often does — makes them lose touch. I don’t know if you have gone to camp. I did. Camp brings back such visceral memories, where I was horrified to go in the beginning, but then finding people like myself, who supported me and understood me. If there is anything we learned in this last year, it’s how much we need connection. There are those who know more about us than anyone else and keeping those friendships is vitally important.

Express: In addition to Leelanau nostalgia, readers will get a nice blast of ’80s too?

Rouse: Absolutely. Wham!, feathered hair, friendship pins, Drakkar Noir, highwaisted jeans, which sadly are back! I love the ’80s and, it’s hilarious, I work with many young people at the publishing house, and they were talking about mix tapes, so I shared some music, and they are into it!

Express: Writer’s Digest called you “The No. 2 Writer, Dead or Alive, We’d Like to Have Drinks With,” sandwiched between Ernest Hemingway and Hunter Thompson …

Rouse: I am not 100 percent sure it’s a compliment?! [laughs] It’s fascinating to watch the new Ken Burns documentary about Hemingway on PBS. I love and hate him — he almost became a stereotype of himself at the end — but he earned his bravado. I laugh to think how he’d do today, interfacing with humans on book tours.

Express: Tell us more about your pen name?

Rouse: I chose my grandmother’s name, Viola Shipman, as a pen name for my fiction as a thank you to her. She — along with all of my grandparents — were working poor, but they made incredible sacrifices. My mom was the first to go to college and that really changed my family’s life. I want characters like my grandmother front and center in my books — good, kind, hardworking women, doing their best but whose voices are often overlooked.

Express: And your next novel? Where will it be set?

Rouse: “The Secret of Snow” comes out on October 26. A meteorologist in Palm Springs has an on-air breakdown and is replaced by a former friend of hers. She returns home to Traverse City in the middle of winter, where she lost a sister when she was young. It shows the quirk of some other little Leelanau towns. It’s very funny and very sad. I love it. People ask what’s your favorite of your books, and it’s usually the one you just wrote.

To learn more about Wade Rouse and his novels — and keep track of his upcoming appearances — check out www.violashipman.com. Northern Express Weekly • july 05, 2021 • 21