2017

2017 News, Reviews & Events

November 17-19, 2017 - San Francisco, CA - Polish Perspectives at 2017 NCSS - The American Council for Polish Culture (ACPC) organized and manned the Polish Perspectives booth at the 2017 Annual Conference of the National Council for the Social Studies. Several thousand social studies teachers attended, and browsed more than 200 booths. As in past years, Aquila Polonica was pleased to donate copies of all its titles for the Polish Perspectives booth.Books, DVDs and flyers were given away to teachers before the Conference's end. Photos below:

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November 10, 2017 - Chicago, IL - 2017 Aquila Polonica Article Prize - The 2017 Aquila Polonica Article Prize was awarded to Professor Geneviève Zubrzycki, from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, for her 2016 article "Nationalism, 'Philosemitism,' and Symbolic Boundary-Making in Contemporary Poland," published in Comparative Studies in Society and History. The prize is administered and awarded under the auspices of the Polish Studies Association (PSA). Photo, l to r: PSA president Agnieszka Pasieka; winner Geneviève Zubrzycki; Aquila Polonica president Terry Tegnazian. More...

November 9-12, 2017 - Chicago, IL - 2017 ASEEES Convention - Aquila Polonica exhibited at the 2017 convention of the Association for Slavic, East European & Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) for the eighth year in a row. It was a great opportunity to showcase all our titles, meet old friends, and make new ones! Attending on behalf of Aquila Polonica were president Terry Tegnazian and creative director Ewa Wojciak.

August 3, 2017 - Polish Foreign Ministry awards Julian Kulski - We have even more to be proud of! Julian Kulski, author of The Color of Courage, was just awarded the Bene Merito Award by Deputy Foreign Minister Jan Dziedziczak in Warsaw today. More congratulations to Julian!

July 31, 2017 - Polish President awards Julian Kulski - We're so proud of Julian Kulski, author of The Color of Courage, who was awarded the Commander's Cross with Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta by Polish President Andrzej Duda in Warsaw today. Congratulations, Julian!

July 4, 2017 - WWII Warsaw Mayor Julian S. Kulski Honored - Julian S. Kulski, Mayor of Warsaw during WWII (and father of Julian E. Kulski, author of our book The Color of Courage) was honored with a memorial plaque at the headquarters of Bank Citi Handlowy w. Warsaw on July 4, 2017. The bank's headquarters building is located on the site of pre-war Warsaw City Hall. Calling Mayor Kulski one of the "heroes who can today inspire next generations," Slawomir Sikora, president of City Handlowy, said "During the occupation, his administration was refuge for thousands of people...He saved many Polish Jews. He helped commanders and soldiers of the Polish Home Army and provided shelter for hundreds of families with children." [Photo: Kulski family, 1939. L-R: daughter Wanda, wife Eugenia, Julian S. Kulski, son Julian E. Kulski.] Read the entire article online or pdf...

June 30 – July 22, 2017 - Hamburg, Germany - Aquila Polonica Creative Director Ewa Wojciak curated and is a featured artist at an exhibition at 8. salon gallery in Hamburg, Germany, titled "Sub-Hollywood." More info...

June 20, 2017 - Chicago, IL - LoganSquarist Interview - Nice interview with John Guzlowski, author of Echoes of Tattered Tongues, in the LoganSquarist blog, for World Refugee Day. Read online or pdf...

Spring 2017 - Polish American Studies Reviews Echoes of Tattered Tongues - The Spring 2017 issue of the journal Polish American Studies reviews Echoes of Tattered Tongues. Calling the collection an "intensely personal and visceral experience," the review concludes "Guzlowski's concern for history's 'Polacks,' the voiceless refugees and survivors of war, clearly elevates this collection of poetry and prose above personal memoir and makes it a valuable contemplation of lives lived in the unforgiving crucible of history." Read the review in pdf...

May/June 2017 - Association of Jewish Libraries reviews The Color of Courage - In its publication AJL News & Reviews, the Association of Jewish Libraries reviews the award-winning book The Color of Courage by Julian Kulski. Calling Kulski's account "riveting," the review concludes: "Holocaust libraries might find this book useful for its insights into the role of the Polish underground." Read the review in pdf ....

May 1, 2017 - Echoes of Tattered Tongues Wins MONTAIGNE MEDAL - The Eric Hoffer Award has just announced that Echoes of Tattered Tongues won the 2017 Montaigne Medal, which is presented each year to the most thought-provoking books. "Being awarded the 2017 Montaigne Medal is an incredible honor. My publisher and I are both thrilled with this additional recognition that my book Echoes of Tattered Tongues is one of the most important books published this past year," said author John Guzlowski. The Montaigne Medal win follows winning of the GOLD Award for Poetry at the 2017 Benjamin Franklin Awards in April. Read the press release...

April 7, 2017 - Echoes of Tattered Tongues Wins GOLD at Benjamin Franklin Awards - Echoes of Tattered Tongues won the GOLD AWARD for Poetry at the 2017 Benjamin Franklin Awards, in a ceremony held the evening of Friday, April 7, 2017, in Portland, Oregon. The Benjamin Franklin Awards, sponsored by the Independent Book Publishers Association, is the most prestigious awards competition in independent publishing. There were nearly 1,400 entries this year, which were winnowed down to three or four finalists in each category—from these, one winner in each category was chosen by the team of judges. Read the press release...

March 23, 2017 - The Burg Weekly Entertainment Guide, Lynchburg, VA - Very nice feature article on author John Guzlowski, his book Echoes of Tattered Tongues, and his program today as a featured speaker at the Virginia Festival of the Book. Read the article online or in pdf...

March 21, 2017 - Echoes of Tattered Tongues Finalist in 2017 Benjamin Franklin Awards - The Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) has announced that Echoes of Tattered Tongues: Memory Unfolded, by John Guzlowski, is a finalist for the 2017 Benjamin Franklin Award in the category of Poetry/Literary Criticism. There were nearly 1,400 entries in the award competition this year. Winners will be announced at a ceremony held in Portland, Oregon, the evening of April 7, 2017. Read the press release...

March 3, 2017 - Virginia Festival of the Book to host John Guzlowski - The Viriginia Festival of the Book has confirmed that it will host John Guzlowski, author of Echoes of Tattered Tongues, at an event on Thursday, March 23, 2017, 2 p.m., at CitySpace, 100 5th Street NE, Charlottesville, VA 22902. "Our readers were quite touched by his writing," wrote Jane Kulow, Director, Virginia Center for the Book, in notifying us that they had chosen Guzlowski as one of their featured speakers. Books will be available for purchase and author signing at the event. Read the press release...

March 3, 2017 - Echoes of Tattered Tongues named Eric Hoffer Award Montaigne Medal Finalist - The Eric Hoffer Award just announced that Echoes of Tattered Tongues by John Guzlowski is a finalist for the 2017 Montaigne Medal! Each year, the Eric Hoffer Award presents the Montaigne Medal to the most thought-provoking books. These are books that either illuminate, progress, or redirect thought. This is an additional distinction beneath the Eric Hoffer Award umbrella. Read the press release...

March 1, 2017 - Atticus Review names John Guzlowski its Featured Poet - In an unusual move, Atticus Review names John Guzlowski as its Featured Poet for the second time, an honor accorded only one other person! Poetry Editor Michael Meyerhofer writes: "When you see the poems, I think you'll understand why." He continues: "John Guzlowski is one of those contemporary poets that you strangely hope the person you're talking to hasn't heard of, just so that you can suggest they check him out and thus earn their undying gratitude." Read the article, with a sample of Guzlowski's poems, online OR pdf...

February 26, 2017 - As It Ought To Be blog reviews Echoes of Tattered Tongues - In this thoughtful and erudite review, Eric Kroczek writes: "Guzlowski's attempt to learn and feel the origins of his parents' pain thus brings us into closer emotional touch with the entirety of the War in Europe, widening by necessity from the particular to the general. It is an unorthodox way of telling such a story...And yet it works, in ways that defy analysis or easy summary...Guzlowski's empathy and imagination are extraordinary, at times truly shocking. His verse, which brings to mind variously Charles Bukowski, Charles Simic, and Philip Levine, has a vernacular concreteness and clarity that is all the more startling when it breaks sharply with realism, and he deftly captures those quirks of personality that bring characters into full view...In every respect, Echoes of Tattered Tongues is an achievement that deserves wide recognition and long remembrance." Read the entire review online OR pdf...

February 2017 - POLcast interviews Aquila Polonica president Terry Tegnazian - In this short interview, POLcast producer and journalist Malgorzata Borkowska interviews Aquila Polonica president Terry Tegnazian to learn how a non-Pole was so hooked by the heroism of the Poles in WWII, that she started a publishing company to bring this little-known story of one of the staunchest Allies to the English-speaking world. Listen to the interview online (the interview with Ms. Tegnazian starts at about the 5:39 time location).

January 5, 2017 - Great review of Echoes of Tattered Tongues from AudioBook Reviewer - "John Z. Guzlowski provides a strong and visual audio script with Echoes of Tattered Tongues. As someone who studied poetry in depth as an undergraduate, I really never expected to hear an audiobook that could pull off poetry in the way this one has....The descriptions of the events were vivid, the story honestly told, and the reflection clearly and sometimes coldly or warmly related....In this story, the reader finds his own humanity and his own unanswered questions a parallel to John Z. Guzlowski's recounting." Read the entire review online OR pdf...

Narrator Jon BrandiCommenting on narrator Jon Brandi, AudioBook Reviewer says he "provides a thoughtful, reflective baritone that accompanies well the gray cloud cover on cover image. He clearly delineates those areas that deserve remembrance and those that moments uplift. Ultimately, his introspective tone, thoughtful and fluid, provide the right accompaniment to an audio delivery of visually startling events." Read the entire review online OR pdf...