Divorced Dad’s Laundromat 2023 Bee Monk Press
Divorced Dad’s Laundromat is Mike’s first new book in ten years. His last book, Another Forty Years, touched on divorce, but this new 196 page volume starts there and takes you through the next fourteen years of Mike’s life, fumbling his way through fatherhood, midlife dating and the beautiful and embarrassing journey to finding love again. It’s a tale of romance, betrayal, sex, comedy, drama, friendship and making just about every mistake a guy can make. The book also takes a trip back in time to revisit Mike’s childhood and other hazardous things. Mike attempts to capture the absurdity and seriousness of it all by framing it in an episodic format that mimics a show you might binge watch on TV. The book also comes with a CD called Share The Load with poems from the book put to music by the great David Tonkin from the Beat Night Band. Click to Listen for free on Soundcloud.
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Gina the Bee: Lost at Night Bee Monk Press 2023
I’m excited to share my first children’s book three years in the making!

Gina is a bee that’s been through a lot, but with the help of some new friends, she confronts her fears and learns some valuable lessons about trusting herself and listening to her heart. And she learns that family is so much more than she ever knew.
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Another Forty Years 2014 Bee Monk Press
“Mike Nelson and I have been friends since he first appeared on the Seacoast poetry scene in the early 2000’s. He is a member of the impressive generation of forty-something, blue-collar fathers who are successfully balancing career and home life with artistic expression. Mike has created a “New and Selected” that includes old favorites, new works that range across his sense of humor, rapturous narratives, divorce and dating, and metaphysical musings always drawing on nature for his chief source of inspiration and consolation.”

John-Michael Albert  8^th Poet Laureate of Portsmouth

Click to listen to the album created for the book called View from the mic with the entire Beat Night Band giving their best on every track.

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Anyone who has published more than one book gets to look back and see the sometimes-painful evolution of their writing. The first book usually stands as an example of one’s inexperienced beginnings as a poet. This book is no different. I started writing in my teens without any experience or training in writing or without having read much poetry at all. All I had was an impulse to write. I continued to write my way through my twenties and into my thirties, still without any education in poetry, but reading more and more of it as I went. I had never been to a poetry reading until my early thirties and the experience of reading in front of an audience, meeting other poets and getting feedback, proved essential to my growth as a writer. Three more books and twenty years later, I’d like to think I’ve come a long way. I know a lot of poets feel insecure about their poetry, especially when they’ve been writing in solitude for years without any feedback. My hope in re-exposing my awkward first effort in poetry is to give a hesitant poet some encouragement to muscle through their fears and doubts and put their work out there at poetry readings and in book form. I can tell you after all these years, wherever you are in your writing journey, you are always at the beginning.
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