Is 2020 over yet?

This is a little website for Kenn Amdahl’s publishing company, featuring his books as well as the very few titles the company published for other people. It no longer even tries to publish other people.

I haven’t updated this site for a while, sorry about that. In December of 2020 I moved it to a server with a bit more storage space, and have started to update things that are old. For example, I no longer have a fax number. That’s one good thing that the pandemic did– it forced me to spend time on chores I’ve neglected for a long time.

The only real news is that I’ve also stopped using traditional printers (and printing thousands of copies at a time) and now use the more modern “print on demand” model. This gets me out of the storage, shipping, and invoicing business. As a side benefit, the POD company I used sells directly to Amazon and to Ingram (the largest book wholesaler), so your favorite bookstore or online store can get my titles as easily as ever. Probably MORE easily.

I tried to time the transition to match that moment when I was out of stock of each of my books. I came close, but not quite. I still have dozens of copies of both Joy Writing and The Land of Debris. They’re still available online and in book stores, but if you have trouble buying those, I am your guy. If you control a nonprofit that could use some writing books in exchange for a donation letter, let’s talk before January.

In other news, I finished another novel, tentatively called “Echoes of a Distant Bell.” Then I rewrote it. Then I rewrote it again this year, changing it from first person to third. It’s better, but still not there. That’s the fifth novel I’ve completed but not published. I’m a tough room to play:  I’ve rejected more of  my own novels than I’ve published.

I’ve also spent time during the pandemic creating a different site for my music. I picked the imaginatively named “KennAmdahl dot com” It’s still a work in progress, with a lot of music still to upload, and links to fix etc. but feel free to take a peek if you’re really bored.

Thanks for visiting this site.

Kenn

Oregon Book Awards

Kenn Amdahl’s novel, “Jumper and the Apple Crate” has just been named a finalist in the Oregon Book Awards for the “Leslie Bradshaw Award for Young Adult Literature.” There are four other finalists in the category, so it’s still a long shot. But hey, anytime they associate one of our books with the word “literature” we feel like we already won first prize.

Plus, it’s kind of cool that a Clearwater book would be competing with books from Poisoned Pen, Scholastic, Harper Teen, and Little Brown.

 

Video of Kenn

On August 5, 2017 Kenn Amdahl played a little concert at The Atrium in Eugene Oregon. The concert (it was about an hour long) is now posted on YouTube. The sound isn’t perfect– the video camera picked up the guitar louder than the voice– but for old fans it might be fun to see that the cranky old folksinger is still at it.

Our titles on Amazon

The folks who hacked our site deleted links to our books on Amazon. So here are most of them, all in one place. (Each book also has its own page on our website, links are above, or to one side, depending on your browser):

Algebra Unplugged by Kenn Amdahl and Jim Loats, Ph.D

Calculus for Cats by Kenn Amdahl and Jim Loats, Ph. D

Joy Writing: Discover and Develop Your Creative Voice by Kenn Amdahl

Jumper and the Bones by Kenn Amdahl

Jumper and the Apple Crate by Kenn Amdahl

Stones in the Water, poetry of Kenn Amdahl

There Are No Electrons: Electronics for Earthlings by Kenn Amdahl

Revenge of the Pond Scum: Searching for the Causes of ALS, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Disease by Kenn Amdahl

Old News but still cool

Because hackers managed to delete ALL the old newsy posts from this site, I’ll add several bits of old news in one post here. Hate to lose the links, but also hate to generate posts with a current date that actually reflect the past. That could be confusing.

A couple of years ago, Kenn Amdahl was interviewed by the Denver weekly newspaper Westword. That interview is still online here.

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Book a Day Reviews, Interview with Kenn Amdahl done in 2013, primarily about Revenge of the Pond Scum. Scroll down to the second interview on the page.

bookadayreviews.blogspot.com/p/author-bits-and-interviews.html

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Several of Kenn Amdahl books reviewed in Wired Magazine, 2011

 

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Joy Writing reviewed by author Pat Stoltey:
//patriciastolteybooks.com/2012/02/joy-writing-by-kenn-amdahl-a-book-review/

 

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Maureen Anderson devoted a chapter of her book “Career Clinic” to Kenn Amdahl’s experience as a self publisher:

 

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Famed inventor Dean Kamen (the segway, many others) was interviewed on a radio show by the American Association of Science before Christmas and asked for his book recommendations. His first choice? Calculus for Cats by Kenn Amdahl and Jim Loats, Ph.D. This was a total surprise to us, we’d had no contact with him. The interview is still online, I’m pretty sure, but I’ve lost the link. Will post it again when I find it. Until then, Make Magazine also referred to his recommendation on their website: //makezine.com/2009/12/02/great-science-reads-the-new-york-ac/

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The book “Legendary Locals of Broomfield” by Carol Turner devoted some space to Kenn Amdahl”

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Maria Miller wrote a very nice review of Algebra Unplugged by Kenn Amdahl and Jim Loats, Ph.D for HomeschoolMath.net
//www.homeschoolmath.net/reviews/algebra_unplugged.php

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Gareth Branwyn published a kind (and funny) review of There Are No Electrons by Kenn Amdahl in Make Magazine. Gareth Branwyn is a freelance writer and the former Editorial Director of Maker Media. He is the author or editor of over a dozen books on technology, DIY, and geek culture. He is currently a contributor to Boing Boing, Wink Books, and Wink Fun. And he has a new best-of writing collection and “lazy man’s memoir,” called Borg Like Me.
//makezine.com/2011/01/22/there-are-no-electrons-book-review/

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Nice mention of Calculus For Cats by Kenn Amdahl and Jim Loats, Ph.D, in Keith Devlin’s book The Math Instinct: Why You’re a Mathematical Genius (Along with Lobsters, Birds, Cats, and Dogs) Here’s the page that mentions us:

It is very cool to be mentioned by Keith Devlin, NPR’s “Math Guy.”  Here’s what his page at Stanford says about him:

Dr. Keith Devlin is a co-founder and Executive Director of the university’s H-STAR institute, a co-founder of the Stanford mediaX research network, and a Senior Researcher at CSLI. He is a World Economic Forum Fellow, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society. His current research is focused on the use of different media to teach and communicate mathematics to diverse audiences. In this connection, he is a co-founder and President of an educational technology company, BrainQuake, that creates mathematics learning video games. He also works on the design of information/reasoning systems for intelligence analysis. Other research interests include: theory of information, models of reasoning, applications of mathematical techniques in the study of communication, and mathematical cognition. He has written 33 books and over 80 published research articles. Recipient of the Pythagoras Prize, the Peano Prize, the Carl Sagan Award, and the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics Communications Award. In 2003, he was recognized by the California State Assembly for his “innovative work and longtime service in the field of mathematics and its relation to logic and linguistics.” He is “the Math Guy” on National Public Radio.

 

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Very nice review of There Are No Electrons by Kenn Amdahl on Sparkfun, a website devoted to amateur electronics hobbyists. I emailed them to ask if they’d accept a review copy and they said I didn’t need to: they knew the book and had been recommending it for years. They said they’d be glad to post their own review. Alas, some clown with no sense of humor read their review, then rated the book one star himself and no one else has corrected him so, despite the nice review, the book remains at one star on this site.
//www.sparkfun.com/products/retired/13221

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Nice 2017 recommendation of Algebra Unplugged by Kenn Amdahl and Jim Loats, Ph.D on the website hackernoon.com
//hackernoon.com/learning-ai-if-you-suck-at-math-8bdfb4b79037

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Marcella Smith was, for many years, responsible for buying books by small press vendors for Barnes and Noble. Now she’s a publishing consultant. She was very kind to us and I’m pleased she chose to use one of my quotes on her website:
//marcellasmithassociates.com/publisherservices/

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The University of California at Santa Cruz (go banana slugs!) has been using There Are No Electrons by Kenn Amdahl for many years in their intro to electronics class. Just want to say thank you, professor Ken Pedrotti. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

 

Our site was hacked

Our site was hacked, all our news posts were deleted and replaced with free movie downloads. That was not us. I think we’ve fixed the issue, but now we have to recreate links and news items that were deleted.