In 1877, twenty Irish coal miners hanged for a terrorist conspiracy that never occurred. “Anywhere But Schuylkill” is the story of one who escaped, Mike Doyle, a teenager trying to find a new home before his alcoholic uncle kills one of his siblings. He takes a job with a union leader, who is also a gangster, while secretly courting his daughter, and quickly learns that the gang leader, cops and rival gang all want him dead.

Michael Dunn writes Working-Class Fiction from the Not So Gilded Age. “Anywhere But Schuylkill,” is the first in his Great Upheaval trilogy. A lifelong union activist, he has always been drawn to stories of the past, particularly those of regular working people, struggling to make a better life for themselves and their families. Stories most people do not know, or have forgotten, because history is written by the victors, the robber barons and plutocrats, not the workers and immigrants. Yet their stories are among the most compelling in America. They resonate today because they are the stories of our own ancestors, because their passions and desires, struggles and tragedies, were so similar to our own.

When Michael Dunn is not writing historical fiction, he teaches high school, and writes about labor history and culture. His labor history has been published in several online and print magazines. He also enjoys reading. Some of his favorite writers are: Flannery O’Connor, Toni Morrison, John Dos Passos, Victor Serge, B. Traven and John Steinbeck, as well as contemporary writers like Jess Walter, Wiley Cash, Wu Ming, Roberto Bolano, Arundhati Roy and Isabel Allende.

To learn more about Michael Dunn, the world of his characters, or to read his labor history blog and social media posts, please visit his website.