Council Bluffs author Lorna Seilstad set out to bring life to history and grew up hearing the legends of Lake Manawa. In this podcast she explains what she learned about the history of the lake and its glory days as a resort and what prompted her to write this trilogy of popular books.
Young ladies find love at Lake Manawa— an upscale resort with dance pavilions, an amusement park, galas and entertainment. It's a romantic and beautiful place; but how much of that setting for the Lake Manawa series novels actually ever existed? Author Lorna Seilstad explains her characters and their adventures may be fiction, but the setting for the adventures is very much real. Making Waves, A Great Catch, and The Ride of Her Life take place in the "glory years" of Lake Manawa's days as a resort, the late 1800s and early 20th Century.
Learn more about the books and other works by Lorna Seilstad at her website, www.lornaseilstad.com. If you want to explore Lake Manawa yourself you can download a brochure that uses GPS coordinates to take you where the various attractions of the past were located at http://www.thehistoricalsociety.org/history-online/lake-manawa.html
A short video about Lake Manawa history with Lorna Seilstad and historians Ryan Roenfeld and Troy Stolp can be found on the Historical Society's YouTube channel at