Unless indicated in the program description, all events are free, unticketed, and open to the public on a first-come first serve basis.
Click here for a printable schedule grid of this year's events.
You can also find a downloadable PDF of the
2009 Wisconsin Book Festival Printed Guide here.
Saturday, October 18 | 9:30 AM - 2:00 PM
Venue: Rotunda Stage/Overture
Presenter(s):
Ken Waldman
Ken Waldman brings his wondrous energy back to Madison with three Overture Center "Kids in the Rotunda" sessions: 9:30am, 11am, and 1pm. Always recommended, Ken has traveled America for over a decade, reading and performing at venues as variable as his talents: schools, coffee houses, concert halls, bookstores, and bars. His performance combines traditional music with storytelling and poetry, and he often composes original poems on the spot for his luckiest audiences.
Category(s):
Youth & Kids
Saturday, October 18 | 10:00 - 11:30 AM
Venue: Wisconsin Veterans Museum
Presented by Wisconsin Veterans Museum
Presenter(s):
Kim Simac
Kimberly Jo Simac of Eagle River, Wisconsin, presents
American Soldier Proud and Free, a tribute to soldiers throughout the years. Conveying the value, importance, and pride the military plays to our country and culture, this is the third book in Simac's "You Can Be a Star" series.
Bookseller: Wisconsin Veterans Museum
Category(s):
Wisconsin Ties, Youth & Kids
Saturday, October 18 | 10:00 - 11:30 AM
Venue: Promenade Hall/Overture
Made possible by a generous grant from the American Girl Fund for Children
Presenter(s):
Sundee Frazier,
Patricia McKissack,
Fred McKissack
Prolific writers Patricia and Fred McKissack Sr., authors of numerous best-selling children books, along with Sundee Frazier, author of the award-winning
Brendan Buckley’s Universe and Everything In It, will discuss how their books reflect the changing world of children, particularly African American and biracial children today. This event is specifically for children, with author readings followed by a signing.
Bookseller: A Room of One's Own
Category(s):
Youth & Kids
Saturday, October 18 | 10:00 - 11:00 AM
Venue: Parman’s Super Service Station
Presented by Wisconsin Historical Society Press
Presenter(s):
Jim Draeger,
Mark Speltz
Celebrate Wisconsin’s great old gas stations! Join Jim Draeger and Mark Speltz, authors of the new Wisconsin Historical Society Press title
Fill ‘er Up, for stories, images, coffee, and donuts. A booksigning will follow the discussion.
Category(s):
History, Wisconsin Ties
Saturday, October 18 | 10:00 - 11:30 AM
Venue: Wisconsin Historical Museum-Capitol Square
Presented by University of Wisconsin Press
Presenter(s):
Robert Booth Fowler,
Katherine Cramer Walsh
Moderator(s): Kathy Cramer Walsh
Long recognized as an outstanding, impactful lecturer, UW Professor Emeritus Robert Booth Fowler sees the study of voting behavior as essentially "the study of people: what they think, how they behave, what the culture is like." Associate Professor Katherine Cramer Walsh, author of
Talking About Politics, interviews Fowler on his important new book, the first full history of voting in Wisconsin.
Bookseller: Wisconsin Historical Society
Category(s):
History, Society & Politics, Wisconsin Ties
Saturday, October 18 | 10:00 - 11:30 AM
Venue: Madison Public Library-Main Branch
Presenter(s):
Nancy Nichols
In this compelling memoir, journalist Nancy A. Nichols keeps the deathbed promise she made to her sister, to investigate and tell the story of the toxic waste sites in their hometown of Waukegan, Illinois and the possible effects of these chemicals on residents' health. Scientifically accurate and poignant, Nichols's story challenges us to ask why we allow thousands of chemicals into our food, our environment, and our bodies.
Bookseller: Barnes & Noble East
Category(s):
Making it Home
Saturday, October 18 | 10:00 - 11:30 AM
Venue: A Room of One's Own Feminist Bookstore
Presenter(s):
Liam Callanan,
Rachel Pastan
All Saints, by Milwaukee’s Liam Callanan, overlays a rarified Southern California Catholic high school with a teacher’s troubled past.
Lady of the Snakes, by former Madisonian Rachel Pastan, presents a first-year UW professor’s struggles to balance family with a fledgling academic career -- a story interspersed with the voices of two 19th-century Russians (her research subjects).
Bookseller: A Room of One's Own
Category(s):
Fiction, Wisconsin Ties
Saturday, October 18 | 10:00 - 11:30 AM
Venue: Frederic March Play Circle Theater
Mr. Buzbee's appearance is made possible by a generous contribution from the Friends of the UW-Madison Libraries, and the UW-Madison Libraries
Presenter(s):
Lewis Buzbee,
Andrew Keen
Booklovers, come and hear intense discussion on two favorite current topics: Andrew Keen presents
The Cult of the Amateur: How the Internet is Killing our Culture, and Lewis Buzbee evokes the essence of blissful bookstore browsing in
The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop. The book as we’ve known it for centuries is changing ... are we changing, as a result?
Bookseller: University Book Store
Category(s):
History, Memoir & Biography, Society & Politics
Saturday, October 18 | 10:30 AM - 1:00 PM
Venue: Memorial Library
Presented by the Friends of the UW-Madison Libraries
The Friends of UW-Madison Library's annual book sale takes place at 116 Memorial Library throughout the Festival weekend. On Wednesday, October 15, from 5:00-9:00pm, the sale kicks off with a Preview Sale ($5 Entry). The Regular Sale (no entry fee) takes place on Thursday, October 16, and Friday, October 17, from 10:30am-7:00pm. The sale ends on Saturday, October 18, from 10:30am-1:00pm at the $3-a-Bag Sale (bring your own bag). From 1:05-2:00pm on Saturday all remaining books are free. All sales are held in 116 Memorial Library.
Category(s):
Book Sales
Saturday, October 18 | 12:00 - 1:30 PM
Venue: Orpheum Theatre: Stage Door
Sponsored by Rainbow Cooperative Bookstore
Presenter(s):
Kendall Hale,
Cathy Wilkerson,
Joe Allen,
Paul Buhle
That period of social, political, and cultural transformation known as "The Sixties" continues to reverberate throughout society. From the
Tet Offensive in Vietnam at the beginning of 1968, to the assassination of Martin Luther King, the rise of "Black Power," the widespread and international student revolts of that Spring, and the anti-war protests cum police riot at Chicago that summer, 1968 stands as a benchmark of rebellion, dissent, and upheaval.
Countless young people, from Madison and elsewhere, had their lives transformed forever during that tumultuous time. Numerous participants have now taken the time to look back and reflect on the various political and personal changes they experienced and the course and direction of their lives in the years that followed.
Bookseller: Rainbow Bookstore Cooperative
Category(s):
History, Society & Politics, Wisconsin Ties
Saturday, October 18 | 12:00 - 1:30 PM
Venue: Promenade Hall/Overture
Made possible by a generous grant from the American Girl Fund for Children
Presenter(s):
Baba Wague Diakite
When he was growing up in Mali, West Africa, Baba Wague's grandmother would tell stories in the dark of the night that seemed so real, he felt as though he was one of the elements in the story. Today he combines elements of his own cultural traditions with his artistic talents by creating picture books, which come alive in this event specifically for children. Among his many awards, in 2007 Wagué and his daughter Penda Diakite received the ASA Children's Africana Book Award for
I Lost My Tooth in Africa.
Bookseller: A Room of One's Own
Category(s):
International, Youth & Kids
Saturday, October 18 | 12:00 - 1:30 PM
Venue: Frederic March Play Circle Theater
Presenter(s):
Mary Gordon,
Ingeborg Gubler Casey
The much-beloved writer Mary Gordon presents her new work,
Circling My Mother: A Memoir, a moving, affecting work on the tug-of-war between mother and daughter, between women and the changing world around them as her mother is gradually lost to senile dementia. She is introduced by new local author Ingeborg Gubler-Casey, whose recently published memoir,
The Heart Moves in a Circular Direction: A Story of Healing, discusses life with her schizophrenic mother. Both authors explore changing mother/daughter roles and the devastating effects of mental illness on relationships.
Bookseller: University Book Store
Category(s):
Memoir & Biography, Wisconsin Ties
Saturday, October 18 | 12:00 - 1:30 PM
Venue: Avol's Bookstore
Presenter(s):
Erin Hanusa,
Eleanor Stanford
Moderator(s): Shoshauna Shy
This generation of women is starting families later than ever -- often after establishing deep roots in both a marriage and a career. What is entailed in this transition to parenthood, and how does one's identity shift to accommodate it? Two poets, Erin Hanusa and Eleanor Stanford, address this transition - and transformation - along with the challenges of self-discovery that come with it. Shoshauna Shy will facilitate.
Category(s):
Poetry, Wisconsin Ties
Saturday, October 18 | 12:00 - 1:30 PM
Venue: Wisconsin Historical Museum-Capitol Square
Presenter(s):
Anselmo Villarreal,
Walter Sava,
Joseph Rodriguez
Through words and photographs, Dr. Joseph A. Rodriguez, Dr. Walter Sava, and Anselmo Villarreal document the story of Latinos in Milwaukee and Waukesha from a historical and cultural perspective. After the presentation, stay for a Q & A period and a book signing. Presented in partnership with Centro Hispano.
Bookseller: Wisconsin Historical Society
Category(s):
History, International, Wisconsin Ties
Saturday, October 18 | 12:00 - 1:30 PM
Venue: Wisconsin Veterans Museum
Presented by Wisconsin Veterans Museum
Presenter(s):
William Durbin
William Durbin is an author and teacher who lives at the edge of Minnesota's Boundary Waters Wilderness. A winner of the Great Lakes Book Award and a two-time winner of the Minnesota Book award, Durbin has published ten novels for young readers, including
The Broken Blade, Wintering, Song of Sampo Lake, Blackwater Ben, The Darkest Evening, and three books in Scholastic's "My Name Is America" series:
The Journal of Sean Sullivan, The Journal of Otto Peltonen, and
The Journal of C.J. Jackson. His most recent novel,
The Winter War, introduces readers to a little known part of history--Stalin's invasion of Finland in 1939.
Bookseller: Wisconsin Veterans Museum
Category(s):
History, Youth & Kids
Saturday, October 18 | 12:00 - 6:00 PM
Venue: Majestic Theatre
Zine Fest returns to Madison! Zine creators, distributors, booksellers, infoshops, librarians, and other organizations from across the country host tables to sell, trade and share self-published works. The event supports zine creation, free speech, and the presence of alternative materials in library collections. For more information, see madisonzinefest.org.
Category(s):
Art & Visual, Writing & Publishing
Saturday, October 18 | 12:00 - 1:30 PM
Venue: A Room of One's Own Feminist Bookstore
Alistair McCartney presented by University of Wisconsin Press
Presenter(s):
Alistair McCartney,
Allison Amend,
Daphne Beal
A novel, a short story collection, and ... an encyclopedia? McCartney has produced an alphabetical, surreal, and self-referential collection of disparate topics from razors to his mother to extinction to head lice:
The End of the World Book is destined to become a 21st-century must-read. Allison Amend’s short story collection
Things That Pass for Love is unlike any other debut -- partly because "Amend doesn’t write like she’s only one person," according to enthusiastic reviewer Thisbe Nissen. And Daphne Beal’s mind-altering take on "what I saw on my semester in Nepal" produces a complex, highly praised, "dazzling" novel,
In the Land of No Right Angles. Introduced (and preceded by a cameo) by local writer Benjamin Drevlow.
Bookseller: A Room of One's Own
Category(s):
Fiction, LGBTQ, Wisconsin Ties
Saturday, October 18 | 12:00 - 1:30 PM
Venue: Madison Public Library-Main Branch
Presented by University of Wisconsin Press
Presenter(s):
Drake Hokanson,
Carol Kratz
County fairs: giant pumpkins? pie judges? rodeo queens? 4-H kids? All these and more are found in the stunning photographs and stories of
Purebred and Homegrown: America's County Fairs. Authors Drake Hokanson and Carol Kratz capture the many ways that county fairs have helped to define Americans as free-thinking, self-reliant, community-focused people.
Bookseller: Barnes & Noble East
Category(s):
Food, History
Saturday, October 18 | 12:00 - 1:30 PM
Venue: Promenade Lounge/Overture
The 2008 Wisconsin Book Festival is pleased to announce an all-new series of open-forum Conversation Circles, designed to stimulate the open discussion of ideas, with mutual respect, that is essential to a civil society.
Change is all around us: in the seasons, on the land, in our access to natural resources, and in our neighborhoods. How do we change the places where we live? How do they change us? Here’s an opportunity to meet and talk to Book Festival authors (including Nancy Nichols and Richard Quinney) as well as other attendees about our personal and collective interactions with the natural world, and about other questions raised in the
Land and Home presentations. Participants are also invited to bring information about local activities and organizations working on land, water, and community issues.
Category(s):
Making it Home, Society & Politics
Saturday, October 18 | 1:30 - 3:00 PM
Venue: Harambee - South Madison Health & Family Center
Presented by the South Madison Branch of the Madison Public Library
This book group welcomes new members and drop-ins to participate in the discussion of Marilynne Robinson's novel
Gilead. The author will not be present, but interested attendees can arrange to meet again at 7pm for Robinson's reading, if so desired.
Category(s):
Fiction
Saturday, October 18 | 2:00 - 3:30 PM
Venue: MATC-Downtown Education Center
Presented by MATC
Presenter(s):
Trace DeMeyer, Mark Anthony Rolo
The forcible attempts to assimilate American Indian people into white culture continued well into the 20th century. American Indian authors Trace DeMeyer (Cherokee) and Mark Anthony Rolo (Ojibwe) examine the traumatic effects of two such assimilation programs: the adoption of Indian children into white homes, and relocation of Indian families to large urban areas, respectively. Based on research and personal experience, DeMeyer challenges the policy that negatively affected thousands of children who were "adopted out." Rolo’s family life in Milwaukee and his years in Los Angeles enabled him to see firsthand the traumatic results of Indian people trying to maintain their cultural and community ties in urban centers miles from their tribal homelands. Both authors are also noted journalists; DeMeyer is also a musician and Rolo, a filmmaker.
Bookseller: Barnes & Noble West
Category(s):
History, Native American, Wisconsin Ties
Saturday, October 18 | 2:00 - 3:30 PM
Venue: Orpheum Theatre: Stage Door
Presented by WORT
Presenter(s):
Mike Konopacki,
Paul Buhle,
Lynda Barry,
Seth Tobocman
Political and social commentary in graphic form has rapidly become a dynamic and exciting part of the book world. A generation of illustrators, often radical in outlook, has given us a diverse range of graphic novels and histories, which draw literally and figuratively from experiences past and present in order to agitate and broaden the critical horizons of a widening audience through new ways of seeing. Come meet some of the heavy-hitters in the world of graphic art.
Bookseller: Rainbow Bookstore Cooperative
Category(s):
Art & Visual, History, Society & Politics, Wisconsin Ties
Saturday, October 18 | 2:00 - 3:30 PM
Venue: Wisconsin Historical Society-Library Mall
Presenter(s):
Tom Piazza,
Jeffery Renard Allen
A passionate ode to the Big Easy's cracked bowl, Piazza’s
City of Refuge offers two alternating perspectives on Katrina and its aftermath. Two New Orleans families--one black and one white--confront a storm that will change the course of their lives as they make their own very different plans to weather the storm. The world of Jeffery Renard Allen’s stunning short-story collection
Holding Pattern is a place like no other. A recognizable city, certainly, but one in which a man might sprout wings or copper pennies might fall from the skies onto your head. Yet these are no fairy tales. The hostility, the hurt, is all too human.
Bookseller: Wisconsin Historical Society
Category(s):
Fiction, History
Saturday, October 18 | 2:00 - 3:30 PM
Venue: Promenade Hall/Overture
Presenter(s):
Sean Wilsey,
Daphne Beal
Inspired by the WPA American Guide series,
State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America brings together new work by fifty of our foremost writers, painting a fresh portrait of America in our time. The collection, edited by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey, is by turns humorous, insightful, and poignant, and includes reportage and memoir by authors from coast to coast. Featured is acclaimed novelist and former Wisconsinite Daphne Beal, who authored the piece on Wisconsin.
Bookseller: A Room of One's Own
Category(s):
History, Making it Home, Wisconsin Ties
Saturday, October 18 | 2:00 - 3:30 PM
Venue: Frederic March Play Circle Theater
Presenter(s):
Cecilia Farran
Cecilia Farran's one-woman performance piece about three characters telling their stories of addiction, inspired by her son's life and death from alcoholism.
Category(s):
Memoir & Biography, Wisconsin Ties
Saturday, October 18 | 2:00 - 3:30 PM
Venue: Wisconsin Veterans Museum
Presented by Wisconsin Veterans Museum in partnership with the UW-Madison Center for Russian, Eastern European, and Central Asian Studies (CREECA) and the Center for the World Affairs and the Global Economy (WAGE)
Presenter(s):
Michael Dobbs
For thirteen tension-filled days in October 1962, the world stood on the brink of nuclear war. Yet, as once-classified CIA and Russian documents and photographs become available, scholars have begun to uncover the real story behind the Cuban Missile Crisis and the standoff between the US, USSR, and Cuba. Author Michael Dobbs dispels many of the myths surrounding this event, uncovering new information about the Russian arsenal on Cuba, the "eyeball-to-eyeball" confrontation on the high seas, and a blundering U-2 pilot that flew into Russian airspace at the height of the crisis. This thrilling narrative will bring chills to those who lived through the Crisis and open the eyes of those who know it solely through the history books.
Bookseller: Wisconsin Veterans Museum
Category(s):
History, Society & Politics
Saturday, October 18 | 2:00 - 3:30 PM
Venue: Promenade Lounge/Overture
Presenter(s):
Andrew Keen
Bibliomorphia: changes in formats and other aspects of books and reading; by extension, the fear caused by such changes.
The development of Gutenberg’s press, in the 15th century, led to panicked pronouncements that easy availability of books would lead to laziness, debauchery, and the demise of scholarship. In ancient Greece, "Socrates bemoaned the development of writing,"* fearing that written words would be used as a substitute for true wisdom, acquired through stringent inquiry and carried in the head.
Currently, the world is experiencing another groundshift in the way we transport, store, and share information, and the media is full of expressions of the ensuing consequences.
This Conversation Circle will include several writers who’ve addressed this subject, whether stridently, indirectly, or both: Andrew Keen, and Lewis Buzbee, to name only a couple. Most importantly, participants will also include you: come and share your ideas, experiences, and expectations on the current state of bibliomorphia.
*thanks to Nicholas Carr for stating these ideas far more eloquently in his essay, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" in
The Atlantic, July/August 2008.
Category(s):
Society & Politics, Writing & Publishing
Saturday, October 18 | 2:00 - 3:30 PM
Venue: Madison Public Library-Main Branch
Presenter(s):
Richard Quinney
Inspired by Emerson and the eighteenth-century naturalist Gilbert White, Richard Quinney examines the beauties of the world and our place within it, finding ambiguity in the boundaries between the animate and inanimate, and exploring nature as life is both created and destroyed.
Bookseller: Barnes & Noble East
Category(s):
Making it Home, Wisconsin Ties
Saturday, October 18 | 2:00 - 3:30 PM
Venue: A Room of One's Own Feminist Bookstore
Presenter(s):
Catherine Gilbert Murdock
Catherine Gilbert Murdock burst on to the scene of young adult literature with her debut novel,
Dairy Queen, winner of Borders’ Original Voices Award, the 2007 Midwest Booksellers Choice Award, and the 2007 Great Lakes Booksellers Children’s Literature Award. Reviewers, booksellers, and readers from across the country embraced Murdock’s main character, D.J. Schwenk, rejoicing in her refreshing honesty, wit, and, most of all, determination to do something different.
Dairy Queen’s sequel,
The Off Season, soon followed and met with the same success, prompting e-mails from teens celebrating the return of D.J. and thanking Murdock for creating someone to whom they could relate.
Bookseller: A Room of One's Own
Category(s):
Wisconsin Ties, Youth & Kids
Saturday, October 18 | 2:00 - 3:30 PM
Venue: Wisconsin Historical Museum-Capitol Square
Presenter(s):
Jacki Martindale,
Andrea Musher,
Liam Callanan,
John Lehman
When a favorite poem is remembered by heart, a spark glows that may last a lifetime. Thus, the Wisconsin Arts Board presents Poetry Out Loud, a national recitation contest for high school students. Outstanding area students and POL contestants will perform poetry, and Andrea Musher, John Lehman, and Madison’s Poet Laureate Fabu will share and comment on the poetry still sparking in their hearts. High school language arts teachers, students, and their parents are encouraged to attend and find out how students and teachers can get involved in this contest, which is sponsored nationally by National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation, and awards over $75,000 in scholarships each year.
A second Poetry Foundation initiative,
Poetry Everywhere, is showcased today: 12 animated short films created by students working with docUWM, a documentary media center at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and the university’s creative writing program.
Bookseller: Wisconsin Historical Society
Category(s):
Poetry, Wisconsin Ties
Saturday, October 18 | 3:00 - 5:30 PM
Venue: Harambee - South Madison Health & Family Center
Presenter(s):
Marcela Landres,
Marlene Connor-Lynch,
Nichole Shields,
Ken Waldman,
Jessica Powers
Join Marcella Landres, a former editor at Simon & Schuster looking for the next great Latin writer, Marlene Connor-Lynch and Nichole Shields from Conner Literary Agency in Minnesota, and J.L. Powers and Ken Waldman from Catalyst Book Press in California. For writers trying to break into the publishing world! Pitching sessions precede the panel with small group discussions afterwards.
Category(s):
Writing & Publishing
Saturday, October 18 | 4:00 - 5:30 PM
Venue: Orpheum Theatre: Stage Door
Presenter(s):
Anne Elizabeth Moore
Activist and author Anne Elizabeth Moore takes a critical look at the savvy advertising agencies, corporate marketing teams, and branding experts who use DYI (do it yourself) techniques to reach a youth market, and at members of the underground who have helped forward corporate agendas through their own artistic, and occasionally, activist projects in this slide lecture presentation.
Unmarketable: Brandalism, Copyfighting, Mocketing, and the Erosion of Integrity is an anti-corporate manifesto with a difference.
Bookseller: Rainbow Bookstore Cooperative
Category(s):
History
Saturday, October 18 | 4:00 - 5:30 PM
Venue: Avol's Bookstore
Presented by Madison Area Technical College
Presenter(s):
Roberta Hill,
Moises Villavincencio Barras
Respected Oneida poet Roberta Hill has been asked to share her work at several international conferences, further strengthening the communication among Native people all over the world, especially in the Americas. Hill joins with a new poetic voice, Mixtec writer Moises Villavicencio, to explore the challenges of maintaining an indigenous identity in today’s world. In sharing their stories of identity, family ties, connection with nature, and the continuing disrespect for the indigenous worldview, both authors emphasize the experiences of contemporary Native writers across the current political distinctions of the United States and Mexico.
Category(s):
Native American, Poetry, Wisconsin Ties
Saturday, October 18 | 4:00 - 5:30 PM
Venue: Rainbow Bookstore Cooperative
William Thomas, Jr., is presented by University of Wisconsin Press
Presenter(s):
William H. Thomas, Jr.,
James J. Lorence
Two scholars, united by their work to chronicle activism, cut across decades and academic disciplines: William H. Thomas, Jr., reveals U.S. Government efforts to intimidate critics into silence and to squelch expressions of opposition to American’s entry into the First World War in his book
Unsafe for Democracy: WWI and the U.S. Justice Department’s Covert Campaign to Suppress Dissent. James J. Lorence presents
A Hard Journey: The Life of Don West,, his biography of one of the most important literary and political figures in the southern Appalachians during the mid-twentieth century: the militantly antifascist poet, labor organizer, leftist activist, and Socialist Party organizer Don West.
Bookseller: Rainbow Bookstore Cooperative
Category(s):
History, Society & Politics
Saturday, October 18 | 4:00 - 5:30 PM
Venue: Wisconsin Historical Society-Library Mall
Presenter(s):
Tom Perrotta,
Elizabeth Strout,
Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum
Perrotta’s
The Abstinence Teacher introduces Ruth Ramsey, the human sexuality teacher at the local high school, who believes in being honest with her students. She lands in hot water when an evangelical church, offended by her curriculum, forces the school board to include a section on abstinence. In
Olive Kitteridge, Strout binds together thirteen rich, luminous narratives featuring one larger-than-life, unforgettable character: Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, who deplores the changes in her little town and in the world at large, but she doesn’t always recognize the changes in those around her. Bynum’s
Ms. Hempel Chronicles is a collection of eight interconnected stories about Beatrice Hempel, a new middle school English teacher struggling to figure out what is expected of her in life and at work.
Bookseller: Wisconsin Historical Society
Category(s):
Fiction
Saturday, October 18 | 4:00 - 5:30 PM
Venue: Wisconsin Studio/Overture
Presenter(s):
Jennifer Finney Boylan
Acclaimed author of the national bestseller
She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders, Jennifer Finney Boylan’s newest book is
I’m Looking Through You, a memoir about the haunted house in which she grew up. In a rare visit to Madison, Boylan will discuss how love, forgiveness, and humor help us find peace—with our ghosts, with our loved ones, and with the uncanny boundaries, real and imagined, between men and women.
Bookseller: A Room of One's Own
Category(s):
LGBTQ, Memoir & Biography
Saturday, October 18 | 4:00 - 5:30 PM
Venue: A Room of One's Own Feminist Bookstore
Presenter(s):
Stephanie Kuehnert
Punk. Feminism. Combat boots. Girls with guitars. Family. Teeth. Attitude. Friendships ... It's all here. Stephanie Kuehnert's debut novel is a miraculously well-written tale of a girl, her mother, the circumstances that separate them, and the music that connects them. Kurt Cobain's biographer Charles Cross, one of many rave reviewers, says Kuehnert's "fresh voice makes this novel stand out in the genre, and she writes as authentically about coming of age as she does punk rock." Don't miss this raw new talent, with Wisconsin roots.
Bookseller: A Room of One's Own
Category(s):
Fiction, Youth & Kids
Saturday, October 18 | 4:00 - 5:30 PM
Venue: Promenade Hall/Overture
Presenter(s):
Susan Gilchrist,
John Loud,
Karen Zethmayr,
Jim Leary
The Madison Storytellers’ Guild presents stories that relate to human interactions with the natural world, whether in folktales, history, or personal experience, including tales that witness human impact on our surroundings and the changes brought in ourselves. Taken together, the stories help us appreciate the power we have to make a difference, if only to one starfish in the sea.
Category(s):
Native American, Spoken Word, Wisconsin Ties
Saturday, October 18 | 6:00 - 9:00 PM
Venue: Genna's
Presenter(s):
Dasha Kelly,
David Hart
Dasha Kelly of Stillwaters Productions in Milwaukee and David Hart of Madison’s Urban Spoken Word present their latest work and welcome a showcase of new voices in spoken word poetry from Milwaukee. This exciting event begins with a Q & A session and ends with Open Mic!
Category(s):
Poetry, Spoken Word, Wisconsin Ties
Saturday, October 18 | 7:00 - 8:30 PM
Venue: Wisconsin Studio/Overture
Presented in cooperation with the Chazen Museum of Art
Presenter(s):
Maude Barlow
Is access to water a human right? Or is water a commercial product to be bought and sold? Maude Barlow argues for an international water covenant that would protect water as a human right in
Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water, the sequel to her bestseller,
Blue Gold.
Bookseller: Borders West
Category(s):
International, Making it Home
Saturday, October 18 | 7:00 - 8:30 PM
Venue: Promenade Hall/Overture
Presenter(s):
David Maraniss
Award-winning author David Maraniss tells the blockbuster story of the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, 17 days that helped define the modern world. The same games that announced the greatness of icons like Cassius Clay, Wilma Rudolph, and Rafer Johnson, also exposed a growing unrest between East and West, black and white, and male and female. It was a time of Cold War propaganda, drugs and sex, money and television, civil rights and the rise of women superstars -- all converging in Rome.
Bookseller: Borders West
Category(s):
History, Society & Politics, Wisconsin Ties
Saturday, October 18 | 7:00 - 8:30 PM
Venue: Wisconsin Historical Society-Library Mall
Presented by the UW-Madison Creative Writing Program
Presenter(s):
Marilynne Robinson,
Ron Wallace
Marilynne Robinson and Wisconsin's own Ron Wallace share the stage.
New York Times book reviewer James Wood writes that Robinson's words "have a spiritual force that’s very rare in contemporary fiction." Her latest novel is entitled
Home, which is a companion piece to her Pulitzer Prize winning second novel,
Gilead. She also wrote the highly acclaimed novel
Housekeeping, which won the Hemingway Foundation/PEN award for best first novel in 1980.
The late poet and writing teacher Richard Hugo wrote that Ron Wallace's poems "ring with validity." Like Hugo, Wallace is an accomplished poet and remarkable teacher. He is also the founder and co-director of the creative writing program at UW-Madison, where he edits the Brittingham and Pollak poetry series. His poetic work is extensive and includes the collections
For A Limited Time Only and
Long for this World.
Bookseller: Wisconsin Historical Society
Category(s):
Fiction, Poetry, Wisconsin Ties
Saturday, October 18 | 9:00 - 10:30 PM
Venue: Promenade Hall/Overture
Presented by OMAI
Presenter(s):
Patricia Smith
Featuring four-time national slam champion Patricia Smith, Midwest Youth All-Star performance, First Wave mini-performance, Kevin Coval reading, Dennis Kim performance, and poetry by Josh Healey.
Bookseller: Borders West
Category(s):
Poetry, Spoken Word
