Wednesday, August 02, 2006

2006 Wisconsin Book Festival

The fifth annual Wisconsin Book Festival will be held in downtown Madison, from October 18-22, 2006. Designed to delight booklovers of all walks, tastes, and ages, the Festival features readings, lectures, book discussions, writing workshops, live interviews, children's events, and more.

The Festival is not a sales fair or "book expo;" rather, it is a series of dynamic interactive programs that celebrate the written word, writers, reading, and books. Drawing total annual attendance around 10,000, Festival events are designed to reach diverse audiences of all ages.

Joining the festival this year will be noted authors Ted Kooser, Michael Chabon, Marjane Satrapi, Robert Sapolsky, Marilyn Nelson, Lois Lowry, Ann Bausum, Kevin Henkes, Amy Timberlake, Kashmira Sheth and many others.

Headliners include:

Jane Hamilton lives, works, and writes in an orchard farmhouse in Rochester, Wisconsin. Her first novel, The Book of Ruth, won the PEN/Ernest Hemingway Award for best first novel and was a selection of the Oprah Book Club. Her second novel, A Map of the World, was also a selection of the Oprah Book Club and an international bestseller. Her most recent novel, The Short History of a Prince, was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 1998.

Michael Chabon won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2001 for his novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. His two prior novels, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and Wonder Boys were also bestsellers, and the latter was made into a critically-acclaimed film featuring actors Michael Douglas and Tobey Maguire. Chabon's newest novel, entitled The Yiddish Policeman's Union (due in April 2006), is a thriller set in an imaginary world inspired by Franklin D. Roosevelt's short-lived plan during WWII to create a Jewish homeland in Alaska, rather than the Middle East.

"Chris Ware is the Emily Dickinson of comics," says the distinguished poet J. D. McClatchy, one of the artist's many fans. As one of today's most renowned cartoonists, Ware is widely considered an artist of genius. Combining innovative comic book art, hand lettering, and graphic design, Ware's uniquely appealing work is characterized by ceaseless experimentation with narrative and graphic forms. The publication of his graphic novel Jimmy Corrigan: the Smartest Kid on Earth in 2000 inspired a near avalanche of praise from critics and readers alike. Ware's unique art form extends beyond the world of graphic novels into the broader worlds of literature, graphic art, and popular culture, and challenges traditional definitions of all three. Ware is the first cartoonist to be serialized in The New York Times Magazine's "Funny Pages," which debuted in 2005.

For a complete schedule of events, click here.

No comments: