Wisconsin Book Festival

The Wisconsin Book Festival has announced its Featured Presenters for the Sept. 29-Oct. 3, 2010 event held in Madison:

Michele Norris, beloved host of NPR's All Things Considered, joins us to share her memoir, The Grace of Silence, a personal take on race in America.

Gary Shteyngart was recently featured by The New Yorker magazine as one of 20 outstanding authors under age 40. His new novel is Super Sad True Love Story.

Kao Kalia Yang is the author of The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir, a passionate account of her family's harrowing escape from Laos and eventual immigration to the United States when she was a child.

Bill Malone is known to folks in Madison from his popular show on WORT, but they may not know he is a groundbreaking country music historian, having written the seminal work Country Music, U.S.A.

Marilyn Taylor, Wisconsin's Poet Laureate, has brought together a panel of poets for a Festival event entitled "The Gods Will See You Now: Five Wisconsin Poets on Matters of the Spirit."

For more information, visit http://wisconsinbookfestival.org/

Library Humor

Check out this MUST SEE spoof on the current Old Spice commercials. Warning: There's one fleeting expletive used.

Author Spotlight Schedule - Updated

"Author Spotlight” allows writers to bring in pieces of work that are eight or more pages, or a compilation of pieces that are best read/reviewed together. The last half hour of each Saturday meeting is devoted to discussing the works of the featured author; advance registration is required and authors must bring copies of their work prior to their Spotlight.

Upcoming Author Spotlights:


Aug. 21 - Pat K.

Sept. 4 - Dixie J.

Sept. 18 - Tom

Oct. 2 - Dixie

Oct. 16 - Shawna

Sheboygan Children's Book Festival

A new event for children, parents and anyone who loves children's literature is coming to Sheboygan this fall. The first Sheboygan Children's Book Festival, Oct. 15-17, will bring exceptional children's book authors and illustrators to the community for a celebration of books, reading, writing and art.

The author lineup is INCREDIBLE!!! Avi, Lois Ehlert, and Kathi Appelt among others. You can also visit their Festival website directly: http://sheboyganchildrensbookfestival.org/

Attention Sherlock Holmes Fans!

Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of the Oshkosh Jewel Heist, July 30 1 to 5 p.m., downtown Oshkosh.

There is a mystery stirring in downtown Oshkosh, and it is up to you to solve it. The Downtown Oshkosh Business Improvement District (BID) along the Oshkosh Public Museum would like to invite the public to join us in a hunt to solve The Mystery of the Oshkosh Jewel Heist.

Read installments of the locally written “Sherlock Holmes & the Mystery of the Oshkosh Jewel Heist,” at the Oshkosh Public Library website. Additional chapters will be posted each week, leading up to a big event on July 30.

The mystery event will be held Friday July 30th in downtown Oshkosh. This free family event begins at 1 p.m. and ends at 5 p.m. Dress in costume as you visit downtown businesses to collect a series of clues. These clues will test the observation, logical reasoning and forensic science skills of the detectives. They will also help to aid the detectives on their quest to solve The Mystery of the Oshkosh Jewel Heist.

The case will end with the final clue to be solved at the Oshkosh Public Library. The reward for solving the mystery is valued at over $350.

The Mystery of the Oshkosh Jewel Heist is sponsored in partnership with the Oshkosh Public Museum’s Sherlock Holmes and the Clocktower Mystery exhibit. The exhibit, on display at the museum through August 22, 2010, challenges visitors to solve the crime of a puzzling murder. The hugely successful Sherlock Holmes and the Clocktower Mystery has toured throughout the United States and has attracted more than 2,000,000 visitors.

Guest Author Ron LaPoint

Local author Ron LaPoint will share tales from his newest book "Oshkosh: the Way We Were: Remembering People and Places." This collection of stories was compiled and written by community members on their remembrances of Oshkosh primarily in the 1940s and 1950s on topics such as Main Street, Polio, World War II, A war and an assassination, Sports, and Aviation, motorcycles and trains.

Event will be held at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 27, located in the Oshkosh Public Library's lower level meeting room.

Priority Access to the best seats for WICKED

WICKED: September 22-October 10 at the Overture Center for the Arts, Madison.

We're thrilled to let our Wisconsin Book Festival mailing list subscribers in on this opportunity from our friends at the Overture Center for the Arts: Pre-sale tickets to Wicked, the popular, award-winning show based on the work of 2009 Wisconsin Book Festival Featured Presenter Gregory Maguire.

Wicked is coming to Madison, and this is your chance to get the best seats before tickets go on sale to the general public on Saturday, July 17!

Promotion runs July 13-16. CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS and enter password MONKEY to buy before Saturday, July 17!

Safire's Writing Tps

Do not put statements in the negative form.
And don't start sentences with a conjunction.
If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a
great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all.
De-accession euphemisms.
If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.

~William Safire, "Great Rules of Writing"

Speakers' Bureau Forming

The Wisconsin Regional Writers Association is forming a pool of writers, agents, publishers, etc. for clubs seeking a guest speaker. Speakers can read their own work or talk about a topic related to writing and the publishing industry. If you would like to be included on this list, please go the WRWA website and click the Contact Us link in the menu on the left, and select Speakers' Bureau from the list to e-mail the coordinator.

Women's Writing Retreat

Redbird Studio, Milwaukee, is sponsoring a Women's Writing Retreat with Judy Bridges & Laurel Landis , October 3 - October 9 , 2010, at The Clearing in Door County, WI. Contact The Clearing for information and Registration.

Author Visit - Frank Anderson

Meet Wisconsin author Frank Anderson, author of Wicked Fox Cities: The Dark Side of the Valley. Books for sale and signing. Free admission; 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 13, in the Lower Level Meeting Room of the Appleton Public Library.

Anderson was born on Basilan Island and raised in Zamboanga City and Manila, the Philippines. At the age of 11 he moved to Deerfield (town), Wisconsin with his family. By the age of 17 he was a musician playing pedal steel guitar in bars and beer halls around Wisconsin. In 1978 Anderson moved to San Francisco and worked as a session musician. He has worked as a commercial Director/Animator since 1986 and is also the author of the history blog "Wisconsinology". ~ Wikipedia excerpt

From Barnes & Noble: Visit the wicked Fox Cities, full of place names like Le Grande Buttes Des Morts ("the Big Hill of the Dead") and Winneconne ("the Place of Skulls") that date from an era when "settlement" was frequently synonymous with "slaughter." Even after the firm establishment of modern civilization, there remained an uneasy truce between lined pockets and bared knuckles that was often only brokered by heavy drinking. Stumble across the frozen Fox River and barge into local watering holes where the only pauses in the revelry are discussions about desecrating Joe McCarthy's grave. Points of interest include the Oshkosh rat-betting scene, the Appleton "Union Street Resorts" and the Neenah tavern, where a world-champion boxer hid from the doctor who had bought his bones.

For more information on this program, please phone Elizabeth at 920-832-6392 (or) 920-832-6173.

Creative Journey @ APL

Appleton Public Library is currently holding Creative Journey, a program dedicated to exploring and nurturing creativity. The programs are held Tuesday mornings at 10 a.m.; new members welcome. Upcoming programs include:

July 20th: Writing on the spot: families. Bring in an old photo (one in which you are not easily recognizable) and members will write the story behind the photo.

July 27th: Show & Tell: bring a creative endeavor or personal treasure to share with the group.

August 3rd: Mandalas: Enjoy this ancient art form as you create your own mandalas.

August 10th: Art film & discussion.

August 24th: Wisdom Books: handcraft a book filled with wisdom and inspiration. Ongoing project, but members need not have attended a prior wisdom books session to attend.

For more information, contact the Appleton Public Library at (920) 832-6173.