Cornelius Eady ~ November 6

We're pleased to have Cornelius Eady visit next week as our Creative Writing Writer-in-Residence for Fall 2008. Please join us for his reading:

Thursday, Nov. 6, 7:00pm in 6191 Helen C. White

Eady's newest collection, Hardheaded Weather: New and Selected Poems is now available. He is also author of Brutal Imagination, a finalist for the National Book Award (2001); the autobiography of a jukebox (1997); You Don't Miss Your Water (1995); The Gathering of My Name (1991), which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize; BOOM BOOM BOOM (1988); Victims of the Latest Dance Craze (1985), which was chosen by Louise Gluck, Charles Simic, and Philip Booth for the 1985 Lamont Poetry Selection of The Academy of American Poets; and Kartunes (1980).

He is currently the director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Notre Dame and is a cofounder (with the poet Toi Derricotte) and vice president of Cave Canem, which offers workshops, retreats, and other resources to African-American poets.

"Cornelius Eady leads and then cuts a line like no one else: following the laughter and the compassionate pith of a dauntless imagination, these poems beeline or zig-zag always to the jugular, the dramatic and unarguable revelation of the heart." --June Jordan


Handymen

The furnace wheezes like a drenched lung.
You can't fix it.
The toilet babbles like a speed freak.
You can't fix it.
The fuse box is a nest of rattlers.
You can't fix it.
The screens yawn the bees through.
Your fingers are dumb against the hammer.
Your eyes can't tell plumb from plums.
The frost heaves against the doorjambs,
The ice turns the power lines to brittle candy.
No one told you about how things pop and fizzle,
No one schooled you in spare parts.
That's what the guy says but doesn't say
As he tosses his lingo at your apartment-dweller ears,
A bit bemused, a touch impatient,
After the spring melt has wrecked something, stopped something,
After the hard wind has lifted something away,
After the mystery has plugged the pipes,
That rattle coughs up something sinister.
An easy fix, but not for you.
It's different when you own it,
When it's yours, he says as the meter runs,
Then smiles like an adult.

from Hardheaded Weather: New and Selected Poems, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2008 and reprinted in Best American Poetry 2008, edited by Charles Wright.

Blue Ox Reading Series (vol. 1)

Above: This beautiful poster for the first of the 2008 Blue Ox MFA Reading Series was designed by Michael Fusco and Emma Straub of Michael Fusco Design. Mike's other work can be seen here.

The Blue Ox Reading Series features work by MFA candidates working in UW-Madison's MFA program. For the first installment of this year's Blue Ox Readings, Lisa Kundrat & Hali Sofala will read their poetry at Avol's Books TONIGHT (Oct. 23rd) at 7 p.m. Please join us!

Book Festival: finale

I know you're sad that the Book Festival is wrapping up today, but check out what you have to look forward to this afternoon--National Book Award finalists Reginald Gibbons (poetry) and Aleksandar Hemon (fiction), Oprah's new favorite author, David Wroblewski, plus local favorite Michael Perry. Enjoy!

CJ Hribal, David Wroblewski & Michael Perry: How Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm?
Sunday, October 19 | 2:00 - 3:30 PM Venue: Orpheum Theatre: Main
The changing nature of Wisconsin’s rural areas informs many works in this year’s Festival, not least being the award-winning fiction of Milwaukee’s C.J. Hribal, the autobiographical humor/memoir writing of Michael Perry (a native of New Auburn), and Oprah’s latest author, David Wroblewski, who grew up in rural central Wisconsin, not far from the Chequamegon National Forest. This is a homegrown trio with an edge: don’t miss it.

Reginald Gibbons & Todd Boss: Poets from these North Heartlands
Sunday, October 19 | 4:00 - 5:30 PM Wisconsin Studio/Overture

"In the last few years Gibbons has written some of the best poems in America,—big, rich, meticulous, thoughtful canvases, social landscapes with personal and metaphysical shadows. ‘Our hunger feeds on witness' he says, and anyone who reads ‘I had been reading Ancient Greeks' or ‘At a Twenty Four Hour Gas Station' will feel that our world has been exposed and understood in ways free of cliché. Creatures of a Day addresses ‘this incomprehensible country' at our incomprehensible moment and these brilliant and humble poems are as alive with consciousness, as satisfying as anything I know."—Tony Hoagland



"Todd Boss is going to be a poetry all-star. . .He can make any rhyme feel like a concealed weapon." -Sherman Alexie

Increasingly, Boss has been attracting attention, with poems in the Paris Review and The New Yorker and a series in Poetry. His first collection, set in the Midwest, alternately features a childhood Wisconsin farm, the record-breaking storm that destroyed it, and the turbulent marriage that recalls it. Love and wonder mingle in these lines.

Aleksandar Hemon: The Lazarus Project
Sunday, October 19 | 4:00 - 5:30 PM Promenade Hall/Overture As in his earlier works, Aleksandar Hemon continues to mine, in rapturously praised prose, his experiences as a Bosnian-American immigrant. But in The Lazarus Project, his most ambitious, accomplished, and engaging book yet, Hemon has broadened his canvas to encompass the personal and the political, the contemporary and the historical, America and Eastern Europe, in a single unified story.

For complete listings of today's events, check out the Book Festival homepage.

Book Festival: Saturday evening highlights

Marilynne Robinson & Ron Wallace: For a Limited Time Only and Home

Saturday, October 18 | 7:00 - 8:30 PM
Venue: Wisconsin Historical Society/Library Mall
Presented by the UW-Madison Creative Writing Program

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, Home, is a companion piece to her Pulitzer Prize winning second novel, Gilead. Home has just been named a National Book Award finalist. 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: New & Selected Poems.

Book Festival: Saturday afternoon highlights

Changing Art & the Art of Change: Lynda Barry, Paul Buhle, Mike Konopacki, & Seth Tobocman
Saturday, October 18 | 2:00 - 3:30 PM
Venue: Orpheum Theatre: Stage Door
Presented by WORT

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.


Madison Zine Fest 2008: Underground Publishing Fair
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.

Book Festival: Day 3

Are you having fun yet? There's a big weekend ahead of us, featuring talks and readings by no less than four current National Book Award finalists, as well as Oprah's new book darling. Take a deep breath then plunge right in beginning this evening. DON'T MISS:

Ann Beattie reads tonight @ 7:00pm at the Wisconsin Historical Society.

"Beattie has a facility . . . that is breathtaking, a fluidity that delights. . . . [She is] one of the most influential short-fiction writers of her generation." --Newsday

Blue Ox Reading Series (vol. 1)

Above: This beautiful poster for the first of the 2008 Blue Ox MFA Reading Series was designed by Michael Fusco and Emma Straub of Michael Fusco Design. Mike's other work can be seen here.

The Blue Ox Reading Series features work by MFA candidates working in UW-Madison's MFA program. For the first installment of this year's Blue Ox Readings, Lisa Kundrat & Hali Sofala will read their poetry at Avol's Books next Thursday, Oct. 23rd at 7 p.m.

Book Festival: Day 2

Here's what's going on today at the Wisconsin Book Festival:

Thursday, October 16

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Friends of UW-Madison Library Book Sale: Regular Sale (no entry fee)
Thursday, October 16 | 10:30 AM - 7:00 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

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Writing Science for the Public: Daniel Levitin
Thursday, October 16 | 4:00 - 5:00 PM
Venue: Helen C. White Hall
Presented by the Center for the Humanities at UW-Madison

Presenter(s): Daniel Levitin

Daniel Levitin enjoyed a successful career as a rock musician and studio producer before turning to cognitive neuroscience, earning a Ph.D. and becoming a top researcher into how our brains interpret music. Please join Daniel Levitin in a conversation about "Writing Science for the Public" on October 16, 4:00 pm.
6191 Helen C. White Hall

Category(s): Writing & Publishing

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Henry Drewal and Baba Wague Diakite: Meet Mami Wata
Thursday, October 16 | 5:00 - 6:30 PM
Venue: Madison Public Library-Main Branch
Made possible by the Chazen Museum of Art

Presenter(s): Henry Drewal, Baba Wague Diakite

Commonly known as a water spirit, Mami Wata is a west African mythical figure steeped in much mystery and charm. For centuries, traditional and now contemporary art has been created to celebrate Mami Wata, thus demonstrating the pervasiveness of the water deities, the centuries-long centrality of water and these spirits to the lives of people across many cultures, and the imagery’s relevance and adaptability in an ever-changing world. Drewal is the Evjue-Bascom Professor of African and African Diaspora Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Contemporary artist Baba Wague Diakite is one who brings Mami Wata to life in the twenty-first century: come and meet him!

Bookseller: Barnes & Noble West
Category(s): Art & Visual, International, Religion

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Young and Muslim: How Does It Feel to be a Problem?
Thursday, October 16 | 5:00 - 6:30 PM
Venue: Wisconsin Studio/Overture

Presenter(s): Moustafa Bayoumi, Amitava Kumar

Through the stories of seven young Arab and Muslim Americans in Brooklyn, New York, Bayoumi sheds light on the misunderstandings that frame or even define their lives in How Does it Feel to be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America. Among those he meets are an Arab Christian who served as a Marine in Iraq and a woman detained by the FBI and released with no explanation. In his latest work, A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb, Indian-born writer and journalist Kumar reports on the global war on terror.

Bookseller: Rainbow Bookstore Cooperative
Category(s): International, Memoir & Biography, Religion, Society & Politics

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Voices from the Heart of the Land and Sand Country Memories: Susan Gilchrist and Richard Cates, Jr.
Thursday, October 16 | 5:00 - 6:30 PM
Venue: Promenade Hall/Overture
Richard Cates, Jr. is presented by University of Wisconsin Press

Presenter(s): Susan Gilchrist, Richard L. Cates, Jr.

Richard L. Cates’ collection of the reminiscences, observations and opinions of older community members from Arena township in southern Wisconsin celebrates a vision of stewardship and a way of life that is disappearing. Speaking from the landscape of Wisconsin’s northwest pine barrens, Susan Gilchrist’s oral histories from residents of the region are imbued with the sense of this particular landscape and reveal the richness of our connections to the land.

Bookseller: University Book Store
Category(s): Land & Home, Wisconsin Ties

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Best New Writing from Wisconsin People & Ideas: Poetry and Fiction Contest Winners
Thursday, October 16 | 5:15 - 7:00 PM
Venue: Avol's Bookstore
Presented by the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters


The winning fiction entries from the 2008 Wisconsin People & Ideas magazine/Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops Writing Contest, read by the authors. Second-place poetry winner Gillian Nevers will join fiction winners Rae Meadows, Stephanie Resnik and Thomas Biel.

Category(s): Fiction, Poetry, Wisconsin Ties

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Wisconsin Food Originals: Stirring Up the Past with Family Recipes and Stories
Thursday, October 16 | 6:00 - 7:30 PM
Venue: Sun Prairie Public Library

Presenter(s): Mary Bergin, Barry Levenson

Two of Wisconsin’s best-known food lovers talk about and let you sample some of the state’s most unusual and tastiest foods. Bergin’s Hungry for Wisconsin: A Tasty Guide for Travelers will be a Wisconsin road trip necessity. With the children’s book Mustard on a Pickle, Mt. Horeb Mustard Museum owner Barry Levenson introduces kids to new foods.

Category(s): Culinary, Wisconsin Ties

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Feathers, Furs, and Tepees: Family Storytelling with Debra Morningstar
Thursday, October 16 | 6:15 - 7:15 PM
Venue: Monona Public Library
Sponsored by the Friends of Monona Public Library

Presenter(s): Debra Morningstar

Join Debra Morningstar, Oneida Storyteller, as she shares Native American stories of How Chipmunk Got His Stripes, How Turtle Cracked His Shell, and more! Debra’s lively presentation includes an Indian Story Basket, Hand-drums, Rattles and her Traveling Museum, with which she invites children to accompany her on a magical and educational journey.

Category(s): Native American, Spoken Word, Wisconsin Ties, Youth & Kids

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The Debutante Ball: Gail Konop Baker, Jess Riley, & Danielle Younge-Ullman
Thursday, October 16 | 7:00 - 8:30 PM
Venue: A Room of One's Own Feminist Bookstore

Presenter(s): Gail Konop Baker, Jess Riley, Danielle Younge-Ullman

Join three new female authors for an evening of girl talk, life lessons, and literary connections. All are involved with the daily online journal, www.thedebutanteball.com, a group blog for select debut authors who help cross promote and support one another.
Gail Konop Baker’s memoir, Cancer is a Bitch: Reflections on Midlife, Mortality, Motherhood and Marriage, is an intimate, raw, brutally honest and often humorous account of the author’s brush with breast cancer and its intersection with her personal and family life.
Jess Riley’s debut novel, Driving Sideways, tells the story of a kidney transplant recipient who finally feels well enough to take a cross-country road trip to wrap up a few loose ends in her life. She was a finalist for the 2005 James Jones First Novel Fellowship.
Danielle Younge-Ullman’s debut novel, Falling Under, is a novel about a young woman struggling to break free of a turbulent past and find love.

There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women. --Madeleine Albright

Bookseller: A Room of One's Own
Category(s): Fiction, Memoir & Biography, Wisconsin Ties

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Mexican Enough: Stephanie Griest
Thursday, October 16 | 7:00 - 8:30 PM
Venue: Wisconsin Studio/Overture

Presenter(s): Stephanie Griest

In a work that is part memoir, part journalistic reportage, Griest explores the Mexican half of her biracial identity while traveling from a narco-infested border town to the Chiapas highlands in Mexican Enough: My Life Between the Borderlines. Along the way she visits with political activists, migrant workers, and resistance fighters, traveling with companions who include a Border Patrol agent and a Polish thief.

Bookseller: Rainbow Bookstore Cooperative
Category(s): International, Memoir & Biography

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Sara Pennypacker & Jacquelyn Mitchard: On Writing for Young People
Thursday, October 16 | 7:00 - 8:30 PM
Venue: Madison Public Library-Main Branch
Made possible by a generous grant from the American Girl Fund for Children

Presenter(s): Jacquelyn Mitchard, Sara Pennypacker

What kind of stories do children fall in love with? How can kids stay hooked on reading through middle and young adult years? Explore these questions with Sara Pennypacker, creator of the beloved "Clementine" books, and Madison's own Jacquelyn Mitchard, whose recent young adult novels have expanded her vast readership into a new demographic. "Being a reader," says Mitchard, "gives you a portable universe, a way that you'll never be a prisoner." Jump in!

Bookseller: Barnes & Noble West
Category(s): Wisconsin Ties, Youth & Kids

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Passing the Mic: First Wave Anthology & Josh Healey’s Hammertime
Thursday, October 16 | 7:00 - 9:00 PM
Venue: Wisconsin Historical Society-Library Mall
Presented by OMAI

Presenter(s): Josh Healey

Please join the OMAI/First Wave community as we celebrate the release of two critically important books by members of our growing family. Someone Might Hear You: An Anthology of First Wave Poets is the first-ever anthology of Wisconsin youth poetry featuring 31 writers from the ground-breaking First Wave program. Hammertime: Poems and Possibilities is the first full poetry collection from Josh Healey, visionary artist and Program Director of the Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives and First Wave at UW-Madison. Welcome by Patricia Smith and Kevin Coval, hosted by Eric Mata and Josh Healey.

Bookseller: Wisconsin Historical Society
Category(s): Poetry, Spoken Word, Wisconsin Ties

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A Half-Century of Change in Rural Wisconsin: Jim Pope, Jerry Apps, & Justin Isherwood
Thursday, October 16 | 7:00 - 8:30 PM
Venue: Promenade Hall/Overture

Presenter(s): Jerry Apps, Jim Pope, Justin Isherwood

Jerry Apps, Justin Isherwood, and Jim Pope are three of the Wisconsin authors who have done the most to celebrate and preserve stories of Wisconsin's rural life and heritage. In this event they come together to discuss the significant change that has taken place in the state's culture and agriculture over the past fifty years.

Bookseller: University Book Store
Category(s): Land & Home, Wisconsin Ties

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Religion and Print Culture: Paul S. Boyer & Charles Cohen
Thursday, October 16 | 7:00 - 8:30 PM
Venue: Pres House
Presented by University of Wisconsin Press

Presenter(s): Paul Boyer, Charles Cohen

Mingling God and Mammon, piety and polemics, and prescriptions for this world and the next, modern Americans have created a culture of print that is vibrantly religious. Print media -- religious tracts, newsletters, cartoons, pamphlets, self-help books, mass-market paperbacks, and editions of the Bible from the King James Version to contemporary "Bible-zines" -- have shaped and been shaped by experiences of faith since the Civil War.

Category(s): History, Religion, Wisconsin Ties

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Daniel Levitin: The World in Six Songs
Thursday, October 16 | 7:00 - 8:30 PM
Venue: Borders Books & Music (West Side)
Presented by the Center for the Humanities at UW-Madison

Presenter(s): Daniel Levitin

In The World in Six Songs, Daniel Levitin picks up where his New York Times bestselling book This Is Your Brain On Music left off. Blending cutting-edge scientific findings with his own sometimes hilarious experiences as a musician and music-industry professional, Levitin takes readers on a journey across human civilization to argue that the brain evolved to play and listen to music in six fundamental forms -- for friendship, joy, comfort, knowledge, religion, and love.

Bookseller: Borders West
Category(s): Music

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On Poets Laureate: Plans, Programs, and Poems
Thursday, October 16 | 7:00 - 8:30 PM
Venue: College Library Open Book Cafe (Helen C. White Hall)

Presenter(s): Andrea Musher, John Lehman, BJ Best, Fabu , Susan Firer

Two current Poets Laureate, Susan Firer and Fabu Carter Brisco, along with two finalists for the state Poet Laureate position, John Lehman and B.J. Best, present their current programs, plans and ideas for bringing poetry to the Wisconsin public, and all will read their work. Andrea Musher, former Madison Poet Laureate, will facilitate.

Category(s): Poetry, Wisconsin Ties

Wisconsin Book Festival: Day 1

Okay, ready? The Wisconsin Book Festival begins tomorrow, and it begins with a bang. Instead of yet another Obama-McCain debate, get out and enjoy the first night of the Book Festival. The only undecided voters around here should be those people scratching their heads wondering which of these fine events to attend Wednesday:

Wisconsin Center for the Book: Celebration of Poetry with Lisa Fishman Wednesday, October 15 | 7:00 - 8:30 PM
Memorial Union/Frederic March Play Circle Theater
Fishman is a talented poet and manager of summer residencies at Poetry/Farm, an organic farm and writers' retreat in southern Wisconsin.

Stuff White People Like
Wednesday, October 15 | 7:00 - 8:30 PM
Borders West
Hilarious. Honestly.

2008 Charlotte Zolotow Lecture: Featuring Judy Blume
Wednesday, October 15 | 7:30 - 9:00 PM
Memorial Union Theater
Tickets required: Free tickets to the lecture may be picked up at Wisconsin Union Theater box office in the UW-Madison Memorial Union, 800 Langdon Street, after September 8. Limit: 2 tickets per person. Blume is the author of Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret; Blubber; Just as Long as We're Together; and the five book series about the irrepressible Fudge.


Aldo Leopold Foundation Presents: Andrew Revkin and David Orr on Earth Lessons
Wednesday, October 15 | 7:30 - 9:00 PM
Promenade Hall/Overture Center
One New York Times science writer and one world-renowned environmental scholar.

Wisconsin Book Festival 2008: "Changing Places"

In keeping with the theme of "Changing Places," let's pretend this scene
depicts the crowd that flooded State Street last year to hear Ron Wallace read instead of, say, some political rally with Bruce Springsteen.

Now that it's October, we're beginning to count the days until the seventh annual Wisconsin Book Festival in Madison (Oct. 15-19). This year's Festival includes Ann Beattie, Marilynne Robinson, Ron Wallace, Yi-Fu Tuan, C.J. Hribal, Reginald Gibbons, C. Mikal Oness, and Todd Boss among others. Before you're overwhelmed by all the great options, we thought we'd let you know about three big readings you won't want to miss.

Friday, Oct. 17, Wisconsin Historical Society, 7:00pm
ANN BEATTIE

"Beattie has a facility . . . that is breathtaking, a fluidity that delights. . . . [She is] one of the most influential short-fiction writers of her generation." --Newsday


Saturday, Oct. 18, Wisconsin Historical Society, 7:00pm
MARILYNNE ROBINSON & RON WALLACE

"Robinson's prose is beautiful, shimmering and precise; the revelations are subtle but never muted when they come, and the careful telling carries the breath of suspense." -Publisher's Weekly

"Wallace takes his place with Mary Oliver and William Stafford as one of our preeminent poets with the ability to speak, like Whitman, of 'nature without check with original energy.'" -David Citino, Prairie Schooner


Sunday, Oct. 19, Wisconsin Studio/Overture, 4:00pm
REGINALD GIBBONS, TODD BOSS, & C. MIKAL ONESS

"Gibbons is an empathic and arresting storyteller [who] creates drama with just an eyeful of perfectly balanced lines." -Booklist

"Todd Boss is going to be a poetry all-star. . .He can make any rhyme feel like a concealed weapon." -Sherman Alexie

"Elegy, exorcism, expiation, charms against dread: poetry's old work is disarmingly vital in C. Mikal Oness's poems" -Mark Doty


October is a huge month for literary happenings in Madison, so check back with us often. For more information and a complete schedule, check out the Wisconsin Book Festival homepage