Linda Falkenstein
A pile of books all of which will be featured at the Fall Celebration of the Wisconsin Book Festival.
Books featured at this year's Wisconsin Book Festival Fall Celebration decorated the tables at the festival's "reveal" event at the Central Library on Sept. 11.
This year’s Wisconsin Book Festival’s Fall Celebration will concentrate about a year’s worth of literary events in four days. But that’s why they call it a celebration.
More than 50 authors will be in Madison Oct. 23-26 at Madison’s Central Library and a handful of other downtown and campus venues: UW-Madison’s Discovery Building, the Wisconsin Historical Society Auditorium, and the Arts + Literature Lab.
Jane Rotonda, now in her third year as festival director, unveiled this year’s Fall Celebration lineup during an “Author Reveal Party” on Sept. 11 at the Central Library.
“It feels appropriate to be in Central Library this evening,” for the announcement of the Celebration’s authors, Rotonda said, “because the library is celebrating 150 years.”
While Rotonda admitted she has a hard time picking favorites in general, choosing from among this year’s presenters is particularly difficult “because there's so many amazing books and authors.” Nonetheless she highlighted several appearances.
On Oct. 23 at 7 p.m. at Central Library, the fest welcomes back Wisconsin novelist Jane Hamilton, who will discuss her new novel, The Phoebe Variations, her first in nine years, which Rotonda called a “stunning coming of age novel. It's about girls, it's about motherhood, and finding one's way in the world.”
Rotonda pulled out several events to watch for on Oct. 24, especially The Wisconsin Whey: Cheesemaking in the Driftless with authors Kristin Mitchell, Nicole Bujewski and Keith Burrows (4:30 p.m., Central Library, and yes, there will be samples); The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami, who’ll be in discussion with former Madison writer Chloe Benjamin (6 p.m., Central Library); and Familiaris, by Wisconsin-born novelist David Wroblewski. The book is a prequel to his bestselling 2008 novel The Story of Edgar Sawtelle.
On Oct. 25, two novels with great buzz are featured: Angela Flournoy discussing her The Wilderness (4:30 p.m.) and Lily King discussing her Heart The Lover (6 p.m.), both at the Central Library. At 7:30 p.m., André Aciman (perhaps best known for his novel Call Me By Your Name, turned into a hit movie starring “the one and only Timothee Chalamet,” as Rotonda put it). Aciman will discuss his latest, a memoir of his adolescence called Roman Year. Rotonda joked that she’d also invited Chalamet to the event. (Fingers crossed.)
She also noted that Arts + Literature Laboratory was hosting three poetry events that day with “an amazing lineup of poets,” some local, some traveling here for the festival.
Also noteworthy on Saturday is Caro De Robertis speaking about their So Many Stars: An Oral History of Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer, and Two-Spirit People of Color (4:30 p.m. Central Library).
Things wind up on Oct. 26 with an appearance by occasionally macabre science writer Mary Roach, discussing her latest, Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy (1:30 p.m., Central Library — plenty of time to get home for the evening Packers game).
Wisconsin writers and writers with Wisconsin ties are well represented. In addition to Hamilton and Wroblewski, Wisconsin authors appearing include Jessie Garcia (The Business Trip), Doug Bradley (The Tracks of my Years), Sasha Debevec-McKenney (Joy Is My Middle Name), Dean Robbins (Wisconsin Idols), Curt Meine (as part of a panel discussion on big agriculture with publisher of The Progressive magazine, Norman Stockwell, and Sonja Trom Eayrs, author of Dodge County, Incorporated), and the trio of Betsy Korbinyr, Randy Hoffman and Scott Spoolman, discussing their book on the 125th anniversary of the Wisconsin State Park System.
Free books will be distributed to attendees at five of the weekend’s events. View the full list of authors and book giveaways on the Wisconsin Book Festival website.
The Wisconsin Book Festival is presented by Madison Public Library in partnership with the Madison Public Library Foundation, and offers free, year-round literary events in addition to the Fall Celebration.
