Here’s a highlight of just a few of our many guest authors.
A complete list can be found below:
Preview Notice for Chippewa Valley Book Festival 2013
Please note: The following list is a progress report of the Authors and Events Committee of the Chippewa Valley Book Festival. Those writers indicated below are already confirmed and scheduled as you will see below. We expect to have a final program very soon, and will be adding several more events. This list is subject to change.
Monday, October 14, 7:30 pm: L. E. Phillips Memorial Public Library (Eau Claire)
Matthew Guerrieri: The First Four Notes: Beethoven’s Fifth and the Human Imagination. Matthew Guerrieri is a composer, pianist, and writer whose music has been called ”gorgeous” by the New York Times. He writes regularly on music for the Boston Globe, and his articles have also appeared in Vanity Fair, NewMusicBox, Playbill, and Slate magazines. He is responsible for the popular classical music weblog Soho the Dog. http://sohothedog.blogspot.com
Tuesday, October 15, 7:30 pm: campus, UW-Eau Claire
Luis Carlos Montalvan: Until Tuesday. Luis Carolos Montalvan served 17 years in the U.S. Army with two deployments to Iraq. A qualified military parachutist who has conducted airborne jumps with various international armies, he is also the recipient of the Military Outstanding Volunteer Service Medal. He lives with Tuesday, his faithful Service dog. Until Tuesday has been a New York Times bestseller.
Tuesday, October 15, 7:00 pm: Chippewa Falls Public Library
Joe Niese: Burleigh Grimes: Baseball’s Last Legal Spitballer. Joe Niese is a librarian and member of the Society for American Baseball Research. He has written several articles on baseball’s Deadball Era. This is his first book, and was just published in the spring of 2013 by McFarland Press. He lives in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin.
Wednesday, October 16, noon: Chippewa Valley Museum
Tom Maltman: Little Wolves. “Common Good Books” quotes Laura Kasischke’s view of Little Wolves and Maltman: “The poetry of this prose and the suspense of the plot, along with the intensity of characterization will have many readers comparing Thomas Maltman to Cormac McCarthy–that greatest of compliments– for very good reason. This novel is a work of high art by the real thing.”
Wednesday, October 16, 7:00 pm: Menomonie Public Library
B.J. Hollars: Sightings: Stories. In addition to his short stories and editing work, B.J. Hollars is the author of two books of nonfiction, Thirteen Loops: Race, Violence and The Last Lynching in America and Opening Doors: The Desegregation of the University of Alabama and the Fight for Tuscaloosa.
Wednesday, October 16, 7:00 pm: Bloomer Public Library
Darren Kirby: Coordinates for Murder. Kirby’s first novel explores the trendy world of geocaching. Going into the woods proves to be not just another GPS-guided exploration.
Thursday, October 17, 7:30 pm: Davies Center, UW-Eau Claire
Michael Perry: Visiting Tom. Michael Perry is a New York Times bestselling author, humorist and radio show host from Fall Creek, Wisconsin. His web site explains that “His mother taught him to read and filled the house with books; his father taught him how to clean calf pens, of which Perry has written, ‘a childhood spent slinging manure – the metaphorical basis for a writing career.’”
Friday, October 18, All day School Tours with the following authors:
- Gene Luen Yang is the author/illustrator of comics, Gordon Yamamoto and the King of the Geeks and a graphic novel, American Born Chinese.
- Becky Wojahn is a teacher and librarian in the Eau Claire Area School District. She is the author of Malcolm at Midnight.
- Stuart Stotts is the author of The Bookcase Ghost and Books in a Box for young readers and biographies of Curly Lambeau and Father Groppi. According to his web site, he “conducts writing workshop and book readings for students. He’s been a featured presenter for young authors in Rice Lake, at the Wisconsin Reading Association, for the Madison School District TAG writers program, for the Lakeshores Student Compilation celebration, and for individual schools around the Midwest.”
- Catherine Friend is the author of books for children (Barn Boot Blues, The Perfect Nest) and adults (Hit by a Farm and The Compassionate Carnivore). Friend is a city girl turned farmer/author.
- Julie Bowe grew up in Luck, Wisconsin. She is the author of the Friends for Keeps series: My Last Best Friend, which is perfect “for readers who have graduated from Sara Pennypacker’s ‘Clementine’stories, Barbara Park’s ‘Junie B. Jones’ series, and Megan McDonald’s ‘Judy Moody’books,” according to School Library Journal; My New Best Friend, My Best Frenemy, MyForever Friends, and My Extra Best Friend. Julie doesn’t live in Luck anymore, but shestill feels very lucky to be a children’s author.
- Amy Timberlake is the author of novels especially for middle school readers: One Came Home, That Girl Lucy Moon.
- Kathleen Ernst is the author of Traitor in the Shipyard and other American Girl stories. She also writes Civil Warnovels and a mystery series (Old World Murder) featuring Chloe Ellefson, curator/sleuthbased at Old World Wisconsin.
- Mike Wohnoutka is the illustrator of numerous children’s books including Can’t Sleep without Sheep, and Just Like My Papa among others. His work has won two Bank Street College of Education Best Children’s Book awards.
Friday, October 18, 4 pm: Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Eau Claire
Cathryn Cofell: Split Personality. Cathryn Cofell is a poet, essayist, and active supporter of Wisconsin arts in general. She does book festivals, workshops, and public speaking gigs, especially in support of good causes such as support for the position of Poet Laureate of Wisconsin. She co-authored Split Personality with:
Karla Huston: Split Personality. Karla is the author of five volumes of poetry and interviewer of fellow poets. Co-author of Split Personality with Cofell, she is also the author of the forthcoming A Theory of Lipstick.
Friday, October 18, 7:45 pm: Eau Claire Golf and Country Club
Max Garland: Hunger Wide as Heaven, The Postal Confessions. Wisconsin’s Poet Laureate for 2013 and 2014 comes from Kentucky but is now in his thirteenth year in the Department of English at UW-Eau Claire. His work has been published in journals and anthologies and on Garrison Keillor’s “A Writer’s Almanac.”
Saturday, October 19, 9:30 a.m.: Eau Claire Room, L. E. Phillips Memorial Public Library
Kathie Giorgio: Starting a book, Writing One’s Life Story, Finding a Publisher, and Marketing Literary Productions. The author of Enlarged Hearts, The Home for Wayward Clocks is an instructor at All Writers’ Workplace & Workshop LLC, an international creative writing studio in Waukesha, WI.
Saturday, October 19, 10:45 am: Eau Claire Room, L. E. Phillips Memorial Public Library
Kathie Giorgio: Enlarged Hearts, The Home for Wayward Clocks. Discover for yourself what has led Kris Radish to say of Wayward Clocks: “Giorgio has crafted a unique and believable tale about loss, love and learning how to live. A simple clock will never look the same after you finish this novel.”
Saturday, October 19, 10:45 am: Chippewa Valley Museum
John Coy: Workshop for young writers/families. Author of Hoop Genius, Night Driving and many other books for readers from K-12.
Saturday, October 19, 1:00 pm.: Eau Claire Room, L. E. Phillips Memorial Public Library
Mary Logue: Killer Librarian, Frozen Stiff, Maiden Rock. Logue says of her history as a writer: “I wrote my first mystery when I was in sixth grade—it was about a mysterious trail around a pond. I continue to write about mysterious trails around Lake Pepin in my Claire Watkins mystery series. Some things never change.” Logue’s background as mystery writer, poet, and editor assures that she is ready to answer your questions about her stories—and yours.
Saturday, October 19, 2:15 pm.: Eau Claire Room, L. E. Phillips Memorial Public Library
Peter Geye: The Lighthouse Road, Safe from the Sea. Geye tells stories rich in the lore of the North Shore of Lake Superior. From fishing to family life, from ore boats to coastline vistas, Geye’s fiction helps us understand the forces that have shaped the lives of immigrants and later generations of “ordinary” North Shore householders.
Saturday, October 19, 2:15 pm.: Location TBA
Gene Luen Yang presents Innovations in Comic Book and Graphic Novel Writing. Includes reading and discussion. Gene is the author of comics, Gordon Yamamoto and the King of the Geeks and a graphic novel, American Born Chinese.
Saturday, October 19, 3:30 pm.: Eau Claire Room, L. E. Phillips Memorial Public Library
Jim Draeger and Mark Speltz: Bottoms Up: A Toast to Wisconsin’s Historic Bars & Breweries, Fill’er Up: The Glory Days of Wisconsin Gas Stations. Draeger and Speltz tell us about where we have filled up our “tanks” in Wisconsin: at gas stations once the “shining beacons of civilization along our roadways,” or at “open-air Ton’s Burned Down Café on Madeline Island”). This is social history in liquid form. Not to be missed.
Sunday, October 20, 1:30 pm: Grand Little Theater, Eau Claire
“Showcase of Young Writers of the Chippewa Valley,” with writing contest winners presenting their works of prose, poetry and writing.
Check back often, as we will update this page and add specific author information as it becomes available!
We will be adding biographies and photos to our author page for further information as the spring and summer progress.
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