Book Festival 2015

2 | SCENE SPECIAL SECTION | 2015 FOX CITIES BOOK FESTIVAL

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

By Donna Fischer

The theme of the 2015 Fox Cities Book Festival is: Connect-ing Writers and Read-ers. One might shrug and say, “Both oper-ate very well on their own; why connect them?” One simple reason might just be that readers some-times become writ-

ers, and that with the helpful insights from a pub-lished author, the road to full – fledged authorship

can be less treacherous. Well, maybe treacherous sounds too dramatic, but then I’ve heard some wild stories about the long, arduous process of getting one’s first book published. Why not take notes from a fellow writer who has made it from novice to pro-fessional, from an idea – chaser to a storyteller?

For some, the FCBF is less about getting helpful hints and more about the fun of meeting that favor-ite author or authors over the seven - day period. I’ve had the privilege of communicating with most of these writers during the past couple of months, and I am left with a genuine appreciation for the coura-geous spirit these writers possess. It takes nothing less than courage to write a book, in my opinion. Whether it is a highly – researched book or a flight of fantasy, there is nothing easy about putting the

words together, page after page, until a book takes shape.

As I’ve said, it’s a privilege for me to help bring you comments from the writers of the festival. Hopefully, you’ll enjoy learning what they think about the craft and the business of writing as much as I do. I’d like to thank the FCBF board members for their assistance with this special section. This confluence of authors in the Fox Cities is so remarkable, and it takes a good deal of hard work by the board members and volun-teers to make it operate so seamlessly.

So, get ready for another great FCBF and be sure to connect with the website for the latest details on author appearances throughout the week. FoxCities-BookFestival.org.

The Fox Cities Book Festival is for the Book Lover in All of Us

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2015 FOX CITIES BOOK FESTIVAL | SCENE SPECIAL SECTION | 3

A Unique Learning Experience for WritersThis April, book lovers will get to

meet the writers behind their favorite mysteries, romances, biographies, and more at the seven – day literary bonan-za known as the Fox Cities Book Festi-val. Libraries, lecture halls, and coffee shops will host authors from Wiscon-sin and many other states. Their pre-sentations will give us a chance to get to know them, while providing useful tips for turning a publishing dream into reality.

Jeff Kuepper is the Board President for the FCBF and notes that this fes-tival is a key opportunity to expand one’s reading palate. “As in years past, we’ll be bringing in a wide variety of authors to the festival,” Kuepper says. “It’s a chance for readers to connect with writers. It’s sort of a two – fold approach. We bring in a lot of au-thors who are favorites in the area. We know that by books being sold and checked out of libraries. It’s a chance to connect with some of their favorite authors and ask questions about char-acters or plotlines. We always try to look at authors that are new to the Val-ley that we think are quality authors or exciting authors to read. It’s a chance to get exposed to some books that you haven’t read before. Again, it’s a combination of some area favorites and some new people.”

What does it take to follow an idea through to final publication? Listen to a writer’s testimonial and find out. “One of the things we try to do in addi-

tion to having authors talk about their work is to have them talk about the creative process. I think that’s good even if you’re not a writer, just to hear about how a book develops, and how the author researches it or develops their characters. But certainly for as-piring writers, this is a great opportu-nity to talk to people who have been published and have won awards. They can find out their tricks of the trade.”

The committee for the FCBF sets out to please as many literary tastes as possible. “There are so many genres and niches in writing that obvious-ly every year we can’t hit every one. We try to over a period of time cover as many as possible. Over the length of the festival we have tried to cover science fiction, and memoir, and biog-raphy, and mystery, and history, and classic literature. I would say that we strive to hit a wide variety in our au-dience. If your author wasn’t here this year, let us know and maybe we can work him in next year.”

This year’s Fox Cities Reads featured author is Christina Baker Kline, who wrote the New York Times’ bestseller, Orphan Train. Her striking fictional novel follows two characters from dif-ferent generations who seek friend-ship and a way to deal with secrets in their pasts. This book involves an overlooked story in U.S. history, the transportation of a quarter of a mil-lion orphaned children during the early years of the twentieth century.

Kuepper is excited about having Kline share her literary experiences with readers in the Fox Cities. “We were struck by the quality of the book,” he says. “We thought it would appeal to a wide audience. It’s fiction, but it’s historical fiction. There are actu-al ties to the Wisconsin area because we know that some of the orphans were brought even into our area, even though the book is set north of here. We thought it might touch home for some folks. There is the concept of family and adoption. It’s a great read. High school kids can read it; adults can read it. We thought it would have some very broad appeal. It’s been very popular with book clubs in the area and the library in the area has re-ported really strong circulation on the book so there seemed to be an inter-est in it. It’s always good to bring in an author who has the public clamoring to meet them.”

Another author to note is John Jack-son Miller, author of four books in the Star Wars series, among many other works of fiction and non – fiction. He has visited the FCBF before and Kuep-per is happy to have the Wisconsin au-thor back. “He’s a really engaging au-thor because he does novels, graphic novels, and comic books. So he has a nice breadth. He talks with aspiring writers about the writing process. We certainly thought that was a nice tie – in with the new Star Wars movie com-ing out.”

Encouraging the writers of tomor-row is part of the focus of this festival, and organizers have reached out to Appleton North High School in an ef-fort to engage young readers. “We’re having an honorary school and this year; it’s Appleton North High School. We got some suggestions on authors, some help with marketing end of it. We want a strong tie with K – 12 and the universities so this is a way of ex-panding that a bit.”

Poetry is also an important element in this festival. Kuepper is proud to announce that Wisconsin’s Poet Lau-reate, Kimberly Blaeser will make an appearance during the week. Student poets can also get involved in an open mic opportunity at the Student Poet-ry Invitational, at Copper Rock Coffee Company on College Avenue, Apple-ton.

For Kuepper, the FCBF is the ideal opportunity for every book lover. “It’s fun to hear a novelist explain how they develop characters, and how their books have evolved. It’s also fun to see a non – fiction author and learn how they did their research for the book. I enjoy not just meeting the authors and getting turned on to new books, but hearing them talk about the writing process and what went into the book, and what they had in mind for characters.”

Get the latest information on author appearances and other festival news at FoxCitiesBookFestival.org.

Fox Cities Book Festival Board

Jeff Kuepper, presidentKris Clouthier, secretaryMartha Swanson, treasurerRuth BloedowColette Lunday BrautigamBernard EdmondsVicki LenzGail OndreskyTasha Saecker

Volunteer Chair

Kris Clouthier

Fundraisers

Gail OndreskyRuth BloedowMartha SwansonLou HullJeff Kuepper Bernard Edmonds

Webmasters

Anne PatersonEvan Bend

Authors Committee

Vicki Lenz, chairRuth BloedowJoe Bongers, Elisha D. Smith Public Library in MenashaLou Hull, Appleton Area School DistrictKarla Huston, Fox Valley PoetsJeff Kuepper, UW-Fox ValleyColette Lunday Brautigam, Lawrence UniversityAmy Mazzariello, Readers Loft Independent BookstoreMeghan Odegard, Neenah Public LibraryAnne Paterson, Outagamie Waupaca Library SystemDiana Sandberg, Appleton Public LibraryAngela Schneider, Kimberly-Little Chute Public LibraryAshley Thiem Menning, Kaukauna Public LibraryVicki Vogel, Fox River Environmental Education Alliance


2015 Fox Cities Book Festival Schedule of EventsThere is no charge to attend these events, with the exception of the pre-festival play at UW-Fox on April 17, the Happy Hour on Earth Day (Wednesday), and the Westclectic Music and Poetry Fundraiser on Friday night, April 24, at the Outer-Edge. Purchase tickets online at FoxCitiesBookFestival.org.

Pre-Festival Event: Tuesday, April 14

6:30 Linda Sue Park – Appleton Public Library

Pre-Festival Event: Friday, April 17

6:00 Playwright Philip Dawkins – UW-Fox, Perry Theater

7:00 Play: Failure: A Love Story by Philip Dawkins UW-Fox, Perry Theater (call 920-832-2646 and say “Book Festival Friend” for a discounted ticket)

Monday, April 20

Noon Jerry Apps – UW-Fox, Union

2:00 Christina Baker Kline (2015 Fox Cities Reads) – Kaukauna High School

4:30 Kathleen Ernst (American Girl books) – Elisha D. Smith Public Library

6:00 Brett Christopherson – Appleton Public Library

6:30 Christina Baker Kline (2015 Fox Cities Reads) – Neenah Public Library

6:30 Raen Smith – Kaukauna Public Library

6:30 Kathleen Ernst (Chloe Ellefson mysteries) – Gerard H. Van Hoof Library

7:00 Lawrence Student Poets Invitational – Copper Rock Coffee Company (part of Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets series; followed by community open mic)

7:00 Monica Rico – Elisha D. Smith Public Library

7:30 Jessie Garcia – Appleton Public Library

Tuesday, April 21

11:00 Christina Baker Kline (meet the author) – UW-Fox, Perry Hall

Noon Christina Baker Kline (2015 Fox Cities Reads) – UW-Fox, Perry Hall

2:30 Zohra Sarwari – UW-Fox, Room 1346

4:00 Christina Baker Kline (meet the author) – Appleton Public Library

6:30 Christina Baker Kline (2015 Fox Cities Reads) – History Museum

6:30 Jeff Yeager (Money Smart Week event) – Appleton Public Library

6:30 John Ferak – James J. Siebers Memorial Library

6:30 Chad Lewis – Kaukauna Public Library

6:30 Lisa Klarner – Appleton North High School

6:30 Mike McCabe – Elisha D. Smith Public Library

7:00 Julie Mata – Neenah Public Library

7:00 Mill Literary Awards – Appleton Public Library

Wednesday, April 22 (Earth Day)

9:00 KidStage/Fox River Academy: Lorax Program – Fox River Environmental Education Alliance—Chapel

9:50 Fox River Academy Students: The Canoe Song – Fox River Environmental Education Alliance—Chapel

10:10 Jeff Yeager (Money Smart Week event) – Fox River Environmental Educa-tion Alliance – Chapel

10:10 Stephanie Feuerstein: Butterfly Program – Fox River Environmental Edu-cation Alliance –Green Room

11:00 to 1:30 Lunch for sale – Fox River Environmental Education Alliance —Banquet Room

11:00 to 1:30 Children’s crafts from recycled stuff – Fox River Environmental Education Alliance —Green Room

11:00 to 1:30 Animal exhibit tours – Fox River Environmental Education Alli-ance —Large Sun Room

11:00 to 2:30 Sierra Club Members: Nature Hikes – Fox River Environmental Education Alliance —Large Sun Room

11:00 to 2:30 Bird viewing – Fox River Environmental Education Alliance —2nd Level Towers

Noon Bill Berry – UW-Fox, Perry Hall (sponsored by Wild Ones)

12:30 Dale Laurin – Fox River Environmental Education Alliance – Chapel

12:30 Vicki Vogel: Repurposing with Basic Sewing – Fox River Environmental Education Alliance – Conference Room

12:30 Water Splash/Water Filtration – Fox River Environmental Education Alli-ance – –Green Room (Children’s Program & Activities presented by Fox-Wolf Wa-tershed Alliance)

12:30 Sandy Johnson – Fox River Environmental Education Alliance

1:00 Lorna Landvik – Elisha D. Smith Public Library (sponsored by Women’s Fund for the Fox Valley Region)

1:00 Martin Brief Exhibit/Gallery Tour – Lawrence University --Wriston Art Center/Hoffmaster Gallery

1:30 Sara Laux Akin – Appleton Public Library

1:45 Wild Ones Members: Rain Gardens – Fox River Environmental Education Alliance – Chapel

3:00 Bill Berry – The Wild Center (Wild Ones)

3:30 Richard Logan & Tere Duperrault Fassbender – Fox River Environmental Education Alliance – Chapel

4:30 to 8:00 Earth Day Happy Hour (for adults) – Fox River Environmental Education Alliance (entertainment provided by Mile of Music-- admission is free, refreshments are for sale )

5:30 Karla Huston – Neenah Public Library

5:30 Ace Champion, Cooking Demonstration – UW-Fox, Communication Arts

6:00 Northeast Wisc. Land Trust: Land Stewardship – Fox River Environmental Education Alliance

6:00 Kay Scholtz – Elisha D. Smith Public Library

6:00 Lorna Landvik – Appleton Public Library (sponsored by Women’s Fund for the Fox Valley Region)

6:00 Earth Day Sing-Along – The Wild Center (Wild Ones)

6:30 Gavin Schmitt – Kaukauna Public Library

7:00 Judith Waller/Compassion Café – UW-Fox Aylward Gallery

7:00 June Melby – Neenah Public Library

7:30 Harvey J. Kaye – Appleton Public Library


Thursday, April 23

Noon Nickolas Butler – UW-Fox, Perry Hall

4:00 B. J. Hollars – Neenah Public Library

4:00 Lynne Finch (Money Smart Week Event) – Appleton Public Library

4:30 Cynthia Marie Hoffman – Lawrence University--Wriston Art Center/Hoff-master Gallery

6:00 Kathy Stewart – Neenah Public Library

6:00 Crystal Chan – Appleton Public Library

6:30 Jacqueline West – James J. Siebers Memorial Library

6:30 Victor Schueller – Kaukauna Public Library

6:30 Steve Hazell – Elisha D. Smith Public Library

7:00 Nickolas Butler – Appleton Public Library

7:30 Steven Brust – Neenah Public Library

Friday, April 24

9:30 Miranda Paul & Isatou Ceesay – Elisha D. Smith Public Library

Noon B. J. Hollars – UW-Fox, Union

Noon Nickolas Butler – Gerard H. Van Hoof Library

1:30 Julie Buckles – Gerard H. Van Hoof Library

1:30 Will Schwalbe – UW-Fox, Perry Hall

3:30 Will Schwalbe – Neenah Public Library

4:30 Douglas Beye Lorie – Appleton Public Library

4:30 Fox Cry Review reading with Sarah Gilbert – UW-Fox, Room 1346

5:00 Kevin Miyazaki & Travis Dewitz – Lawrence University -- Warch Campus Center Cinema

5:30 Jericho Brown – UW-Fox , Room 1346

7:00 Fundraiser: Westclectic Music & Poetry with Doc Mehl - OuterEdge Stage $20/person. Purchase tickets online at FoxCitiesBookFestival.org.

Saturday, April 25

9:00 Douglas Beye Lorie – Elisha D. Smith Public Library

9:00 Will Schwalbe (writing workshop) – Atlas Coffee Mill

9:30 Ann Wertz Garvin – Appleton Public Library

9:30 Rachael Hanel – Kaukauna Public Library

10:30 Jericho Brown – Atlas Coffee Mill

10:30 Patricia Skalka – Elisha D. Smith Public Library

11:00 Miranda Paul & Isatou Ceesay – Appleton Public Library

11:00 A. T. Haessly – Kaukauna Public Library

Noon Kimberly Blaeser – Atlas Coffee Mill

1:00 Susan Gloss – Gerard H. Van Hoof Library

1:00 Mike Hoeft – Elisha D. Smith Public Library

1:00 Vivian Probst – Angels Forever - Windows of Light

1:30 Poets Among Us: Cathryn Cofell/Bill Gillard/Megan Gannon – Atlas Cof-fee Mill

1:30 Mini Comic-Con featuring John Jackson Miller – Appleton Public Library

1:30 Letters about Literature – Neenah Public Library

3:00 Michael Leannah – Elisha D. Smith Public Library

2:00 Wendy McClure & Wendy Wimmer – Roosevelt Middle School

6:00 Steve Hazell (Sing-along) – Wild Center (Wild Ones)

6:30 to 8:30 Poetry Slam – Copper Rock Coffee (audience participation)

Sunday, April 26

1:00 April Henry – Elisha D. Smith Public Library

1:00 Susan Dolan – UW-Fox, Communication Arts Center (sponsored by Com-munity Health Action Team (CHAT))

1:30 Mary Kubica – Neenah Public Library

2:30 Claudia Turner – Elisha D. Smith Public Library

2:30 Wendy McClure – UW-Fox, Communication Arts Center

3:00 Dale Kushner – Neenah Public Library

4:30 Writers’ Panel Discussion – UW-Fox, Communication Arts Center (featur-ing Dale Kushner, Wendy McClure, and Mary Kubica)

Schedule subject to change. Check our website for latest schedule.

VenuesAngels Forever - Windows of Light, 310 W. College Ave., Appleton angelsforever.com

Appleton North High School, 5000 N. Ballard Rd., Appleton aasd.k12.wi.us/north

Appleton Public Library, 225 N. Oneida St., Appleton apl.org

Atlas Coffee Mill, 425 W. Water St., Appleton atlascoffeemill.com

Copper Rock Coffee Company, 210 W. College Ave., Appleton copperrockcoffee.com

Elisha D. Smith Public Library, 440 1st St., Menasha menashalibrary.org

Fox River Environmental Education Alliance, 1000 N. Ballard St., Appleton foxrivereea.org

Gerard H. Van Hoof Library, 625 Grand Ave., Little Chute kimlit.org

The History Museum at the Castle, 330 E. College, Ave., Appleton myhistorymuseum.org

James J. Siebers Memorial Library, 515 W. Kimberly Ave., Kimberly kimlit.org

Kaukauna High School, 1701 County Road CE, Kaukauna kaukauna.k12.wi.us

Kaukauna Public Library, 111 Main Ave., Kaukauna kaukaunalibrary.org

Lawrence University, 711 E. Boldt Way, Appleton lawrence.edu

Neenah Public Library, 240 E. Wisconsin Ave., Neenah neenahlibrary.org

OuterEdge Stage, 303 N. Oneida St., Appleton see OuterEdge Stage on Facebook

Roosevelt Middle School Commons (southwest corner—go in front doors, go left), 318 E. Brewster St., Appleton rooseveltmiddleschool.net

University of Wisconsin-Fox Valley, 1478 Midway Rd., Menasha uwfox.uwc.edu

The Wild Center (Wild Ones), 2285 Butte des Morts Beach Rd., Neenah wildones.org

Wriston Art Center/Hoffmaster Gallery, on Lawrence University Campus


Programs for Children and Young AdultsTuesday, April 15

6:30 Linda Sue Park (young adults) – Appleton Public Library

Monday, April 20

2:00 Christina Baker Kline (young adults) – Kaukauna High School (public event)4:00 Kathleen Ernst (American Girl books) – Elisha D. Smith Public Library in Menasha6:30 Christina Baker Kline (young adults) – Neenah Public Library7:00 LU Student Poets Invitational – Copper Rock Coffee Co. (part of Wiscon-sin Fellowship of Poets series; followed by community open mic) Tuesday, April 21Noon Christina Baker Kline (young adults) – UW-Fox, Perry Hall6:30 Christina Baker Kline (young adults) – History Museum in Appleton6:30 Chad Lewis (young adults) – Kaukauna Public Library Tuesday, April 21

6:30 Lisa Klarner (young adults) – Appleton North High School

Wednesday, April 22 , EARTH DAY

These events are at Fox River Environmental Education Alliance, 1000 N. Ballard St., Appleton 9:00 Lorax program: KidStage and Fox River Academy Students in the Chapel10:10 Stephanie Feuerstein: a naturalist discusses animals in the lower level Green Room11:00 to 1:30 Lunch for sale in the lower level Banquet Room11:00 to 1:30 Children’s crafts from recycled stuff in the lower level Green Room11:00 to 1:30 Animal exhibit tours in the Sun Room11:00 to 2:30 Nature hikes, leaving by back door of the Sun Room11:00 to 2:30 Bird viewing from the second level Towers12:30 Water Splash Activities: presented by Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance, lower level Green Room12:30 Sandy Johnson, author of Wisconsin’s Rock Island, a children’s bookWednesday, April 22

1:30 Sara Laux Akin (story time & craft) – Appleton Public Library

Thursday, April 23

6:00 Crystal Chan (young adults) – Appleton Public Library6:30 Jacqueline West (children’s fiction) – James J. Siebers Memorial Library in Kimberly

Friday, April 24

9:30 Miranda Paul & Isatou Ceesay (story time) – Elisha D. Smith Public Library

Saturday, April 25

11:00 Miranda Paul & Isatou Ceesay (story time) – Appleton Public Library

Sunday, April 26

1:00 April Henry (young adults) – Elisha D. Smith Public Library

Special EventsFox Cities Reads: Christina Baker Kline, author of Orphan Train, will be here on Monday and Tuesday. Meet the author of this wonderful community reads book. See schedule for all events.Lawrence Students Invitational Poetry Night on Monday night at 7:00 at the Copper Rock Coffee Company on College Avenue. This event, which will end with a community open mic for local poets, is part of the Wisconsin Fellowship Poets Series. See also the Poetry Slam on Saturday night from 6:30 to 8:30 at the Copper Rock on College Avenue in Appleton. The public is invited to participate.Mill Literary Awards winners will be announced and honored on Tuesday night, at 7:00, at Appleton Public Library. At this, the Third Annual Mill Literary Prize Event, Fox Cities writers will be recognized for their achievements in short fiction and poetry. In each category, there will be a winner and several honorees, who will read from their prize winning work.Money Smart Week events include an appearance of author Jeff Yeager at the Appleton Public Library on Tuesday night and another event at Fox River Environ-mental Education Alliance on Wednesday morning. Find out more about Money Smart Week at Money Smart Week Fox Cities on Facebook.Martin Brief/Wriston Art Galleries Tour at Lawrence University on Wednesday, April 22, at 1:00 pm – exhibition of Martin Brief artwork, which focuses on lan-guage, almost to the point of obsessiveness, digging deeper and deeper into the meaning of words until he has reached the very limits of expression.Earth Day Celebration see Wednesday, April 22, on schedule.Compassion for the Earth Compassion Café on Wednesday, April 22, from 6:30 to 8:00 pm. at UW-Fox Communication Arts Building. Compassionate Fox Cities, a program of Goodwill NCW, in collaboration with Judith Waller and her exhibit ‘Small Problems, Big Trouble’, will facilitate a discussion focused on compassion for the earth. Compassion Café is modeled on the World Café, a progressive con-versation featuring facilitated discussion of compelling questions related to the earth. The Compassion Café will follow a gallery talk with Judith Waller.Photography Panel: Friday at 5:00, see the work of photographers Kevin Mi-yazaki & Travis Dewitz in the Lawrence University Warch Campus Center Cinema. You may have heard Kevin on Wisconsin Public Radio discuss his book Perimeter. Travis shot the photos for his book Blaze Orange: Whitetail Deer Hunting in Wiscon-sin. They will discuss their craft.Westclectic Music & Poetry with Doc Mehl, the Asphalt Cowboy, appearing at the OuterEdge Stage in Appleton on Friday night. Tickets cost just $20. Purchase tickets online at FoxCitiesBookFestival.org.Writers’/Poetry Day on Saturday at the Atlas Coffee Mill down in the locks, start-ing with Will Schwalbe who will talk about writing and publishing. Poetry events begin at 10:30 with national award-winning poet Jericho Brown will talk at 10:30. Wisconsin’s new Poet Laureate Kimberly Blaeser will appear at noon, followed by other great Wisconsin poets Cathryn Cofell, Megan Gannon, and Bill Gillard.Mini Comic-Con on Saturday afternoon at the Appleton Public Library: John Jackson Miller will speak at 1:30 about his latest Star Wars book, and his new Star Trek book which just came out. He will be followed by a panel on the history of comics and collection including Zachariah Wilson of Power House Comics.Letters about Literature on Saturday afternoon at 1:00 at the Neenah Public Li-brary: The annual Letters about Literature competition gives Wisconsin students an opportunity to write letters to authors, living or dead, about how a particu-lar book has affected their lives. Students in grades four through twelve take up the challenge and compete at three levels: Grades 4-6, Grades 7-8 and Grades 9-12. State awards are presented each April. Wisconsin’s top winners in each of the three levels are entered into the national competition whose winners are an-nounced at the National Book Festival in Washington, DC.

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AUTHOR BIOS

Jerry AppsAuthor of Whispers and Shadows: A Naturalists Memoir

Though he probably would never brag about such a thing, Jerry Apps is one of the great ambassadors for the state of Wisconsin. With his agricultural back-ground and keen interest in a myriad of issues and themes integral to our state, Apps humbly produces book after book, each one telling a different tale of life here. This Professor Emeritus at the University of Wis-consin-Madison is the author of more than 30 books, some in fiction, some non – fiction, and some for chil-dren. Many of them focus on rural history and country life. His nonfiction books include: Living a Country Year, Every Farm Tells a Story, When Chores Were Done, Humor from the Country, Country Ways and Country Days, One-

Room Schools, Cheese, Breweries of Wisconsin, Ringlingville USA (History of Ringling Brothers circus), Old Farm: A History, Barns of Wisconsin, Horse Drawn Days: A Centu-ry of Farming With Horses, and Campfires and Loon Calls.

At the Fox Cities Book Festival, Apps will talk about his newest book, Whispers and Shadows: A Naturalist’s Memoir, along with his novel The Great Sand Fracas of Ames County. He says that his novel dealing with the controversy over sand mining has been well received so far. “Feedback from The Great Sand Fracas has been very positive,” asserts Apps. “The issue of sand mining in Wisconsin is an important one, and I, in an entertaining way with a focus on story, try to present several sides to the issue with a focus on the discussion taking place in a small town in Wisconsin.”

He endeavors to get the conversation, or debate, started. “I certainly hope that my six novels, each one with an environmental focus, will help the discussion about environmental issues. Too, often emotion gets in the way of critical, in-formed thinking and decision - making.”

Apps grew up in Wisconsin, relishing the great outdoors, and hopes to pass on some of his love of the state’s quiet beauty to others. “My new book, Whispers and Shadows, is about how I grew up appreciating the out-of-doors, and how my fa-ther, a farmer with a fifth grade education instilled in me a love for nature. I hope this book may, in some small way, say something to the younger generation of the importance of getting outside, working in a garden, hiking in a woods, watch-ing a sunset, appreciating a rainy day--and learning to listen for the whispers and look in the shadows. It is in the shadows that we see what others have missed, and it is in the whispers of sound where often the deeper messages lie.”

Christina Baker KlineAuthor of Orphan Train, featured book of Fox Cities Reads

In the early part of the last century, the lack of a structured support system for orphaned children, particularly in New York City, led to the creation of a program for transferring children via the rails to Midwestern states, where couples could adopt them. Christina Baker Kline says she stumbled on the story of the largest migration of children in United States history over a decade ago. This moment of chance sparked something in the author that would lead to her #1 New York Times bestselling book, Orphan Train, and an outpouring of acclaim for her fic-tional account of this hidden chapter in our country’s history. Kline, an author of ten books, likes to keep it all in perspective, but she is thrilled that the story is finally reaching a wide audience.

As with most projects involving complex back-grounds, Orphan Train didn’t easily jump from idea to finished book. “It actually took a long time,” Kline re-ports. “In the intervening seven years before I started writing the book, I did three other books (two novels and a non – fiction book) before I was ready to start this book. It seemed like such a daunting undertaking because of the historical research, but also because I am not Midwestern, and I was worried. I felt like an in-terloper. I’m not from the Midwest, and I knew that people who had written about this before tend to be relatives of people who rode on the orphan trains or

historians, and I’m neither of those two things. I finally did enough work on it that I realized that I was as good a person as any, and I also felt I had learned a lot about it. Part of the complicated task as I wrote the book was to absorb all of this historical research but not to try to regurgitate it, but to try to transform it into something that would be compelling, readable, and a story. I think that’s always the task when you do a novel that involves a lot of research.”

When it came to research, Kline didn’t flinch from immersing herself in the background of her story. She read some 300 first – person testimonials and even interviewed seven living train riders. “It was only by talking to lots of train riders … it was only by reading a lot of stories and interviewing a lot of people that I felt like I had a handle on what that was like to be a train rider,” Kline recounts. “A lot of people who rode on the trains didn’t want to dwell on that, even when they told their stories they didn’t necessarily explain what it really felt like. It took me quite a while to wrap my head around that. That was one of the most interesting aspects of this whole experience was learning how that felt and how to convey that. It’s one of the reasons that I wrote fiction. I had freedom as a writer to show what life was like for this character, and that was really exciting.”

How did the train riders themselves feel about this project of Kline’s? “The feed-back has been really positive. I think that a lot of them and especially the train riders themselves…. Once they started telling their story, they wanted people to hear it. I think they understood that this is a story that’s been hidden in plain sight. So, the more people who know about it -the better. It’s so wonderful that it’s getting attention. I think people are ready to hear it.”

Some novelists take liberty with historical facts without hesitation. Kline didn’t feel this was the correct approach for Orphan Train. “Every single fact is accurate; I did not take liberty with the facts. A lot of novelists are not trying to necessarily be factually accurate – they’re writing novels. It’s sort of a debate among novel-ists that if you’re telling a historical story whether you need to be accurate, and a lot of people don’t feel that you do. But I felt that with this novel in particular that I had a responsibility to the train riders to be accurate because their story has not been told in a wide – spread way and I felt that I was lucky to have access to it and I wanted to be true to their experience, if I could.”

Having Orphan Train reach the #1 spot on the New York Times bestseller list is no small feat. For Kline though, it’s not something that should overshadow her career as a writer. “I’ve been writing for a long time; this is my tenth book, my fifth novel. I’m glad that I had a career as a working writer for all these years and I think it gives me a kind of perspective. I never expected this to happen. It’s great. It’s been wonderful, and really surprising, and kind of astounding, but I would have been perfectly content to be a working writer for the rest of my life in the way that I’ve always been. I published books and I think my next – biggest selling book was about 30,000 copies and this book (Orphan Train) is over two million, and that’s really different. But, I was a working writer, and I had contracts and I had an editor and I always worked. That was fine as far as I was concerned. It’s

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AUTHOR BIOS

lovely and exciting and gratifying that this book has taken off, but I also feel that if it all went back to the way it was tomorrow I would be okay with it, because the whole point for me is the writing, and my love of writing and this kind of success is fantastic but first of all it would probably never happen again, and second, I don’t mind if it doesn’t. I’ve really enjoyed this but the point of it for me is about the work, the writing.”

Kline is lingering in the days of the early 1900’s for a bit longer with her next literary project, inspired by the Andrew Wyeth painting called, Christina’s World.

“It’s just a very interesting story and it’s been tremendously fun to research,” Kline says. “It’s a different kind of research and it’s about making art. It’s not an entirely shocking departure because the woman in the painting lived exactly at the same that Vivian lived, so all that research that I did about America in the 20th century is research that I can use again.”

Kline will be participating in the Fox Cities Book Festival several times through-out the week. She plans to bring a slide show with archival photographs, in-cluding some from the Library of Congress. Orphan Train has been selected as the feature book for the Fox Cities Reads program, which involves a variety of interactive events for the author.

To learn more about Orphan Train, or other books written by the author, go to ChristinaBakerKline.com.

Jericho BrownJericho Brown, born Nelson Demery, III, is an Ameri-

can poet. In 2011, he was awarded a National Endow-ment for the Arts Fellowship for Poetry.

Brown was raised in Shreveport, Louisiana. He grad-uated from Dillard University, and from the University of New Orleans with an MFA, and from the University of Houston with a Ph.D.

He taught at the University of San Diego until 2012, when he became a professor at Emory University. Pre-viously worked as the speechwriter for the Mayor of New Orleans.

His poems have appeared in The Iowa Review, jubi-lat, The Nation, New England Review, The New Republic, Oxford American, The New Yorker, and The Best American Poetry. He serves as an Assistant Editor at Callaloo. His first book, Please, (New Issues Poetry & Prose, 2008) won the Amer-ican Book Award. His most recent book of poetry, The New Testament, (Copper Canyon Press, 2014) continues his examination of race, masculinity and sexuality, often returning to the stories of the Bible.

Steven BrustAuthor of “Taltos” novels, among others

Steven Brust is clearly comfortable working within the literary environment of fantastical, deeply layered stories involving an immense range of characters. He began writing novels in 1983 with, “Jhereg” and hasn’t let up since. Last year’s release of, “The Incrementalists,” takes readers down a slightly more recognizable rabbit hole, with a dizzying mixture of secret societies, murder, and immortality. It’s also set in Las Vegas. One gets the idea that crafting complex, mysterious tales, set in this world or another, is an irresistible thrill for Brust.

It’s tempting to assume there might be more free-dom for a writer when the parameters of what is and is not Earthly reality fall by the wayside. But, as in most literary endeavors, it’s never that simple. “The thing is, you start out with a world that’s constructed according to your taste, a place that permits you to tell the sort of stories you want to tell,” explains Brust. “As time goes on, you find those early decisions more and more re-stricting--you can’t go and drastically violate the laws of nature you’ve carefully set up, or people will look at you funny. And, here’s the thing, I’m finding the re-strictions are more and more where the fun is -- or, if

you will, the creativity. How should I put this? It isn’t so much that the earlier decisions prevent me from “this” as that they keep suggesting “that.” I’m always discovering new, unexplored streets I can walk down, streets that I didn’t realized I’d put there. It’s fun.”

Brust has written two extensive series of novels set in the world of Dragaera, plus other novels and a long list of short stories. One would think his fingers have not left the keyboard since the early ‘80’s. “First of all, I wouldn’t call it work, I’d call it play -- after all, I’m telling myself a story, right? I like the stories I tell. It turns out that I’m the perfect audience for them. As for how long, I guess usually three to six months, but it’s taken as long as 18 months, and twice I did a draft in six weeks; I have no idea how that happened. One thing I learned is that, after I finish a book, I need to give myself a break, because I’m not going to get anything useful done anyway. Then, once I get a piece of story that won’t let go--usually an opening line, or maybe a bit of plot from somewhere in the middle, or perhaps a title that inspires all sorts of possibilities -- I start slowly. Maybe a sentence or two a day. As the story builds, I do more and more, and generally the last couple of chapters come in a rush as I need to find out what happens.”

Brust has come to appreciate working with fellow writers on novels. “I’ve col-laborated with Skyler on a second one now, and I’ve also written books with Me-gan Lindholm and Emma Bull, and they were all such wonderful experiences that, sure, if something came up that made me think of someone, I could see doing it. I’m kicking one around with Will Shetterly at the moment.”

Like something that Brust wrote? Send him a Tweet! “I get praise that way,” he says. “And who doesn’t like praise? Useful feedback I get from my editors, from my critique group, and from select individuals I trust. Twitter is just plain fun, because it zings by so fast. It’s like the notes on a banjo--no sustain. And that often suits my mood, because I’ll think of a line that strikes me as funny, but has nowhere to go, and now I have outlet for it so I don’t have to interrupt one of my housemates--though I usually do that too.”

Brust just keeps turning out more intrigue, mystery and suspense. “Well, the second Incrementalists novel is finished in draft, and we’re now going through the editorial process with it, so I imagine it’ll be out in a year or so. I can’t describe how much I love those books, that world. I’m also working on another Vlad novel, Vallista, which takes place right before Hawk. It’s going more slowly than I’d like, but somehow it’s fun anyway.”

Julie BucklesAuthor of Paddling to Winter: A Couple’s Wilderness Journey from Lake Superior to Northern Canada

Not long ago, Julie Buckles took off on a 1,700 – mile canoe trip with her new husband through Lake Superior and into remote wilderness areas of Canada. The


AUTHOR BIOS

subsequent book is called, Paddling to Winter: A Cou-ple’s Wilderness Journey from Lake Superior to North-ern Canada, and it has captured attention for its candid take on modern – day adventures and marriage. The book was recently awarded the Next Generation Indie Award, the Independent Publishers Award, the Fore-word Book of the Year in Adventure and the Eric Hof-fer da Vinci Eye Award for cover design. Buckles was a reporter and freelance writer and as an adjunct pro-fessor at Northland College, where she currently works in the communications office as the public and media relations specialist. She is a regular contributor to Lake

Superior Magazine and WPR’s Wisconsin Life.

The enthusiastic response to her book had Buckles feeling glad she took the effort to put her experiences down for others to discover. “I had my head so deep into writing the book and into working with the publisher to get it into print, that I had not thought about what comes next. Well, what comes next is string of fantastic surprises. I’ve had people contact me from Canada, the United States and even New Zealand who have felt a strong connection to Paddling to Win-ter. Just last week, a gentleman found my book at Robertson’s Trading Post in LaRonge, Canada. I can safely say, you cannot shop any further north in Canada. Robertson’s is this super cool old-fashioned trading post filled with furs from lo-cal trappers, artistry, crafts, food, gear, supplies. This guy was in the north, his plane was delayed so he spent an afternoon at Robertson’s and found my book. He ended his email, ‘I was so glad I bought the book, and am happy for how that winter had brought you into that world, which once was my world.’ I think there are some of us that, having been in the North, we never completely leave it, and it never completely leaves us. In short, every time I get a comment from a young person about how I inspired them to take a wilderness trip or from some-one older who once passed through Wollaston and wondered more about it -- I get a jolt of adrenaline. I wrote this book in isolation for the most part -- but now it has become a community affair, filled with life, depth, laugher, and memories.”

And just like a trip into the wilderness, this book found it’s way to comple-tion, step – by – step. “The book started as a few random chapters that naturally evolved into a book,” explains Buckles. “I didn’t have a strong idea that it would be a book. In fact, I started graduate school at Antioch (for a MFA in Creative Writ-ing) with the goal that I would not write about The Trip. Seems strange to set that as a goal, but I had spent much of my 30’s planning for, packing for, and then pad-dling -- I wanted to think and write about something else. But then I wrote an es-say and it was that essay the elicited the most questions. So I wrote another essay. And the same thing happened. The essays started to look like book chapters and I realized it was a story that needed and deserved the length of a book. I spent my last semester writing the first half of the book, then took six months afterwards to write the second half. I had never taken time to reflect on what the journey meant -- we returned and jumped back into our lives, and never really looked back. The writing process really became the time for reflection, allowing me to look back and to realize what an amazing thing it was. Going out and talking about the story then took reflection to another level.”

Sharing private observations of family life is a daring step for any writer. Buck-les seems to have struck gold with her good – natured husband. “Charly was with me all the way. He never flinched. In one writer’s group session in grad school, someone commented that it felt as if I was writing with someone looking over my shoulder. Charly was never literally looking over my shoulder, but he was always in my head. So, I had to excise him mentally so I could write my book rather than

our book. I announced this to him and as always, he shrugged and said, ‘fine.’ He’s great with the way I portrayed him -- even the less flattering moments. I was probably more worried about my parents’ reactions. They are such private people but they were so much a part of our trip that I had to flesh them out. They never flinched either, at least in front of me. My dad said he was so nervous for us that he couldn’t enjoy the first time he read the book. And obviously he knew how it turned out.”

The Buckles have turned their adventurous minds to the world of sled dogs upon finishing their journey. “I’ve not written much about dog sledding mostly because it’s hard to do when you’re in the middle of it. But now that we’re slowly ending a very long run with the team, I’ve been feeling nostalgic and wanting to explore what it meant to our marriage, our family, and our life to have a dozen Si-berian huskies in our lives at any one time. Plus, we’ve been on many adventures with them.”

Buckles says she’s finding a tricky time getting this new story to fit within a nat-ural structure, as with Paddling to Winter, but that she’s having fun with it none-theless.

Nickolas ButlerAuthor of Shotgun Lovesongs

Nickolas Butler set his first novel, Shotgun Lovesongs, in a small Wisconsin town. A group of friends with a shared past feel the pull from the town and from each other, even after they’ve moved on. A New York Times review called the work a “big-hearted book” that is “impressively original.” High marks from one of the na-tion’s leaders in book reviews, and one sure that will help the novel reach a wider audience. Butler says that reviews are just opinions and it’s important to keep it all in perspective. “Good reviews are always rewarding, I suppose, but you can’t take reviews very seriously,” he

asserts. “You have to write or create art for yourself, without a thought to critical considerations. I’ve gotten some pretty mean reviews too. Everyone has an opin-ion, and that’s just fine.”

Shotgun Lovesong took Butler two years of constant writing, and an additional year of editing. As a married father of two young children, he works during the late evening hours, after every one goes to sleep. “I try to write every day, but that’s not always possible,” Butler says. “I might be traveling or focused on my kids or reading another writer’s work and trying to get them feedback. I’m not sure I’m “highly disciplined”, but I also think that being a good father and husband and friend and brother and son are frankly more important than writing fiction.”

Butler was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and raised in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. He earned his BA from UW – Madison, and an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Progres-sive, The Christian Science Monitor, Ploughshares, Narrative, The Kenyon Review Online, Isthmus, Roast, Wisconsin State Journal, Madison Magazine, New Verse News, PANK, Volume One, Wisconsin People & Ideas, Sixth Finch, terrain.org, The Lumberyard, and Fresh Cup. He currently lives in rural Wisconsin. With his next book entitled, Beneath the Bonfire due out in May of this year, Butler says he is busy with a lot of projects, but hopes to see a third book out before too long.


AUTHOR BIOS

Crystal Chan Author of Bird

Growing up is never a painless process, but grow-ing up as a mixed – race child in the Midwest makes finding one’s place in the world uniquely complex. Crystal Chan says there is a lot of herself in her book, Bird. It has reached countless readers in nine countries through its tale of loss and discovery, and has garnered high praise along the way. She’ll share this and more when she makes an appearance at the Fox Cities Book Festival. “I’ll talk a bit about my writer’s journey: how I was “supposed” to be a doctor, lawyer, or engineer and somehow ended up a children’s writer and storyteller for adults and kids alike – integral to that story is the process by which I learned how to claim my voice,”

Chan says. “Specific to my novel Bird, I’ll talk about the process that took me from initial inspiration to landing one of the best agents in the industry; having Bird be welcomed in, trumpets blaring, at Simon and Schuster; and then being published in nine countries around the world.”

Chan, who now calls Chicago home, reports that she simply didn’t know any other mixed – race families when she grew up in Oshkosh during the 1980’s and 1990’s. “But beyond race and ethnicity, everyone questions who they are and where they fit in in the world, and that’s one of the strengths of the novel – that no matter what the reader’s background is, you can relate. That’s one of the rea-sons why I think it’s sold so strong internationally, too.”

When a writer brings in shades of his or her past, sometimes there needs to be a bit of distance from the biographical details. “I wanted to write about a mixed-race family, but I didn’t want it to be my mix (Chinese/White) – that would be a little too close to home, and I needed some creative distance,” Chan admits. “I had to do a lot of research, then, on both Jamaica and Mexico, but Jewel’s experience of being mixed – how people respond to her, how they question her – I could identify with very closely.”

Young readers have thoroughly embraced Bird. “I’ve found that kids love Jewel and John, and they love how some of the adults in the story change over time, too. The story surprises them: both with the plot as well as with the characters. And they become curious about the different elements in the book: love of na-ture and the outdoors, curiosity about other cultures, and even curiosity about silence. One young girl, after reading the book, said that she was the loudest kid she knew, but after reading the book she thought she’d give silence a try. I thought that was a high compliment, indeed!”

Choosing a young girl for her book’s central character was more of a impulse than a careful decision for Chan. “This girl’s voice was speaking to me, telling me her story – I guess that’s okay to admit publicly, since I’m a writer. But seriously, Bird has some pretty sophisticated material in it, which is why adults really enjoy the book, too. In fact, I get some really strong responses from adults – this one guy in Germany climbed a tree with my book in hand (the kids in the book climb trees)…and he was sixty years old! In the U.S., though, it is for middle school kids – although my UK publisher put Bird for teens, which is interesting. In the book, Jewel, the protagonist, is twelve years old, and so is her best friend, John. I think that kids in middle school are starting to approach the world with a unique per-spective – on the one hand, they’re starting to see all that’s broken in the world, and on the other hand, they still know what the magical and the fantastical feels like. One foot in each world. One of my mottos is never to underestimate the

depth of kids’ understanding and questioning. Never. And so I wrote a book that underscores that belief.”

Chan reports that she is at work on another novel aimed at middle – grade readers. She’s also busy visiting schools and making the festival circuit. She’s surprised that in 2015 people still get asked, “What are you?” in a clumsy attempt to learn more about a person’s heritage. She says that living in Chicago with all its diversity means she doesn’t face questions like that very much anymore, but that level of insensitivity never really seems to disappear. “I’m active on Face-book groups where mixed-race people talk about receiving questions like this, so I know it still happens, and all the time. When I do get the question, I feel frus-trated, unseen, and sad. There’s so much more to people than the labels society gives us, whether they be gender, race, whatever. And that’s another reason why I wrote Bird – to explore beyond labels, to discover those qualities that are both unique and universal within each one of us.”

Brett ChristophersonAuthor of Over and Back - Mickey Crowe The Strange and Troubled Life of a Wisconsin High School Basketball Legend

Brett Christopherson reports for Post – Crescent Media, specializing in digital content and sports, and in 2013 published what has to be a dream project for any sports enthusiast. Over and Back - Mickey Crowe The Strange and Troubled Life of a Wisconsin High School Basketball Legend follows the rise and fall of a Wiscon-sin high school basketball star. Christopherson spoke with family and friends of Crowe, and plowed through piles of old newspaper articles in an attempt to cap-ture the most comprehensive report of Crowe’s sto-ry. He’ll share that process with folks at the Fox Cities Book Festival this April. “I’ll be discussing the legend of Mickey Crowe, his continued relevance among Wis-

consin sports icons despite him achieving his fame during a high school career that ended 40 years ago, his debilitating fall as he dealt with mental illness, de-pression, drugs and alcohol and how the book project served as a source of ther-apy,” says Christopherson. “Opening up and telling his story has helped Mickey achieve a sense of inner peace and closure as he continues to shift his life from – in his words – ‘drift to direction.’”

What began as a feature story for his paper evolved into a full – fledged book – writing endeavor. “I’ve always been enamored with sports history and biogra-phies and had heard about the Crowe legend while growing up in Wisconsin. I always wondered what had happened to him, so I reached out to a family friend and arranged a face-to-face interview in Mickey’s hometown of Eau Claire. We ended up having a great two-hour conversation, and I turned the meeting into a sports feature that ran in The Post-Crescent. But because I had so much unused material from that interview, I was convinced I could write a book about his life. So I approached him about my idea, he pledged support and we ended up hav-ing many more discussions throughout the years as I sought to tell the story of one of the more intriguing and iconic figures in Wisconsin sports history.”

Fortunately for Christopherson, building the framework for his book with back-ground details wasn’t terribly difficult. “Mickey’s family was very helpful, as were former teammates and those who chronicled his playing days in the 1970s. The research wasn’t as difficult as it was time-consuming. I’d often start writing but would then run into more questions that required me to search through piles of


AUTHOR BIOS

old newspaper articles and Mickey’s own clippings and mementos. So I spent a lot of time looking through articles and things like that. The most frustrating as-pect of the research was trying to hunt down old photos and video clips. Thank-fully, I was able to put together a decent collection of photos through images loaned by the Crowe family and other research sources, but I was surprised to find many newspapers had gotten rid of old negatives. And I was surprised to learn that TV stations typically didn’t archive old footage.”

Christopherson says that response to the 2013 book has been positive. “I’ve received a lot of emails and phone calls from folks telling me how much they enjoyed reading the book. And we’ve had strong turnouts at the five signings we’ve had throughout the state: Appleton, Ashwaubenon, Eau Claire, Madison and Manitowoc. We have another signing scheduled for March 4 in Stevens Point, and I anticipate we’ll have another strong turnout since Mickey played in the central part of the state, as well. It’s a tribute to Mickey, what he was able to accomplish and the impact he had that he’s still remembered so strongly 40 years after he graduated from high school. There might have been better players that have come through the state high school basketball circuit, but no player before or since has garnered so much hype, intensity and scrutiny. One of my personal highlights was stopping by Barnes & Noble in Appleton around Christmas of that year and being told by a sales associate that the book had sold out. The title had been moved from the bottom shelf of the Wisconsin section to the main sports section with three facings on the top shelf.”

Cathryn CofellAuthor of Sister Satellite

The Fox Cities Book Festival is not just a get – to-gether for novelists. Poetry will enchant audiences at several venues during the week. Cathryn Cofell is one of several poets heading to the festival. In addition to Sister Satellite, she has six chapbooks of poetry under her belt, and finds collaboration with other artists valu-able. “While the Fox Cities Book Festival has a rich his-tory of celebrating writers and books from around the globe, you don’t need to travel far to find some of the country’s best poets,” asserts Cofell. “Several years ago, I worked with Karla Huston to create a series of events that would highlight some of this regional talent. With

such a positive turnout and response from attendees, Poets Among Us has be-come an annual event. I’m excited to be joined by Megan Gannon, who is the new Assistant Professor of English at Ripon College, and Bill Gillard, who teaches at UW-Fox Valley.”

The rhythm of poetry met its musical match when Cofell teamed up with the artist, Obvious Dog (Bruce Dethlefsen) for the 2010 release of Lip. “I grew up with music,” says Cofell. “My mom taught herself how to play the piano; she loved Broadway show tunes! I took piano lessons myself, switched over to saxophone and played into my junior year of college when poetry took over. Rhythm and sound continue to inspire my work, but the actual pairing of my poems to mu-sic was pushed into existence by my friend Bruce Dethlefsen (former Wisconsin Poet Laureate) and three free hours in a recording studio (part of a prize for win-ning a poetry contest). Bruce and fellow musician Bill Orth spent several months creating music to support my poems or pairing my poems to songs they’d al-ready written. From their hard work, our CD “Lip” was born and we’ve continued to perform live and create new sounds, songs and pairings as time permits.”

Cofell worked as an advisor to former Governor Tommy Thompson on the es-tablishment of the Wisconsin Poet Laureate, as well as chairing the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission. She explains that it isn’t just a symbolic title. “The poet laureate plays a crucial role in keeping the arts accessible and vital—to all age groups—and acts as an ambassador for poetry and creativity and its impor-tance in the cultural life of Wisconsin. So many of life’s most crucial celebrations and ceremonies -- births, dedications, weddings, inaugurations, funerals -- are made fuller and more meaningful by the gift of poetry and music...yet so many people, when asked, seem to fear poetry for its (often) misperceived complexity. Through the Wisconsin Poet Laureate program, we’ve been able to change that fear to joy in thousands upon thousands of lives in this state and beyond.”

Susan DolanAuthor of The End-of-Life Advisor: Personal, Legal and Medi-cal Considerations for a Peaceful, Dignified Death

It’s the subject most people love to avoid. Whether it’s planning one’s parents’ care or making one’s own arrangements, the very idea of planning what should be done at the end of life can seem so intimidating. This is where Susan Dolan, a registered nurse and an attorney steps in. She serves as a healthcare consul-tant and an end-of-life advisor. Dolan co – authored the award – winning book, The End-of-Life Advisor: Personal, Legal and Medical Considerations for a Peace-ful, Dignified Death. At the Fox Cities Book Festival she will speak about getting the conversations about one’s end – of – life wishes going at the right time. “The

presentation is intended to benefit patients, loved ones, caregivers, healthcare professionals, lawyers, healthcare consumers and students,” explains Dolan. “I will deliver a message of reassurance and hope using real-life stories and prac-tical step-by-step guidance to dramatically improve the quality of end-of-life for everyone involved. A key takeaway message is to document wishes and have the “conversation” around end-of-life now--don’t wait until there is a dramatic change in a loved one’s health or, even worse, when he/she can no longer speak for themselves. As the stories I’ll share illustrate, documenting wishes and having conversations allows our loved one’s wishes to become known--which ultimately becomes a loving legacy.”

The group most likely to reject the discussion of planning for the end of life isn’t the group farthest from death. “Young people consistently surprise me with their openness to learn more about planning and preparing for end-of-life care. Their motivation and interest is often sparked because a relative, friend, co-work-er or someone in the news has been diagnosed with a terminal illness, experi-enced hospice or has died. They immediately think about other people in their circle or themselves and how they want to be treated at end-of-life. Smart phone advance care planning apps like MyDirectives.com simplify the process of com-pleting an advance directive for busy young adults. Tools such as MyDirectives are appealing because they enable people to express and record their choices now--in the context of their lives today. Those choices could change as life chang-es, but that’s the beauty of an online tool that can be updated as often as need-ed--easily and seamlessly.”

Dolan reports that feedback for her books has been rewarding for her, espe-cially when a reader truly embraces her message. One letter said, “You have man-aged to make the subject of death ‘unscary’, which is not an easy thing to do. I


AUTHOR BIOS

have read LOTS of books about end-of-life care and the importance of planning for end-of-life health care decisions. I can honestly say that your book is the best all-around, concise, easy to read book I’ve read.” Dolan says that comments like that help her to know her book delivered the intended message on a topic that is difficult and emotional for most of us.

Megan GannonAuthor of Cumberland

Megan Gannon seems to be doubly – gifted, as moves with ease between writing poetry and writing narrative fiction. Her novel, Cumberland involves twin sisters in starkly different worlds and gives an intimate vision of their arresting story. For Gannon, both genres have their place and season. “They fulfill such different needs in me,” she admits. “Poetry is my religion and fiction is my recreation. Poetry takes a lot more wool - gathering and other – poet - reading and wall - staring, so it’s often better suited for the summer months. Fic-tion is nice during the fall and winter, because I can just sit down and pick up where I left off.”

For the twins in Cumberland, Gannon didn’t pull from research in a tradition-al sense, but relied on something more instinctive. “I did a lot of research for Cumberland, but I actually didn’t research anything about twins at all. I’ve experi-enced two or three symbiotic mind - meld friendships in my life, one of which was with my sister, so I suppose I just drew upon that. I hope it worked.”

This poet and novelist earned degrees from Vassar College, the University of Montana, and the University of Nebraska – Lincoln. She currently teaches at Ri-pon College in Ripon, Wisconsin.

There are more distinctive and intriguing publications coming from Gannon in the near future. “I’m on the final, arduous, make-every-sentence-sparkle stage of revising a second novel,” says Gannon. “It’s called Claim, and it’s set in the min-ing camp of Jerome, Arizona in 1898. It’s kind of a panoramic story--much wider scope with more characters and plot lines that overlap and intersect in this tiny town. This book took a ton of research--on mining, on food and clothes and prod-ucts and household amenities in 1898, on the history of Jerome and prostitution and important town figures and the layout of the town--but it was all fun. Still, I hope to finish revising it by the early part of the summer so I can move on to some poems. I’m amassing notes and semi-drafts for some poems about chronic pain, with some tributes to Frida Kahlo.”

When she visits the Fox Cities Book Festival, Gannon will read a few of her po-ems from her new collection, White Nightgown.

Jessie GarciaAuthor of “My Life with the Green and Gold: Tales from 20 Years of Sportscasting,”

Wisconsin has never suffered from a shortage of fervent sports fans. But, histor-ically, when it came to journalists reporting on sports, there was a definite short-age of women on the scene. Jessie Garcia took her love of sports and carved a path in the television news industry by becoming the state’s first female sports re-porter. She was a Packers sideline reporter and host of both “The Mike Holmgren Show” and “The Mike McCarthy Show.” She works at WTMJ in Milwaukee and has

just published a memoir of her years following some rather famous teams and individuals called, “My Life with the Green and Gold: Tales from 20 Years of Sports-casting.”

Garcia plans to share some behind – the – scenes stories from the high profile sporting events she has covered when she visits the Fox Cities Book Festival. “I also have some fun videos to share and will do a Q & A on Wisconsin sports and on being a woman/mom in a male-dominated field,” Garcia says.

Writing the memoir was not a difficult decision for her. “I felt I had some funny experiences that people might enjoy reading about,” Garcia explains. “I wanted to tell about my struggles balancing work and kids as well as some of the early challenges with being Wisconsin’s first female sports anchor. I wanted to peel back the curtain on what it’s like at a TV station and how we cover major events like a Super Bowl and finally, I had many interactions with famous athletes and coaches and I got to see them more as humans than as superstars. I wanted to share some of these moments that hopefully humanize names like Brett Favre, Mike Holmgren and Mike McCarthy.”

Though she wasn’t one to keep journals, Garcia believes she has a good mem-ory for the people, the conversations, and the details that make up the book. “I verified stories with others who were there and I’m lucky to work in a business where much of what we do is on videotape so I consulted stories directly for ex-act quotes.”

So far the response to Garcia’s memoir has been positive. “The feedback has been great! People seem to enjoy hearing about a reporter’s life and also learn-ing many new things about the Packers and other sports teams that they never knew.”

Garcia is quick to point out how proud she is of the television news industry and the way women have made their mark on it. “My profession has changed for the better (much better) for female sports journalists. In fact, a young female sportscaster would have an edge over males entering the field today because many stations would like to hire a qualified woman. Whether or not that is fair is a valid question that I am more than willing to debate with people. There is also a lot of talk about where this profession is headed-- i.e. are local TV stations and newspapers dying? Perhaps they are, but I still believe there will always be a place for a talented and hard-working journalist. I will say though that you need to be much more Internet savvy now and also be comfortable being on camera. Even print journalists need to tape video chats and things of the like and that will likely only grow in the future.”

Writing books seems to be something Garcia was called to do, as she has a second book out now called, “No Stone Unturned,” a non – fiction account of the FitzRandolph family from Verona, whose son won an Olympic medal and whose daughter fought cancer. “This book chronicles their life journey-- from the high-est of highs to the lowest of lows-- and also details why they chose to fight her cancer with alternative medicine and what they think worked and didn’t. The third book is still untitled. It’s the history of Olympians who have Wisconsin con-nections. The book goes from 1900-present day detailing various Olympics and the Wisconsinites who competed in them. It will be published by the same pub-lisher as the first, the Wisconsin Historical Society Press.”

Garcia is also an adjunct professor of journalism in the Milwaukee area and is married with two boys.


AUTHOR BIOS

Susan GlossAuthor of Vintage

Inspiration can come from just about any source, even a second – hand source. Susan Gloss is an author with an eye for the styles of the middle part of the last century. Her debut novel, Vintage, clearly takes notes from Gloss’ interest in the look of Mad Men. Charac-ters in her novel all frequent a shop called, Hourglass Vintage, set in Madison, Wisconsin. Readers have em-braced this story for its depiction of women coming to-gether to support each other through the rough seas of life. Gloss’ presentation at the Fox Cities Book Fes-tival is entitled, Second Chances: How Thrift Store Finds Inspired a Novel. She says she will discuss the ideas and the process behind her novel, as share of her experi-

ences when getting Vintage published. Have questions? Gloss is happy to an-swer them.

The story of this book’s publication is a tale of determination. “I started Vintage in the spring of 2010 and finished the first draft by the end of that year,” Gloss explains. “I revised and rewrote the manuscript on and off for another eighteen months on my own before I signed with a literary agent. Once I began work-ing with my agent, she and I went through two more rounds of revisions before shopping it around to publishers. After the book sold to HarperCollins, my editor and I went through even more revisions before the book was published in 2014. So when I add up the time from when I first came up with the idea to when the book appeared on book store shelves, it totals about 4 years!”

When it comes to getting the characters in a novel just right, this graduate of the University of Notre Dame says that each revision improved the story. “For me, that’s where the layers of complexity come in. With each pass I make of the man-uscript, I add details that enrich the character’s back story and conflicts.”

Gloss says that the experience of touching others through her book makes the long process worthwhile. “Connecting with readers is why I write, so I love hearing from readers. Of course, not every person who picks up my book will love it, and I’ve learned to be okay with that. But when I hear that a particular character or scene resonated with someone, it makes all the long hours spent en-trenched in the writing process worth it. I hear from quite a few readers through my website. It always brightens my day when a reader takes the time to write me an email, and I try to respond to as many as I can.”

When she’s not working, Gloss still likes to take in a little vintage shopping around town. “For good old thrift store shopping, the St. Vincent de Paul store on Williamson Street can’t be beat. My favorite place for well-curated, mint condition vintage dresses and accessories is Good Style Shop which, coincidentally, moved to a location on Johnson Street--which is where Hourglass Vintage, the fictional shop in the novel, is located.”

Already hard at work on her second novel, Gloss, a wife and mother of a son says these days she is all about the mod style of Jean Shrimpton. She has even thrown dress – up parties for past Mad Men premieres. So who knows? Maybe you’ll bump into Gloss someday when browsing your favorite vintage shop in our state’s capitol. Be sure to let he know how much you liked reading Vintage! In the meantime, check out her blog, GlossingOverIt at SusanGloss.com.

A.T. HaesslyAuthor of The Beginning of War

Anthony Haessly has been intrigued by stories of the Apocalypse for many years. This interest has been wo-ven into his novel, The Beginning of War, which came out last year. Here the author takes elements of the myth and sculpts a modern interpretation filled with revenge and adventure. “My interest in the plot, and my entire series, came to me through both religious and entertainment mediums,” says Haessly. “I always enjoyed the stories of the end times of all different re-ligions. In these tales humanity is driven to transform to prove its worth. And though some deeper meanings and the stories may be controversial to some, I wanted to write the end times from a unique perspective. So

I made the Horsemen humans. The Apocalypse has always been an interesting topic for me because of its numerous interpretations. Anywhere from Ragnarok to excitable people looking at a Mayan calender, I enjoy the stories and the idea of a pivotal moment for humanity.”

Haessly lives in the Fox Valley area and says the book took about a year to write, but he’s already close to finished with revisions on his second book. Conquest of Gods involves the first Horseman and his rise to power. “He is from ancient Rome and is tasked with handling gods that have betrayed the Maker and balance,” Haessly explains. “The third book pertaining to Famine has also been started. And there will be plenty more to come.”

Steve HazellAuthor of The Kindred Path

When a writer shares deeply personal experiences and emotions in his written work, the hope is to forge a meaningful connection with readers. Steve Hazell felt compelled to do this after reflecting on his friend’s life, along with his own civic and artistic accomplish-ments. His book, The Kindred Path follows Hazell’s life in the folk music scene in the Fox Cities, his participation in the 2011 demonstrations in Madison, and his friend, Bob Weitzel’s adventure on Lake Superior, which was tragically cut short. “It wasn’t until after Bob had died that I thought of writing The Kindred Path,” explains Ha-zell. “After Bob died I spent time getting to know him

better by searching out things he had written and put on the Internet and videos he had posted. As I learned more about Bob, I thought about the impact that he had on my life, and I came to believe that there was a story waiting to be told. I felt that Bob wanted me to write that story.”

Hazell seems to have embraced the role of author and recounts how the pro-cess required a range of intellectual efforts. “I imagine it’s very common for au-thors to assume different identities as they go through the stages of writing a book. Before I started writing I felt like an explorer, sifting through the sources I’d gathered over the years for threads I needed to follow, digging up old photo-graphs and articles, and searching for new information and verifying things on the Internet. Once I started writing in earnest, I felt like a keyboard player, with each chapter being “played” on a different perspective. I orchestrated the differ-ent parts into a coherent piece. Finally, when I was finished, I felt like a baker. I’d


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taken separate parts, mixed them together, and was ready to share my finished creation with the world. I am very proud of the finished book.”

Hazell’s wife, Vivian, served as his editor for The Kindred Path. “I have respect for her ability and am very comfortable taking her advice. She has helped with many things I’ve written, so it felt totally natural to have her give input on the book.”

As a prolific folk song writer, Hazell is confident when he says there are similari-ties in the two writing disciplines. “Writing a book is definitely similar to writing a folk song,” he notes. “In both cases you are sharing a part of yourself that is deeply personal, but that you hope is also universal so it has meaning for others. You take a leap of faith and follow inspiration, trying to create a mood. Each chapter is like a verse.” He admits that it took him many years to write his first book, but with the level of heartfelt reflection in The Kindred Path, the wait was worthwhile.

April Henry Author of Adult Suspense Novels and Novels for Teens

April Henry grew up poor in a small Oregon town. At the time, Medford, Oregon had about 18,000 residents and the economy was based on timber and pears. While my family didn’t have much money, thanks to the local library, we were rich in books.

According to her parents, she started to read at the age of three. Henry remembers her mom teaching her with alphabet flash cards. White with a picture of an object on one side and a letter on the other, those cards glowed with magic. Her mom was a florist and her dad was a TV broadcaster.

When she was 12, she sent Roald Dahl, the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a short story about a frog named Herman who loved peanut butter. The day he received it, Dahl had lunch with the editor of an international children’s magazine and read her the story. She contacted Henry and asked to publish it.

But as she got older, even though she read all the time, April didn’t even dream of being a writer. It would have been like thinking she could fly by flapping my arms really, really hard. Henry put away my dreams, got a business degree from Oregon State University, and graduated into a terrible job market.

Eventually, Henry got a job in hospital admitting with lots of down time and started thinking maybe she could try to write a book about the life and death that surrounded me every day. She was finally pushed into trying to do something about it when she read a really bad book. She could, Henry figured, write a book that was at least better than that book.

That first book Henry wrote attracted no interest from agents. Her second book got her an agent (and they’re still together many years and many books later) and nice rejection letters from editors. Her third book didn’t even get nice rejection letters from editors. Her fourth book, Circles of Confusion, sold in two days. It was like an eight-year overnight success.

Since then, she’s written more than a dozen mysteries and thrillers for teens and adults. The first in the Triple Threat Club series, co-written with Lis Wiehl, was on the New York Times bestseller list for four weeks. It was followed by Hand of Fate, Heart of Ice and Eyes of Justice. They have a new series that begins with A Matter of Trust.

Her books have been short-listed for the Agatha Award, the Anthony Award, and the Oregon Book Award, and chosen twice for Booksense by the indepen-dent booksellers of America. They have been translated into Chinese, Japanese,

Spanish, Dutch, German, Polish, French, and Turkish.

She is married and lives in Portland, Oregon. They have one daughter who is going to college. In her free time, she loves kung fu (she has a purple belt), Brazil-ian jujitsu, running, cooking, and of course, reading!

Mike HoeftAuthor of The Bingo Queens of Oneida: How Two Moms Started Tribal Gaming in Wisconsin

Discovering a great story right under one’s nose can be one of the most gratify-ing moments in writing. Dan Hoeft was born in Green Bay, and had a career as a reporter for the Green Bay Press – Gazette, but it was at his wife’s urging that he looked into the backstory of the Oneida Bingo enter-prise. What Hoeft found was a culturally rich story about the building of a recreational business that went on to help sustain the Oneida Tribe through uncertain economic times. The result was, The Bingo Queens of Oneida: How Two Moms Started Tribal Gaming in Wis-consin. “Well, it was my wife’s idea,” Hoeft says. “I’m white, my wife, Patty, is Oneida. She was a teenager when her mom, Sandy Ninham, and Alma Webster helped start Oneida Bingo in 1976 to pay the bills at

a struggling civic center. Patty and her siblings worked bingo as a family. Bingo grew and soon began financing other tribal programs to aid the elderly and the needy. This was before Indian casinos. It was not clear in federal law if tribes could run bingo outside of state law. The state of Wisconsin believed Oneida Bingo was illegal and threatened to arrest the bingo managers and shut down the bingo hall. A tribal chairman and three attorneys played crucial roles in what happened next.”

It took a dramatic change in Hoeft’s life to allow him time to delve into this story. “It’s a true story that’s largely unknown to the general public. For years Patty told me somebody ought to write a book about the two women. I thought someone else would write it. I was busy with my career as a newspaper reporter at the Green Bay Press-Gazette. Then I went through a serious health scare with lymphoma cancer in 2009. Time was suddenly precious, and I felt this was a story worth telling now. When I recovered from chemo, I decided to quit my job on the newspaper so I could write the book. It was kind of a risky move to be jobless. But I’m glad I did it. As I started interviewing people, the more intrigued I became by the story. It went much deeper than I thought.”

The book took four years to research, write, and edit. And in that time, Hoeft got to know key people within the tribe and gained valuable insight into the Tribe’s past. “Many people said the bingo story needed to be told. The Cultural Heritage Department was a big help in tracking down records and photo archives to sup-plement what Sandy and Alma told me. Dr. Carol Cornelius, department man-ager at the time, came up with the analogy of bingo being the new corn crop. Tribal Historian, Loretta Metoxen graciously shared stories with me. I interviewed many Oneidas who had stories about the late Tribal Chairman, Purcy Powless, a defender of bingo. He referred to bingo managers as “the bingo queens” and his nickname for them inspired the book’s title. The tribal council granted permission to use documents and photos in the book. And Tribal Communications Director, Bobbi Webster served as emcee for a book launch in May at the tribally owned Radisson Hotel and Conference Center. I donate all profits from my book sales to the Purcell Powless Scholarship Fund, which assists tribal members with business education. I want to give back a little in return for all the Oneida community has


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done for my family. Indian nations still face many threats to their existence. Will bingo and gaming be tools that strengthen Oneida tribal culture, or hasten its end? That’s the challenge for the next generation.”

So, does Hoeft enjoy a game of bingo himself? “No,” Hoeft says. “Strangely enough, I don’t like to play bingo, cards or gamble. I don’t really enjoy any games. Still, isn’t life itself a bit of a gamble? We take risks playing with life decisions ev-ery day. I bring an outsider’s perspective to this topic. Just what is the fascination with playing bingo? People told me the attraction is to build friendships and so-cialize as much as it is to win money. Some players got to be lifelong friends with bingo workers.”

In his presentation at the Fox Cities Book Festival, Hoeft says he will have a PowerPoint slide show, questions and answers, and soup. This might very well be the only presentation at the 2015 FCBF to include soup as part of the discussion. Hoeft says soup (corn soup – a traditional Oneida food) and bingo have helped to sustain the Oneida people through hard times. “And we can thank women for developing both of them,” points out Hoeft. “Our friend, Laura Manthe, will talk briefly about how women farmed the “Three Sisters” crops of corn, beans and squash, the mainstay food of Iroquois people from time immemorial. Onei-da warriors shared their corn soup with starving American soldiers wintering at Valley Forge during the Revolutionary War. Corn soup was a lifesaver! Bingo has been called the new corn crop, and women were behind it, too. So this book is also a story about the power of women. The bingo moms are modest and humble about accepting credit. I think what they did was heroic, not unlike what women anywhere do for their communities.”

Hoeft currently works with the Oneida Tribe Child Support Agency, as a para-legal. For his next publishing project he has been considering a book sequel, or possibly a screenplay.

John Jackson MillerAuthor of Star Wars: New Dawn and Star Trek: The Next Gen-eration: Takedown

Any Star Wars fan will tell you that John Jackson Miller has a dream job. The author gets to create new adventures and scenarios for some of the most beloved fictional characters in pop-ular culture. His Star Wars novels include 2014’s Star Wars: A New Dawn, the first work created in conjunc-tion with the new Lucasfilm Story Group; the New York Times bestseller Star Wars: Kenobi, winner of the 2013 Scribe Award for Best Original Tie-In Novel – Specula-tive Fiction; Star Wars: Knight Errant, Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith, as well as twenty graphic novels, including ten Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic volumes from Dark Horse. His first Start Trek novel, The Next Genera-tion: Takedown, is out this year.

Jackson will be a big draw at the Fox Cities Book Festival, to be sure. Fans of comics, science fiction, and science fantasy, will want to hear from the author about his approach to his work, and his plans for forthcoming novels or comics. Jackson, who has been to the FCBF before, says he’ll try his best to give the crowd what they want. “I’ll be speaking about my writing both in novels and in comics, and the various franchises I’ve written for, ranging from Star Wars and Star Trek to video game franchises like Mass Effect to comic familiars like Iron Man and The Simpsons. As a fan of a variety of different things, I have tried to look for ways to play in a lot of different sandboxes. I know there are people who are interested in

herding about the particular worlds I’ve written in, but also in how I got started and what my process is. I’ll try to answer as many questions as I can.”

Jackson works in an unusual avenue of the literary world, one where enthusias-tic fans feel a sense of ownership of the franchise they’ve come to know and love. It’s good to have an audience, but this one can be a little intimidating. “Certainly the fans feel passionately about the worlds we’re writing in, and they want some-thing that feels like what they remember,” says Jackson. “Fortunately that isn’t too difficult to arrange, because most writers of tie-in fiction are fans themselves. I sort of know what kinds of incidents and what lines of dialogue feel right in a Star Wars book, as opposed to a Star Trek book or something else. Having had that extra experience from the start makes it more likely that the eventual work will ring true to a reader.”

Jackson, who has a Master’s in Comparative Politics from Louisiana State Uni-versity, admits he has been able to model some elements in his fiction after the political dramas going on in reality. “It’s funny, given that I am often writing about science-fiction or fantasy settings, how many times I have been able to draw upon real-life history for ideas or inspiration. The New Dawn novel, for ex-ample, is about a time in which the Galactic Empire is consolidating its power and transforming the Republic from a trade organization into a military powerhouse; that gave me the chance to borrow some ideas from my own studies of the rise of the Soviet Union, and the period of industrialization there. There are never direct parallels, of course — J.R.R. Tolkien rejected the suggestion that there were spe-cific real-life nations represented by each of the races in his stories. But certainly there are places where an event you’re writing about will have the same feeling as something else from world history, and you can draw a little on that to get more comfortable in the story you’re telling.”

2015 is an important year for any Star Wars fan, as the next installment, The Force Awakens, arrives in theaters this December. Jackson will be right there in line with the rest of the excited movie – goers. “I’m definitely excited about the new film — films, really, because a lot more are coming out. I will be signing at Star Wars Celebration (in Anaheim, California) for my publisher, Random House; Star Wars: A New Dawn will be out in paperback in time for the show, and I will also have an original short story in the April issue of Star Wars: Insider magazine. That’s my stop right before the Fox Cities Book Festival.”

When this busy author isn’t writing books or signing them, he’s happy to kick back and read both fiction and non – fiction. “On the fiction side of things I’m working my way through Patrick O’Brian’s naval series that was the basis of the movie Master and Commander; I’m eleven books in. There’s a naval theme in gen-eral — probably the best book I’ve read in the last several years was Herman Wouk’s classic The Caine Mutiny. On the non-fiction side I read a lot about televi-sion and pop cultural history, one of my hobbies: Saul Austerlitz’s Sitcom and Alan Light’s Let’s Go Crazy are two of my recent favorites.”

Sandy JohnsonAuthor of Wisconsin’s Rock Island -- Images in Paint-

ings and Verse, uses history, poetry, art and music to tell this amazing true story. The Rock Island Passage was the waterway used along with the Fox River by ex-plorers to open up trade and settlement in what was to become the Wisconsin Territory in 1835. Her presen-tation is geared to more students grade 5 & up, but she is very interesting to adults also.


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Mary KubicaAuthor of The Good Girl and Pretty Baby

Mary Kubica enjoys the challenge of keeping readers hooked on her suspenseful stories. Just like the reader, she says she enjoys the experience of discovering the twists and revelations that make the stories so grip-ping. She says she’ll be discussing her debut as a nov-elist at the Fox Cities Book Festival, as well as her jour-ney to publication in her career as a suspense author. “I am so honored to be attending the Fox Cities Book Festival this year,” Kubica says. “I can’t wait to meet fel-low authors and readers throughout the Fox Cities area and get the opportunity to share my experiences with them.”

Mysteries and thrillers seem like daunting books to write, but for Kubica, it’s the kind of test she loves. “Catching the reader unaware would definitely be the big-gest challenge in writing a mystery,” explains Kubica. “I attempt to create strong, multifaceted characters that will appeal to the reader on some level, but ultimate-ly the story itself is of vital importance. The groundwork needs to be laid correctly so that when the twist is revealed at the end, the reader doesn’t see it coming, and yet, the twist isn’t so impossible that the reader finds it farfetched and unbe-lievable. This can be a tricky task. One of my favorite parts in writing suspense novels is placing clues along the path to help guide the reader, or in some cases, to misguide them and keep the reader guessing all the way to the end.”

She says the comparisons of her novel, The Good Girl to Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl haven’t bothered her at all. “Not in the least bit. Gone Girl is such a tremendous hit that I feel the comparisons have done nothing but help promote The Good Girl. People either agree with the comparison or they don’t. I, myself, certainly see areas where the books are similar in nature, and areas were they are strikingly different. Gillian Flynn is such a talented author, and I’m a huge fan. I am truly honored by the comparison.”

After her first novel became successful, Kubica charged ahead with novel num-ber two. “Pretty Baby was quite a different experience than The Good Girl for me for many reasons,” says Kubica. “First, I had a deadline, and I had never written with a deadline before. Second, I needed to have a proposal approved, and was working on edits for The Good Girl while simultaneously writing Pretty Baby – so I quickly learned the value of multitasking. That said, I learned a lot about my-self and about storytelling while working on The Good Girl. This benefited me immensely on my second novel and will continue to benefit me for future works as well. I wrote The Good Girl in secret, and sent if off to agents without a single friend or family member checking for typos. With Pretty Baby, on the other hand, I had a tremendous support network of friends, family, a devoted agent and a brilliant editor. Pretty Baby came together quite smoothly, though my third novel is now giving me great grief. I don’t think novels get easier or harder along the way; I believe they are all their own independent (and sometimes very stubborn) beings. They provide me with great enjoyment. I love what I do. My hope is that I, as the author, will learn from each of my novels and continue to improve in my craft.”

Good writers tend to be avid readers, and Kubica is no exception. “Mysteries and thrillers are always my go-to as a reader,” she asserts. “Though I’m an avid reader of all genres, it’s by far my first pick. I’m a huge admirer of such suspense authors as S.J. Watson, John Searles, Sabine Durrant, Liane Morarity and more. As an author however, in my early days of writing, I experimented with many genres,

from women’s fiction to children’s stories and more. I wasn’t certain where I be-longed. But when I started writing The Good Girl, I knew right away I’d found my niche. I don’t outline or do much in the way of brainstorming before starting a novel, and so find much joy and excitement in discovering myself how the story will end. These days, I can’t see myself writing anything other than mystery and suspense.”

Kubica holds a BA degree in History and American Literature from Miami Uni-versity in Oxford, Ohio, and says she can’t see herself writing anything other than mystery and suspense novels. She’s just signed a new contract with Harlequin MIRA for her third and fourth novels. “My third book is in the early stages of edits, while I’ve begun to brainstorm ideas for my forth. I’m also very fortunate to be traveling to quite a few conferences this spring to meet and get to know eager, enthusiastic writers and readers – and come July will be traveling to promote Pretty Baby. It’s really amazing to be able to live my dream.

Kubica lives outside of Chicago with her husband and two children and enjoys photography, gardening, and caring for the animals at a local shelter.

Lorna LandvikLorna Landvik is the author of ten novels, including

the best-selling PATTY JANE’S HOUSE OF CURL, ANGRY HOUSEWIVES EATING BON BONS, OH MY STARS and the recently published BEST TO LAUGH.

Landvik’s checkered (but legal) past includes work-ing as a chambermaid in Bavaria, winning a trip to Tahiti as a contestant on ‘$25,000 Pyramid’ (MacGyver was her partner), temping at the Playboy Mansion (it was strictly a clerical position) and walking across the country as a member of The Great Peace March.

She has acted in many theatrical productions, in-cluding a half dozen shows she conveniently wrote for

herself. Her all-improvised show, PARTY IN THE REC ROOM is a local legend, due in no small part to the margaritas she mixes up onstage.

She is currently working on two novels, one of which is a sequel to her first book. She has one husband and two daughters and lives in the beautiful blue and green state of Minnesota.

Chad LewisCo - Author of Wisconsin Road Guide to Haunted Locations

Chad Lewis promises an evening of bizarre ghosts, wicked spirits, and deadly poltergeists when he speaks to people at the Fox Cities Book Festival this April.

“Although I will feature a lot of Fox Cities locations, this presentation takes the audience on a ghostly jour-ney to some of the most haunted places in Wisconsin,” Lewis explains. “It covers the entire state of Wiscon-sin from wandering ghosts of the North Woods to a haunted B&B in Milwaukee. From phantom creatures prowling the woods to graveyard apparitions located in your own back yard, no place in Wisconsin is without its own haunting.” If you’re not intrigued yet, consider

the photos and eyewitness accounts Lewis will include during his talk. The co –


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author (along with Terry Fisk) of Wisconsin Road Guide to Haunted Locations has no intention of letting people forget there are plenty of strange and unexplained stories and incidents in the Badger State.

Over the course of three years, Lewis and Fisk visited approximately 400 loca-tions throughout the state in order to narrow down their list to the 100 points most notable for hauntings. This research was not easy. “What we found was that the directions to these places were so bad, the history was often embellished or erroneous, and there was no investigation to sort fact from fiction,” Lewis says.

Lewis says that one of his most memorable cases involves a murder that some-one got away with. “I am a bit partial to a place called Elk Lake Dam near my hometown of Eau Claire. A woman was brutally murdered out there in 1974 and the case was never solved. Since that time, numerous people believe that they have encountered the spirit of this woman who is forever trapped to spend eter-nity in the location where she met her grisly end. This was one of the first cases I ever investigated, and one in which I am still investigating now some 20 years later. The killer still remains at large and it appears as though this woman’s spirit will not rest until he is brought to justice.”

Still not convinced of haunted people or places? You don’t need to be. “I en-courage both skeptics and true believers to grab the book or come to my pre-sentations because they are often surprised to find that I am not out to convince people of ghosts one way or the other, mainly because after 20 years of research-ing the strange and unusual, I myself am left with more questions than answers. I try to use my lectures as an opportunity to present what I have found on alleged haunted places including the real history, the folklore, eye - witness accounts, and my own investigations. I present this and then leave it up to the audience to make up their own minds. What I really want is for people not to take my word on these cases, but to venture out to these places and decide for themselves whether they believe it is haunted or not.”

Next, it’s onto a truly bizarre tale from Wisconsin’s past. “Right now I am finish-ing up a book on Wisconsin Sea Serpents. What most people don’t know is that during the late 1800s and early 1900s, Wisconsin was home to over two dozen lakes, rivers, and streams that were thought to be inhabited by a giant sea mon-sters.”

Only in Wisconsin!

Douglas Beye LorieAuthor of Acaju

For his novel, Acaju, Douglas Lorie stepped out of the 21st century, and into the wild and dangerous world of Brazil in the 1700’s. The humble cashew nut was the trigger for this literary adventure, and Lorie delved whole – heartedly into his research into the socio – economic landscape of the time. “For years I carried around a recurring idea…that being to write a story about cashews,” says Lorie. “My idea was simply based on something that I loved to eat but I was not connected to a geography, characters or story line. As soon as I discovered in my research that cashews were native to Brazil, I knew where my story would

be set. When I learned about the origin of the English word, Cashew, that being an indigenous South American word, ACAJU, I knew that I had found my title. My research took me to the height of The Atlantic Slave Trade and the fact that Europe’s addiction to sugar gave rise to the largest slave population in Brazil of

any country on Earth. I also read about the history of the Jesuits in colonial Brazil and how they were at odds with the Portuguese in their determination to protect the Indigenous people from slave raiders. My novel is not overtly an “issue” novel yet during the entire writing process I was never far away from the treatment of women.”

With research playing a large role in his novel, Lorie knew he would eventually need to move beyond what was available on the web. “In this age of the Internet I had all the historical material I needed to ground myself in enough fact that would allow my imagination to soar. I read numerous articles, snippets of ob-servation and a number of passages from historical works. I looked at paintings of the period…1700s Brazil…and these images gave me a wonderful sense of the look and feel of people and their lands. Cashews and ACAJU were the hooks into my story and I knew in the first year of my writing that I would have to travel to Brazil and experience Cashew Culture first hand. So I did travel to the state of Bahia in northern Brazil where my hosts had many cashew trees growing on their property. They also made cook fires and took me through the entire process of cashew roasting, shelling. I picked ripe cashew fruit from the trees and drank smoothies made from the pulp of cashews.”

Creating strong characters in an exotic setting takes work. “I searched for vi-sual anchors that would help me fashion my characters…..clothes, jewelry, the was the rifles looked, the silver engraving on the metal of a gun, the tunics worn by indigenous women, the facial hair on a man, the kinds of trades and crafts practiced during the time. Once I had a strong sense of the visual I went to my own inner experience with obsession, yearning, love, cruelty, disappointment, despair, lust. My first chapter deals with the graphic birth of a child. I have been present during deliveries and I used everything I experienced and what I did not actually know, I tried to imagine in a plausible way. I have personally never killed or even been in a fight, but it is not difficult for me to get in touch with an anger that might want to fight or kill. I always wrote from a certainty that although my story was set centuries back, the emotions of people were the same and I relied heavily on my vibrant emotional memory.”

Lorie, a Florida native with a Bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill and a Masters in Eastern Classics from St. John’s College in Santa Fe, says he is writing a second novel involving a radical healer he used to know in the 1970’s.

Julie MataAuthor of Kate Walden Directs: Night of the Zombie Chickens

When she visits the Fox Cities Book Festival this April, Julie Mata will share some of her advice on getting one’s manuscript into the right hands. “Persistence pays off,” Mata asserts. “At the beginning, I had this notion that I would ship off my manuscript to a top New York literary agent who would pronounce it per-fect and then sell it to a publisher for huge amounts of money. It didn’t exactly happen like that! The truth is, writing a novel, finding an agent, and getting pub-lished all take a great deal of persistence, patience and hard work. I will talk about my own personal ups and downs and lessons I’ve learned along the way.”

Mata notes how vital it is to bring complexity to characters, especially when they are young. “It was important to me that my characters sound real. I tried to avoid the formula where my main character, Kate, is always nice and her antago-


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nist, Lydia, is always mean. Real life in middle school is seldom like that. Kate has some mean moments, too. And one reviewer noted that Lydia was presented “without caricature.” To me, that means I succeeded in making her character more complex—more real. Having two middle school-age daughters also helped me to capture the rhythm of conversations at that age.”

Mata took a craft that she is very familiar with and used it for the basis of her novel. Young Kate Walden is an amateur filmmaker and dreams of turning that interest into a real career one day. Mata and her husband own a video produc-tion company in Wisconsin so it’s easy to see where she finds the expertise for her central character’s all – consuming hobby. “My husband and I own a video pro-duction company and we’ve always been interested in film making,” says Mata. “We even produced our own short film, Bus Driver, which he shot and I wrote and directed. Our daughters always loved making movies with their friends and I felt that was something a lot of kids could relate to. It seemed natural to give Kate the dream of being a Hollywood director. I wanted to show that it’s okay for kids to dream big, but that dreams often require a lot of hard work. Also, I think film making is a fun activity for kids. It’s creative and collaborative and it doesn’t involve TV or video games. I even have an Instagram account, KateWaldenDirects, which offers film making tips for kids. I’d love to see more kids making movies!”

It would seem almost impossible to write a book like this without some reflec-tion of an author’s past working its way in. “I didn’t base this story on anything from my childhood but it’s funny how certain elements do sneak in. My older brother thinks Kate’s whiny sibling, Derek, is based on our younger brother—be-cause it couldn’t possibly be him, of course! I did have a redheaded friend who struggled at times with being teased. I didn’t set out to write about her, but in a roundabout way I guess I did.” And when it comes to writing, Mata says she loves the work more than the publicity that surrounds it. “Some writers insist you have to write every day but I’m not that disciplined. Since my first book came out, it seems like I spend way too much time on promotion. If I’m writing new material, I prefer to write in the mornings. Even so, I find my brain short-circuits after about four hours. If I’m revising, I can often work all day. Revision, for me, is a bit like an addiction. It can be hard to put it down and walk away! No matter what, I love the process.”

The second novel in the Kate Walden Directs line will be out in May of 2015, called, Bride of the Slug Man. Mata says that if sales are strong she would consider writing a third book, but she admits that she’s excited about another manuscript aimed at middle – school readers called, Sword & Pillar, a fantasy adventure. “I’m really excited about it and I hope Disney Hyperion will be interested in publishing it.”

Wendy McClureWendy McClure is an author, a columnist, and a chil-

dren’s book editor. She is the author of The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie, which won the Midwest Booksellers Choice Award for nonfiction in 2011, received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, and was a Barnes & Noble Discover Pick. Her 2005 memoir, I’m Not the New Me, was featured in publications such as Time Magazine, USA Today, Elle, and the San Francisco Chronicle. Her infamous online collection of vintage Weight Watcher recipe cards and commentary was published in the 2006 humor book The Amazing Mackerel Pudding

Plan. Since 2004 she has written the pop culture column for BUST Magazine. Ad-

ditionally, her work has appeared in publications such as The New York Times Magazine, Glamour, The Chicago Sun-Times, and on the radio program This American Life. She has an MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop.

Her work in children’s books includes her historical fiction series, Wander-ville, and she has edited over fifty novels and picture books for children as a se-nior editor at Albert Whitman & Company.

She was born in Oak Park, Illinois, and now lives in Chicago with her husband, Chris, in a neighborhood near the river.

Doc MehlWith one foot in the past and one in the present, Doc

weaves the history and the mystery of the West into his original “westclectic” poetry and music. His debut mu-sic CD is titled “Asphalt Cowboy,” and his second music CD titled “I’d Rather Be…” was released in 2008. Doc Mehl has also published a CD of original poetry titled “Cowboy Pottery,” and a second spoken-word poetry CD titled “The Great Divide” in 2013, named “Cowboy Poetry CD of the Year” by both the Western Music Asso-ciation and the Academy of Western Artists. And you can find Doc hanging out with the inimitable Washtub Jerry on their duo live album, “Doc & Tub, Live!” Doc’s poems and musical lyrics have been featured on the

website www.CowboyPoetry.com, he has been published in the poetry journal “Rattle,” and he was a first-place silver buckle winner at the National Cowboy Po-etry Rodeo in Montrose, Colorado. Catch up with Doc in concert at this year’s FCBF fund raiser on April 24, 2015 at 7:30 pm at the OuterEdge Stage. Purchase tickets online at FoxCitiesBookFestival.org. You won’t regret it.

June MelbyAuthor of My Family and Other Hazards

June Melby knew for a long time that she would have to write a book about her experiences growing up. For her, it was the best way to work out her conflicting feelings on what some would call an unusual child-hood. After her parent’s abrupt purchase of the Tom Thumb Mini Golf Course, Melby and her sisters found their summers turning into chore – filled months. And then, as if to answer her prayers, the park is sold and Melby is inexplicably crushed. Collecting moments of humor from these early years and many more resulted in the endearing memoir, My Family and Other Hazards, which was released in 2014.

From the Midwest, Melby made her way out to Hollywood for a career in stand – up comedy and performance poetry. But the Heartland beckoned and Melby came back to earn an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from the University of Iowa. Her work has appeared in The Utne Reader, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Water~-Stone Review, Versal, the LA Weekly, National Lampoon Magazine, and Kaffee.Satz.Lesen, Hamburg, Germany. She currently lives in a log cabin in the woods with her husband and their cat.

For her memoir, Melby wasn’t even sure if it would be written in fiction or non-


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fiction. “I knew I was going to have to write this,” says Melby. “I mean I knew before I had ever even written prose, before I had written my first short story that I would have to write this book someday. I can’t explain it. When I started writing it I wasn’t sure it was going to be a memoir or if it would be fiction. I thought, ‘Let me just write it and see.’ And if it comes down to the point where I need to make it fiction so that there is a strong narrative, then I’ll do that. I’m going to stick to the truth as long as I can, and if I need to I will change it to a novel - writing project. I have to make sense of this part of my life, which is the best reason to write a book or any major project that is going to take years of your life. You’ve got to be really motivated personally.”

Melby reports that the book took six years to write, a time span that seems to rate as average among writers. The primary challenge in this endeavor revolved around the span of time the author wanted to capture. “The hardest part is the fact that this story covers a spread of thirty years and you can’t tell every element of that. I emphasize the basic idea that as a child I hated Tom Thumb Mini Golf. It was a great burden, and then when they sold it, I was completely heartbroken. So that’s the main story, which was for me my main drive to write it. The hardest thing is then within that narrative arc what scenes or stories do you pull from your life to help readers see what conflict you’re trying to come to terms with. It would be easier if you were writing a memoir about that crazy summer in college. That would be easier,” she says, laughing.

In penning a memoir, the use of one’s journals seems like the essential tool to have. Melby says she wasn’t a diary – writer though. “No, I was not that kid. I didn’t start writing until well after I was writing sketch comedy. I didn’t start writing prose until well into my thirties. I got into stand - up comedy in my mid – twenties, so I was writing for performance from then on. You’re crafting stories and jokes in a very concise way. I was not telling stories of any duration. But it was definitely helpful. Any writing you do will help you become a better writer in whatever genre you end up with. I did stand - up comedy for ten years and then I did performance poetry and poetry slams. And then I realized I needed to figure out how to write a longer story. It was terrifying for me. I had to write a story that goes on longer than one page.”

Melby admits the return to the Midwest was a shock to the system after life in Hollywood. “I was going to graduate school and I was in my forties. Anyone who goes back to graduate school at a non - traditional age - my hat’s off to you because it’s not easy. I think it’s okay to shake yourself up once in a while in your life, to do things that are just really humbling.” One advantage for her was the quieter lifestyle. Living in Iowa meant spending less time on commuting and attending entertainment activities, and more time on writing. “I don’t know how people finish major projects living in either coast. There are a lot of distractions, wonderful distractions.”

Work on a collection of short fiction and research her next memoir keeps Melby busy these days. “It’s going to be on my years as a stand - up comedian, and I think I’m going to call it, Bombing,” she deadpans.

Linda Sue ParkLinda Sue Park was born in Urbana, Illinois on March 25, 1960, and grew up out-

side Chicago. The daughter of Korean immigrants, she has been writing poems and stories since she was four years old, and her favorite thing to do as a child was read.

This is the first thing she ever published—a haiku in a children’s magazine when she was nine years old:

In the green forest

A sparkling, bright blue pond hides.

And animals drink.

—Trailblazer magazine, Winter 1969

For this poem she was paid one whole dollar. She gave the check to her dad for Christmas. About a year later the company wrote to her asking her to cash the check! Linda Sue wrote back explaining that it was now framed and hung above her dad’s desk and was it okay if he kept it? The magazine said it was fine, and

her dad still has that check.

During elementary school and high school, Linda Sue had several more po-ems published in magazines for children and young people. She went to Stanford University, competed for the gymnastics team, and graduated with a degree in English. Then she took a job as a public-relations writer for a major oil company. This was not exactly the kind of writing she wanted to do, but it did teach her to present her work professionally and that an interested writer can make any sub-ject fascinating (well, almost any subject ...).

In 1983, after two years with the oil company, Linda Sue left her job and moved to Dublin when a handsome Irishman swept her off her feet. She studied litera-ture, moved to London, worked for an advertising agency, married that Irishman, had a baby, taught English as a second language to college students, worked as a food journalist, and had another baby. It was a busy time, and she never even thought about writing children’s books.

In 1990, she and her family moved back to the U.S. because of her husband’s job. Linda Sue continued teaching English to foreign students. It took her quite a while, but she finally realized that what she really wanted to do was to write books for children. In 1997, she started writing her first book, Seesaw Girl. It was accepted that same year and published in 1999.

Since then, Linda Sue has published many other books for young people, in-cluding A Single Shard, which was awarded the 2002 Newbery Medal.

She now lives in western New York with the same Irishman; their son lives near-by, and their daughter lives in Brooklyn. Besides reading and writing, Linda Sue likes to cook, travel, watch movies, and do the New York Times crossword puzzle. She also loves dogs, watching sports on television and playing board and video games. When she grows up, she would like to be an elephant scientist.

Gavin SchmittAuthor of Milwaukee Mafia

Gavin Schmitt is fascinated with history. His book, Milwaukee Mafia, explores the seedier side of the city during the days of Prohibition. Schmitt’s other books include, Kaukauna, Neenah. His newest book is, The Milwaukee Mafia: Mobsters in the Heartland. He says that digging up history is all about knowing where to find the information. “I had the benefit of being taught about genealogy from my grandmother at an ear-ly age, so I’m very comfortable with digging in dusty court house records,” Schmitt says. “Once the newspa-per reports are used up, it becomes a hunt for govern-ment records -- dozens of police investigative records,


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several hundred FBI files, Department of Labor union records... and this fleshed out with biographical information from census records, city directories, marriage certificates.”

Once Schmitt learned a little history on Wisconsin’s mafia past, he was hooked. “Like most people, I was aware that organized crime existed in Chicago and New York, but had no idea about Wisconsin until a friend of mine in high school told me his mother attended school with a mob boss. This confused and intrigued me, so I started looking. The intrigue only grew when I found that no one had ever written on the subject, making each stone I overturned a new piece of history. Now I can’t stop.”

At the Fox Cities Book Festival Schmitt will share insights from his newest book, Mobsters in the Heartland, talking about the ways the Mafia in Wisconsin made money prior to the 1960’s. “Bootlegging is the obvious answer, but there was counterfeiting, labor union extortion, gambling, loan sharking, hijackings and more,” explains Schmitt. “I’d like to expand on what people typically think about Prohibition, especially Wisconsin’s role in it.”

Schmitt claims that he never encountered resistance when he probed for more information from sources. “Surprisingly, this has not been an issue. More often than not, the relatives of those I write about are excited and supportive. There’s no doubt that some family stories and photos will be secret forever, but I’d rather focus on what I can do rather than what I can’t.”

Gavin Schmitt has been a resident of the Fox Cities for over three decades, and always had a passion for history. He graduated from UW-Fox Valley and UW-Green Bay with degrees in philosophy. He says he hopes to keep exploring local and state history as long as the publishers and readers will allow him.

Kay ScholtzAuthor of The Wisconsin Krueger Family Tragedy - 16 Years of Letters from Prison

In today’s world, the art of writing a letter has not quite been lost, but it certainly gets overlooked and even mocked in favor of digital means of communi-cation. But, if it hadn’t been for letters written and saved by a Wisconsin family nearly 100 years ago, Kay Scholtz would not have opened the door on the re-markable and true story for her book. Public opinion about patriotism during the first World War led many to look unfavorably on German immigrants, even in a state heavily populated with people of German heri-tage. The tragic case of the Krueger family is one of injustice and intense family loyalty that belongs in our history lessons.

Scholtz says that reading the letters from the family members was key in understanding their plight. “Once I began reading the letters I couldn’t stop,” explains Scholtz. “It was very emotional and sometimes I felt angry. I did feel a closeness to the family members, especially Caroline and Frank. When I fin-ished reading the letters I was more determined then ever to share their story and help give them vindication. I still wonder what they would think of me sharing their story as I have.”

She says the book itself took six months to write, and then another nine

months to get printed. Scholtz, who has been interested in genealogy and lo-cal history for much of her life, says the experience has brought nice results. “Feedback has been positive for the most part. My favorite comment was one from an elderly lady when I was invited to do a reading at the Krueger house. She said it was time for this, time for healing in the community. Not many re-member the family, but one who was a neighbor to the Kruegers said he was invited as a young boy to come and pick grapes with them.” Scholtz says she’ll mainly talk about her book at the Fox Cities Book Festival. She will also stress the importance of saving the hand written letter, and how without the letters her book could not have been possible. Scholtz will also shed light on life for the Krueger family after prison.

Scholtz lives in rural central Wisconsin. She and her husband enjoy nature in all seasons where they live in their small self-built log cabin home. She loves hiking, archaeology, cross country skiing, quilting, antiques, photography, and writing non-fiction. Scholtz would like to work on another book based on fam-ily letters, diaries or journals in the future. “I’ve always had a passion for nonfic-tion history and what better way is there to tell a story than from someone who has been there firsthand. I have recently finished my memoir, about growing up in poverty and loosing my mother to breast cancer when I was young, and having cancer come into my own life just before I found a publisher for the book. I also started writing a nature blog as I love the outdoors and want every-one to appreciate what Wisconsin has to offer, even little things like snow fleas and pussy willows. Nature and writing are my tools for coping.”

Victor SchuellerAuthor of You Can Rise Above Criticism, Negativity and Con-flict, A Guide to Eliminating Negativity and Abrasive Behav-iors and Overcoming Conflict and Mediocre No More, Five Core Strategies to Awaken Your Inner Greatness

Failure to get along with others can be a stumbling block in the workplace and elsewhere, leading to countless hours lost to conflict, emotional distress, and low productivity. Author, Victor Schueller offers ideas for finding solutions to communication issues and other conflicts prevalent in everyday life. At the Fox Cities Book Festival Schueller will share strategies from his book that will help people ask for things in a way that will change behaviors in others for the bet-ter. “During my presentation I will be sharing strate-gies from my book that you can use to “listen through” the negativity and criticism and reach a resolution to

any communication problem, no matter how large or small,” explains Schueller.

Part of Schueller’s work involves what he calls, “coaching.” “When I got into coaching, it was because I wanted to help people get to where they wanted to, whether it was in how they were handling a relationship or a job, or experienc-ing a better quality of life,” he says. “As I’ve continued to do it, I’ve learned that actually coaching is essential for us because neurologically we are operating on automatic and subconscious mental programs that can get between us and where we want to be without us even knowing it. Once I made that decision, I’ve been able to better help people through coaching and see the “big pic-ture.” I am focusing primarily on coaching for businesses because I’ve had a lot


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of success there, but if individuals in the private sector think I’d be a good fit for them, I’ll always consider talking with them to see if they and I would make a good team.”

This will take some work. “I can tell people exactly what they need to do to eliminate them, but it’s the retention of the strategies and then the implemen-tation that’s the most difficult to accomplish,” says Schueller. “It takes a bit of work to get accustomed to applying the techniques and using them, but when you practice them regularly it does get a bit easier. To be honest, it’s still a daily challenge, no matter what. That’s why coaching is so important. I believe that one’s mindset is huge. If a person is enthusiastic about making a change, they’ll respond faster and with better results. I’ve had people who are doubters from day one, and it usually is much more difficult for them to change. Not to say it’s impossible, but a positive and expectant mindset can help tremendously.”

Bringing the message to the people is what Schueller says he likes most about the work of writing books. “It’s a lot of fun to take what I’ve learned and share it with other people. The books are a great vehicle for spreading a message that gives people confidence and hope. It’s kind of amusing to me when people act like writing a book is a major deal. I believe that everyone has a book in them, and it’s never been easier to get a book in print as it is now.”

Though he admits that his books contain some essence of spirituality, he would not say he places this in the center of his message. “I work really hard to try to stay away from religion and politics in my books. The main exception would be if I’m trying to make a point, and I need to refer to them to make it. I tend to talk more about spirituality, but even then I haven’t mentioned it much in either of the two books I have written up to this point. I am a spiritu-al person, but I also understand that not everyone is. I try to be as inclusive and respectful of other people’s viewpoints and beliefs as possible, and help them come to determinations about what I am trying to share in their own way. Some people who are extremely religious or spiritual have come up to me after my presentations wanting to talk about religion and spirituality, because my message reached them at that level. And, for me that’s great. However, some people can listen to the exact same presentation and take away a message that has more to do with science and research. While spirituality makes up part of the “backbone” of what I talk about, it is not the main message I share.”

Will SchwalbeAuthor of The End of Your Life Book Club

When Will Schwalbe’s mother passed on from her battle with cancer, he did something that would, in a sense, keep their conversation going. In the process of assisting his mother with her treatments, Schwalbe embarked on long discussions about books with his mother, also an avid reader. The author will share his experience with readers at the Fox Cities Book Festi-val this year. “I’ll be talking about my book, The End of Your Life Book Club,” says Schwalbe. “This is a memoir I wrote about the books my mother and read when she was dying of pancreatic cancer. But I like to think it’s really about what I learned from her, what we both learned from the books we read, and how books tell

us what we need to do with our lives and in the world.”

Schwalbe found a way to bring joy to what is commonly a joyless experi-ence. “When I was writing the book many of my friends said, ‘Oh, that’s great, that will give you closure.’ But I didn’t want closure. I wanted to continue our conversations. I found that writing the book allowed me to do that — and that traveling and talking about the book allows me to continue to do that. I’ve been really fortunate to be able to travel around the country talking about the book; wherever I’ve gone, I’ve met people who have shared with me something of their lives and their journeys. I’m really hoping that the book isn’t just my story, but is a prompt for people to share their stories. I did wind up with the book I wanted — because the book helps me remember my mother and all she taught me. Writing brought me a lot of joy. And it allowed me to introduce people to many of the books my mother and I loved the most. And that gives me joy, too.”

Schwalbe was an editor before he became an author, and the experience was nothing if not helpful. “I always wrote — starting in grade school,” says Schwal-be. “I wrote plays in college. I was a journalist right after. And I kept on writing. But I also love editing. I think the one thing you need to do, whether you are a writer or an editor, is read. Reading is everything. It teaches you how to write and it teaches you how to edit. So that’s the common thread. I will say that one of the things I most appreciate as a writer is good editing. I was incredibly lucky to have a great editor — a man named Marty Asher. And boy was I ever grateful for the editing I got. I think being an editor made me particularly aware of what a gift editing is for a writer.”

Getting people to share their love of reading with each other remains a key point of satisfaction for Schwalbe. “The most moving feedback I get from the book is from readers who are inspired to share with me stories of people they’ve loved, and of books they’ve loved. So many people have shared stories with me stories of people in their lives, living and dead. I called the book The End of Your Life Book Club, because I wanted to make the point that we are all in end of our life book clubs, that no one knows the last book she or he will read, or the last conversation we’ll have. So the book is a plea (to others and to myself ) to make each book and conversation count. I love when people tells me that my book helped inspire them to start a two-person book club of their own: with a sibling, a child, a parent, a grandchild. That makes me incredibly happy. I also love to learn that the book reminds people to asked one another: ‘What are you reading.’ My favorite question. I should add that l love going to festivals and am very honored to have been asked to come to Fox Cities Book Festival. What a wonderful list of writers who have attended in the past. And what a great treat for me to meet readers from this extraordinary part of the country.”

Making electronic communication flow more elegantly seems to be the driv-ing force behind Schwalbe’s other book, SEND: Why People Email So Badly and How To Do it Better, co - written with his friend, David Shipley, who was then op-ed page editor of the New York Times. “There’s an expression: You write the book you need. We both needed this book! We both knew we loved email — that it made our lives much easier — but we also both knew that email has the power to cause endless amount of trouble and aggravation. Email entered our lives without any kind of manual. So we set out to write that, for ourselves and for others. We came up with lots of tips and lots of advice. But our over-arching principle was this: Think Before You Send. And Send The Kind of Emails You Want to Receive. Oh, and we also tried to remind people that email is permanent and searchable. This is something that even very smart people constantly forget.”

For more information on this speaker, please visit www.prhspeakers.com.


AUTHOR BIOS

Jacqueline WestAuthor of The Books of Elsewhere series

Sometimes a writer just knows when something works. Jacqueline West admits that she never decid-edly set out to write for a specific age of readers; she just felt something click when she started a fantasy book for middle graders. “The Shadows—Volume One of The Books of Elsewhere—was the first thing I’d ever even attempted to write for young readers,” West says. “Whenever I’m starting something new, I try to let the idea guide me to the right form and audience. Wheth-er I end up with a poem or a short story or a children’s novel almost feels out of my hands. I never sat down and decided, “I’m going to write something for kids!” I just had an idea (or a tangled ball of ideas, really) that I

knew belonged to a book for young readers, and when I started putting the story on paper, I felt a sort of click. It was thrilling and comfortable at the same time, like when you’ve tried every key on a ring, and you finally find the one that fits the lock.”

This former English teacher and occasional musician and poet, currently lives in Red Wing, Minnesota, and likes to visit schools to share her passion for writ-ing. Questions usually start out on topic, but they often disperse in just about any direction. “As a matter of fact, my presentation is based on the questions I get asked the most often! The top three are probably “Where do get your ideas?” “How long does it take to write a book?” and “Is there going to be a movie?” (I also frequently get asked “How old are you?” “How much money do you make?” and “What kind of car do you drive?” but those answers aren’t part of my usual presentation.)

The Books of Elsewhere have done very well with readers, reaching the New York Time’s Bestseller list, and they’ve garnered a hefty pile of rave reviews and notices. When she visits Appleton in April, West will share some insights on her experi-ence as a successful author. “I’ll be talking mainly about my middle grade fanta-sy/mystery series, The Books of Elsewhere. The presentation covers how and why I became a writer, where the ideas for my books came from, and how the writing and publication process works (or at least how it works for me).”

One thing that works for West is simple enough: reading. When asked how she manages to read dozens of books a year, her reply indicates how perfectly suited she seems to be for her profession. “I’m surprised that my list seems long—I al-ways feel like I’m not reading enough. I read 4 – 8 books at once. They’re scattered everywhere: in my purse, beside the bed, in bathrooms, in the kitchen, in our cars. This way, whenever I have a free minute, I can pick up the nearest book and read while I’m brushing my teeth or stirring a pot of noodles. The last several years of my life have also included a lot of travel; I’ve zoomed through many, many books while sitting in airports and airplanes. And my husband and I read out loud to each other while we’re in the car or making dinner. I guess that’s how I find the time: by using the little bits of it that are scattered around me, just like the books are.”

West’s future projects involve a Young Adult novel under contract with Dial Books for Young Readers, and a brand new middle grade fantasy series. She’s hush – hush on the details with the latter, but that’s fine. Spoilers are no fun at any age.

Jeff YeagerAuthor of How to Retire the Cheapskate Way, The Ultimate Cheapskate’s Guide to a Better, Earlier, Happier Retirement

One of the special events tied in with the Fox Cities Book Festival is Money Smart Week, which includes two appearances by Jeff Yeager, the self – proclaimed, ‘Ultimate Cheapskate.’ With four books to his cred-it, Yeager opts for a humorous approach to a subject many Americans would rather not examine too closely – their spending habits. He firmly believes that spend-ing less and consuming less can lead to a happier out-look, and ultimately a greener planet. “The books I write are not about how to get rich; they’re about how to get happy, perhaps with what you already have,” says Yeager. “I write absolutely nothing about stocks or investing. I write only about the spending side, which

if you stop and think about it, is at least as important as the earning side. We can’t dictate the return on our stock portfolio, but most people have at least some degree of control over what they spend. That’s really where I zero in and try to make the case that in almost any kind of lifestyle you lead, you can choose to spend more or choose to spend less. Oftentimes when we choose to spend less the results are at least as good if not superior to when you choose to spend more.”

Yeager, who is 57, and has retired from his “real” job, says he really started fo-cusing on the idea of consuming less when he worked for non – profit organiza-tions. “And the culture there has always been if you don’t have a lot of money to work with you have to find creative ways to solve your problems.” So Yeager got creative and began a career writing and speaking on the topic of making do with less. “I call us Cheapskates to get people to listen to what’s ultimately a pretty important message, about happiness, and money, and stuff,” he explains. “It’s not about sacrifice or deprivation; it’s all about the choices we make in life. Start-ing with the harsh realization that 80 percent of the discretionary items Ameri-can buy, they express regrets about having purchased within a year. If you really think about that and how that applies to your own life, you would realize that you could live very happily on less than you are living on at the current time. That doesn’t apply to everybody, but I do believe that the vast majority of Americans would be happier and the quality of life would increase if they would only spend and consume less.”

When I interject the fact that Madison Avenue would prefer not to have folks thinking of consuming less, Yeager laughs and agrees. “I’m told that every day ev-ery one of us is bombarded by about 5,000 commercial messages, most of which are saying, ‘buy some stuff and you’ll be happy.’ The odds are stacked against me in my humble attempt to get people to consume less, but that’s why I try to do this with a sense of humor. I typically talk a lot about the bizarre culture that we live in and how to avoid being a victim of all this marketing and promotion.”

And Yeager feels compelled to change minds about the concept of “going green.” “I get sick and tire of people who say, ‘I’d like to live green, but it costs so much more.’ I simply disagree with that. You can choose to spend a lot more to live green or you can choose to spend less to live green. If you’re the typical American the greenest thing you can do is simply consume less. If you’re going to remodel your bathroom, I guess using recycled bamboo toothpicks as the floor-ing would be the greener thing to do, but the greenest thing to do is to just not remodel the bathroom. Trust me, all those fixtures are eventually going to come back in style. You’ll be at the cutting edge!”

Yeager insists that the best things in life really aren’t things and they don’t come with a price tag. Sound advice, but will it make a dent in a culture that equates shopping with recreation? (I’m not judging, as a certain store with a red bulls eye for a logo lures me in way too often.) Check out his presentations this April in the Fox Cities to see how Yeager brings humor and insight to the topic of the way we spend.


2015 FOX CITIES BOOK FESTIVAL PRESENTS

Westclectic

Live on StageDOC MEHL

THE ASPHALT COWBOYFriday, April 24, 2015, 7:30 pm

(Doors open at 6:45 pm with cash bar)The OuterEdge Stage, 303 North Oneida,

Appleton, WI 54911

$20 per person with proceeds to benefit the Fox Cities Book Festival. Tickets avalable at www.foxcitiesbookfestival.org

Sponsored by: Neenah Literati Book ClubShenandoah books

133 East Wisconsin Ave • Appleton • 920.832.9525

OPEN DAILY AT 10 AMMany Subject areas

Collectible hard cover or paperbackUsed and out of print books

Huge selection of books

2015 Honorary Fox Cities Book Festival ChairsKristen & Christopher Bergstrom

2015 Honorary School Appleton North High School

Limited Edition Supporters ($1,000 or more)Appleton Area School District Education FoundationCommunity Health Action Team (CHAT)Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region Environmental Sustainability FundFriends of the Appleton Library (FOAL)Friends of the Menasha LibraryKaukauna Public LibraryKimberly-Little Chute Public LibraryLawrence UniversityLyons Fine Books in NeenahNeenah Literati Book ClubNeenah Public LibraryUW-- Fox Valley FoundationMile of MusicTilman & Ann MoeOctoberfest Shepard Family FoundationWm. Shepard & Shannon KennedySchoen Family Charitable TrustThrivent Financial Services Foundation - Winnebago Co. ChapterWomen’s Fund for the Fox Valley Region91.1 The Avenue Radio Station

First Edition Supporters ($100 to $999)James & Susan BereRev. Willis & Ruth BloedowBrad & Collette BrautigamRichard D. CalderKris ClouthierMary CzarnopysLinda DawsonTerry & Marsha DawsonConnie DiamondRobert & Cheri Di RenzoSteven & Susan EndriesRichard & Patricia FilzenDaniel T. & Elizabeth C. FlahertyBarbara FlemingMichael & Mary Gage

Peter & Sarah GilbertJoseph & Katie GolichnikLaura GuyHabighorst ChiropracticDaniel J. & Mame J. HeaneyRobert & Susan KindeJack & Natalie KnaackEdward & Joanne KrcmarGerald & Carol KruegerBarbara LawrenceMacy’s FoundationHarvey & Margaret LorenzCharles & Lesley McKeeKathleen Mengel-FleschJohn & Sally MielkeJudith MuellerMitchell & Ruth NelsonDiane OstrandRobert & Shirley PhillipsStuart & Marilyn PolisnerBruce & Nancy PourciauDale Schaber & Penny Bernard SchaberBeth A. SchnorrIvan B. SchrodtKathi SeifertSteve SeifertDeborah ShafferDavid L. Sovine M.D.John D. & Suzanne C. SwansonMartha SwansonSarah Traas & Michael CislerJanet TurnerTom & Barbara WentzelRodger & Merry Whipple

Collectors’ Edition Supporters ($1 to $99)Barbara AgnessCraig & Kathy AkeyGail AlgerLee & Amy AllingerMarian AndersonMark ArendBarbara ArmstrongMichele AspFrances & Joseph BachmanJanet Carlson Daniel BallietJohn & Mary Diane BarkmeierJeffery Barthen & William McDonaldLisbeth BaxMarcia BjornerudJohn & Jill BurnsJohn & Liane ButittaPeter & Mary Helen CasperAbbey L. Casper-CurtisJoseph & Kathleen CemanJohn & Karen Cleary

Jean CoenraadStephen & Nina CookArlen DombrockMary L. DownsVerlyn & Marilyn DragerHelen EdmondsJ. EdmondsonJeffrey & Sandra EhlersRon & Delores EinersonFair PlazaFaith Technologies, Inc.Marcel & Kathleen FarinaJeff & Maureen FeldtJohn & Sharon M FenlonFriends of the Muehl Public LibraryLaurel FilapekDan & Mary FlanneryJohn J & Barbara FlemingJane D. GartonHubert & Barbara GermiatRay & Judy GermonprezNolan & Darlene GnewuchLouAnn GrafKathryn GreenwaldCarol E. HaackJonathan & Joy HagenBob & Sheila HalladaHarp GalleryWilliam & Frances HenryDonald & Kristine HietpasJulie A. HolcombMargaret A. HoukJerry & Helene IversonPamela JacobyPeter & Wendy JanuJones Revocable TrustPeter & Wendy JuneauHope KarthJudith KellerPeter & Katherine KellyMichael KenneyJeffry D. & Shelby J. KnezelMary E. Murray & Greg KoerberElizabeth KrizeneskyAlyson KrokoskyDarrell Ruechel & Jo Ann KruegerLoree B. Johnston LacheyRonald MasonFaith MaukPaul & Maureen McAvoyJoanne E. MeierD. R. & Helen MeyerRobert & Judith MickelsonJames E. MoesKeith NiemuthDavid & Patricia NimtzRon & Kathryn OdegaardThomas & Mary O’HearnJim & Eldrid Olson

Mary Lou OpgenorthPaperback Book ExchangeElizabeth PatersonMary H. PoulsonJanice Daniels QuinlanRonald & Cheryl ReissmannPatricia D. RodgersVictoria RotzelWalter & Amelia RuglandThomas & Susan RunningFrederick & Virginia RusslerTasha M. SaeckerJohn & Jan SaeckerEllen SavageAngela SchillerLynne W. SimpsonRoberta G. SprowlRonald & Joan StrebelJames & Barbara SyverudSteve & Sue TaylorJames & Kathleen ThunesPeter & Judy TreichelMarcia TrentlageBeverly UnderwoodUnited CommunityJoan VandehyJanet WanamakerDorothy M. WarrenLeonard W WeisNancy F. WinslowSusan WoelfelPatricia WordenGene C. & Barbara J. WulfValerie B Wylie

Special thanks to:Angels Forever - Windows of LightAtlas Coffee MillCopper Rock Coffee CompanyFox River Environmental Education AllianceFox Valley Group of Sierra ClubFox Wolf Watershed AllianceHeid MusicHistory Mueum at the CastleKidStage/Fox River AcademyLetters about LiteratureLyons Fine Books in NeenahThe Mill: A Place for WritersMoneySmart Fox CitiesNortheast Wisconsin Land TrustThe Post~CrescentRadisson Paper ValleyReaders’ Loft Independent Bookstore in Green BayThe SceneTitle Town PublishingWild OnesWisconsin Fellowship of Poets

CONTRIBUTORS

Book Festival 2015

Design

Transcript of Book Festival 2015