Your Upper Midwest Literary Calendar and Report
Posted by Liam on 05/03/06
Flyover country my ass. (FoTOH returning here, just for a bit.)
The Midwest, the upper Midwest in particular: this IS literature. The Nick Adams stories? That Tim O’Brien story about almost fleeing the country to avoid the draft? Jim Harrison? F. Scott? Proust?
Well, true, I’m not sure about Proust — if only there were a worldwide network of interconnected computers that would allow me to look up biographical information on him (he’s a him, right?)– but let’s go to the real question you were about to ask: what’s with all the men? Where are the women?
They’re coming to town!
May 6, Woodland Pattern: SUSAN FIRER and MARY JO SALTER read at this wonderful poetry-focused bookstore. Susan will be fresh from her KGB reading in New York this week, and, if you’re lucky, Mary will read her most excellent poem, “Liam.”
May 8, Milwaukee, Schwartz Bookshops–their new Bayview location, Bayview being Milwaukee’s version of Brooklyn (except that Brooklyn doesn’t have a basilica built by Polish immigrants from marble repurposed from a demolished Chicago post office (why didn’t you click on that link? if you had, you would have gotten the most wonderful writing prompt ever, an online history of building a church that begins (as so many do), “Father Grutza purchases U.S. Post Office and Customs House in Chicago….“)): BETH ANN FENNELLY (Tender Hooks, Norton, 2004) reads from her new book of essays, Great with Child.
May 22, Brookfield, WI, Schwartz: CATHERINE GILBERT MURDOCK reads from Dairy Queen, “a debut novel full of humor, football, and dairy farming” — and, needless to say, a book so wonderful they named a nationwide ice cream chain after it.
May 23, Winnetka, IL, Bookstall: SUSAN RICHARDS SHREVE reads from her new book, A Student of Living Things. Is it a spellbinding summer read? Or a languorous literary treat? It’s both, and enough of your damn questions. Go to the reading and buy this beautiful book.
Why didn’t I include any author info from the Icebox of the Nation, International Falls, MN? Because I wasn’t sure how you would take this article from the Rainy River College (winner, US News & World Report’s Top Community College Names–Ever) newsletter, which begins, “Book burnings are underrated….” {Caveats: it’s a PDF file, it’s the last page of said file, it’s satire, it really is named Rainy River College.}
Back tomorrow with boy talk: a report on Richard Russo’s Monday visit to Milwaukee, which, like everything else here, was great.
Filed under: General |
Bay View would be like Park Slope specifically. Cudahy and St Francis would along the lines of Flatbush or Ft. Greene.
Comment by Tom — 5/5/2006 @ 9:55 am