Southeastern Wisconsin Festival of Books
University of Wisconsin- Waukesha Foundation
1500 N. University Drive
Waukesha, WI 53188
Media Contact: Candace Decker: 262-521-5481
April 15, 2013
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Midwest Mystery Showcase Slated for April 26-27 at Martha Merrell’s
WAUKESHA – As a prequel to the Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books this fall, the Midwest Mystery Showcase will take place Friday, April 26 and Saturday, April 27 at Martha Merrell’s Books in Waukesha.
The two-day event will feature free panels taught by professional mystery authors on e-books, cozies, criminals and more as well as a presentation of “Bond 007” by Raymond Benson, a Chicago mystery writer and James Bond/Ian Fleming authority. Martha Merrell’s Books & Cuddles is located at 231 W. Main Street, Waukesha. For more information, call 262-547-1060.
Schedule of events:
Friday, April 26
7 p.m. Midwest Mystery Writers Meeting
8 p.m. Raymond Benson, Chicago mystery writer and James Bond/Ian Fleming authority, will present “Bond 007” at the Waukesha Civic Theater. $5 general admission advance tickets are available at Cuddles/ Martha Merrell’s Books.
Saturday, April 27
10 a.m. “Getting Cozy With Readers, or, You Don’t Need A License To Be An Amateur Sleuth”
Panelists: Deb Baker, Helen Osterman, Lydia Ponczak, Michael Hinden and Betsy Draine (Michael and Betsy are a writing team)
11 a.m. “It’s An E-book World, or, Hey, We Really Love Our E-readers”
Panelists: D.L. Marriott, Helen Osterman and Sean Patrick Little
Noon Lunch with an author at participating restaurants in downtown Waukesha
1 p.m. “The Criminal’s Handbook, or, Great Bad Guys And Gals And How/Why They Do What They Do”
Panelists: Raymond Benson, J. Michael Major, Michael Bowen, and Norman Gilliland
2 p.m. “Writing Short, or, Short Mysteries Still Live”
Panelists: Michael Black, Ted Hertel, Robert Mendenhall, and Douglas Armstrong
3 p.m. “The Hero’s Journey, or, You Gotta Change, Man” Panelists: Sam Reaves, David Walker, John Desjarlais, and Jerry Peterson
As part of the showcase, there also will be a Morning Mystery Workshop, “How to Solve the Mystery,” offered by Michael Giorgio at AllWriters’ Workplace, 234 Brook St. Unit 2. To reserve a spot at the workshop, call 262-446-0284.
The Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books will be held Friday, Sept. 20 through Sunday, Sept. 22 at the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha. The festival, a free community-wide event organized by the UW-Waukesha Foundation, promotes creativity and literacy by supporting local and national authors.
Information on the festival, exhibition of authors, publishers and book sellers who will be participating can be found at www.sewibookfest.com.
UW-Waukesha
UW–Waukesha has the largest enrollment among the 13 UW Colleges campuses with more than 2,000 students. These freshman/sophomore campuses and UW Colleges Online comprise the UW Colleges. They offer an associate of arts and sciences degree and prepare students of all ages and backgrounds for baccalaureate and professional programs. In addition, UW-Waukesha offers several collaborative bachelor’s degrees through UW-Milwaukee and UW-Oshkosh.
For information about programs, admission or financial aid, contact the Student Services office at 262-521-5040 or visit the Web at www.waukesha.uwc.edu. You can follow the campus on Facebook or Twitter.
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Southeastern Wisconsin Festival of Books
University of Wisconsin- Waukesha Foundation
1500 N. University Drive
Waukesha, WI 53188
Media Contact: Candace Decker: 262-521-5481
March 11, 2013
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Giorgio Named Keynote Speaker for Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books
WAUKESHA – Organizers of the Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books have named Waukesha author Kathie Giorgio as the keynote speaker for this year’s festival, which will be held Friday, Sept. 20 through Sunday, Sept. 22 at the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha.
The festival, a free community-wide event organized by the UW-Waukesha Foundation, promotes creativity and literacy by supporting local and national authors. This year’s theme, To Books & Beyond: Literacy without Limits, was suggested by Giorgio, who also is director and founder of a Waukesha-based creative writing studio, AllWriters’ Workplace & Workshop.
Giorgio will debut her second novel, Learning to Tell (A Life)Time, a sequel to 2011’s award-winning The Home for Wayward Clocks, at the festival.
“When Clocks was published in 2011, I had no intention of writing a sequel, and in fact, when I was asked about it while on book tour, I emphatically said no whenever I was asked about continuing the story,” she said. “It took me three years to write Clocks and it took three years to sell it. I’d been out of that book’s world for a long time and didn’t think I would be able to get back into it. However, six months after the book’s release, I was at a warm stone massage, and in the middle, the opening line floated across my closed eyelids. By the time I left the spa that day, I knew that this book took place sixteen years after the end of Clocks, that Clock’s main character, James, was now dead, and that the book would focus on Cooley, the 16-year old girl that James saved.”
Giorgio said the new novel has the same nontraditional format as “The Home for Wayward Clocks.”
“The odd-numbered chapters follow the novel arc, and are about what Cooley goes through after the death of her mother, an abuser she hasn’t seen for 16 years,” she said. Cooley has to come to terms with her past and with how that past is affecting her present and stalling her future. The even-numbered chapters are complete and independent short stories. These stories take us through Cooley’s mother’s life, from the age of 10 to her death at 51. Through the stories, we learn exactly how Mara Rose Mayfield, Cooley’s mother, came to be a monster.
“And that’s one of the major points of the whole book. Monsters are not born. Evil is not present at birth. Monsters are made, and if we were more aware in our world, evil could be prevented.”
Fellow author Wisconsin author Erin Celello, author of Miracle Beach and Learning To Stay, said Giorgio’s upcoming novel is a “masterful, artful look at what it means to be human and the fissures that are ever present between any two people.”
The Home for Wayward Clocks, published by Main Street Rag Publishing Company, received the Outstanding Achievement recognition by the Wisconsin Library Association Literary Awards Committee and has been nominated for the Paterson Fiction Award. Her short story collection, “Enlarged Hearts,” was just released in April 2012 by the Main Street Rag Publishing Company as well. Learning to Tell (A Life) Time and will be released on Sept. 1, 2013.
New stories by Giorgio will be appearing soon in the literary magazines Magnolia: A Journal of Women’s Socially Engaged Literature, ClockHouse Review, Edge (Tahoe Writers Group), Glassworks, and Meat For Tea, as well as two poetry anthologies, Journey to Crone, by Chuffed Buff Books, and Wine, Cheese & Chocolate, A Literary Feast by the Manzanita Writers’ Press. A poem appears in the 2013 Wisconsin Writers Calendar and another, in honor of Wisconsin’s first poet laureate, Ellen Kort, will appear soon in Verse Wisconsin. Her stories and poetry have also been in anthologies by Papier Mache Press, Main Street Rag Publishing Company, EBibliotekos, Pill Hill Press, Fearless Books and Susurrus Press. Her stories have been published in more than 60 literary magazines. She’s been nominated twice for the Million Writer Award and twice for the Best of the Net anthology, with the latest being for her short story, “Getting Lucky,” for the 2012 Best of the Net. She also teaches for Writers’ Digest and serves on their advisory board.
Information on the festival, exhibition of authors, publishers and book sellers who will be participating can be found at www.sewibookfest.com.
UW-Waukesha
UW–Waukesha has the largest enrollment among the 13 UW Colleges campuses with more than 2,000 students. These freshman/sophomore campuses and UW Colleges Online comprise the UW Colleges. They offer an associate of arts and sciences degree and prepare students of all ages and backgrounds for baccalaureate and professional programs. In addition, UW-Waukesha offers several collaborative bachelor’s degrees through UW-Milwaukee and UW-Oshkosh.
For information about programs, admission or financial aid, contact the Student Services office at 262-521-5040 or visit the Web at www.waukesha.uwc.edu. You can follow the campus on Facebook at www.facebook.com/UWWaukesha or Twitter at www.twitter.com/UWWaukesha.
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