Tommy Washbush / Freepik
A graphic of books flying out of a cage like birds.
Books matter — always have, always will. And there’s no better time to celebrate books than in the midst of a record surge of attempts to ban them.
Between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31, the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom reported 695 attempts to censor library materials and services, as well as documented challenges to 1,915 titles. The number of unique titles challenged increased 20% from the first eight months of 2022, marking the most since the ALA began compiling such data more than two decades ago. Most of the challenges were to books written by or about a person of color or a member of the LGBTQIA+ community (see related reporting in the cover story on page 14).
That’s why events like the Wisconsin Book Festival, now in its 22nd year and still free to attend, are so important.
“The Wisconsin Book Festival celebrates literature — a powerful medium for sparking critical conversations, sharing many perspectives and fostering understanding,” says Jane Rotonda, the festival’s new director. “Every time we bring authors and readers together, it’s an opportunity for free access to new books and ideas. Right now, the work we do takes on even more meaning as we stand firm against censorship, and encourage freedom of thought and open dialogue.”
Certainly, the 54 authors — nearly 20 with Wisconsin ties — appearing at the festival’s four-day Fall Celebration Oct. 19-22 encourage the free and open discussion of ideas. They include:
- Schuyler Bailar, the first transgender athlete to compete on any NCAA Division I men’s team (swimming), examines the language and context of gender in He/She/They: How We Talk About Gender and Why It Matters (Hachette) — which arrives amid a record number of proposed anti-trans bills across the country.
- David Shih, a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, provides in Chinese Prodigal: A Memoir in Eight Arguments (Atlantic Monthly Press) autobiographical essays that address the realities of what it means to be Asian in an increasingly anti-Asian America.
- Helen Shiller, a radical organizer turned independent politician, writes about her 40-year struggle for justice in Chicago in Daring to Struggle, Daring to Win: Five Decades of Resistance in Chicago’s Uptown Community (Haymarket Books).
- Erica Turner, an associate professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at UW-Madison, chronicles the response to demographic changes by school board members and educational administrators in two Wisconsin school districts (Milltown and Fairview) in Suddenly Diverse: How School Districts Manage Race & Inequality (University of Chicago Press).
- Lauren Cook, a licensed therapist and a millennial who lives with anxiety, shares her own struggles and offers practical advice for two of history’s most anxious generations in Generation Anxiety: A Millennial and Gen Z Guide to Staying Afloat in an Uncertain World (Abrams Image).
For fiction lovers, writers such as Jamel Brinkley (who received a fellowship from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing), and James Frankie Thomas address the current human condition with sharp insight and wit. Brinkley’s collection, Witness: Stories (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) introduces characters facing the moral challenges of taking action, bearing witness and paying the price. Publisher Abrams says Thomas’ Idlewild is a “darkly funny story of two adults looking back on their intense teenage friendship, in a queer, trans and early-Internet twist on the Manhattan prep school novel.”
Read a Q & A with festival author Nabil Ayers.
