David Maraniss knows his book festivals. So when the author of 12 books (and part-time Madison resident) proclaims that the Wisconsin Book Festival is “right up there” with ones in major cities — as he did during the festival’s first-time launch party at Madison’s Central Library in August, you tend to believe him.
“The city is giving people who are hungry for knowledge and searching for the truth what they want,” he said.
Although the Wisconsin Book Festival is slowly being recognized as a year-round event with 40 or so individual author appearances in Madison this year between January and early December, Maraniss was referring to the four-day celebration happening Oct. 11-14 at the Madison Central Library and other downtown venues.
Among the dozens of authors scheduled to appear are several notable Wisconsin writers. They include journalist Stu Levitan, whose comprehensive narrative history, Madison in the Sixties, will be published in November; Madison Magazine columnist John Roach, whose second book of essays is titled While I Have Your Attention; and UW-Madison literature instructor Heather Swan, who wrote Where Honeybees Thrive: Stories from the Field, a book about the honeybee population that won the 2018 Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award.
Journalist Doug Moe will appear with former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson to discuss stories in their new book Tommy: My Journey of a Lifetime, and Madison’s breakout novelist Chloe Benjamin will discuss her second book, The Immortalists, a New York Times bestselling family saga. Additionally, Wisconsin People & Ideas, the Wisconsin Academy’s magazine, will present a reading featuring the winners of its 2018 fiction and poetry contest.
“Wisconsin authors are integral to what we do, and we should be a mouthpiece for all the things going on in Wisconsin. I think that’s reflected in the schedule,” festival director Conor Moran says.
Former state resident Dan Kaufman, who now lives in Brooklyn, New York, will talk about his eye-opening new book The Fall of Wisconsin: The Conservative Conquest of a Progressive Bastion and the Future of American Politics. And Maraniss, who has written several sports books, will interview Mark Leibovich, The New York Times Magazine’s chief national correspondent and author of Big Game: The NFL in Dangerous Times.
Politics and American society also will be front and center at many festival events this year: Rebecca Traister, writer at large for New York magazine, will discuss her new book, Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger; lecturer Donna Freitas, author of Consent on Campus: A Manifesto, will address sexual misconduct at colleges and universities; and Carol Anderson, a professor of African-American studies at Emory University and author of One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy, will talk about the resistance movement in the run-up to the 2018 midterm elections.
In 2017, more than 16,260 people filled Wisconsin Book Festival events throughout the year, with about half of them attending during the four-day main event last October, according to Moran.
“That’s a testament to Madison being a bright spot on literary tours,” he says. “The reason authors want to come to Madison is because audiences show up and buy books.”
This year, Moran placed an emphasis on encouraging authors who didn’t have room in their tour schedules during the four-day celebration to instead stop by in the weeks immediately before and after.
Those include James Patterson, the Guinness World Record holder for most No. 1 New York Times bestsellers, who will visit Oct. 7 to promote Max Einstein: The Genius Experiment, a new book for young readers; Madison-based writer Erin Clune marking the publication of her witty memoir, How to Leave: Quitting the City and Coping with a New Reality, on Oct. 9; and Minnesota author Leif Enger supporting Virgil Wander, his first novel in a decade, on Oct. 16.
James Patterson’s Madison premiere
One of the world’s most famous authors will be here, supporting Max Einstein: The Genius Experiment. Co-written with frequent collaborator Chris Grabenstein, the book follows the exploits of a 12-year-old orphan girl who uses science to solve the world’s problems. Free copies of Max Einstein will be distributed to the first 500 young readers; adult readers will receive pre-release access to purchase Ambush, Patterson’s latest thriller. The event is Sunday, Oct. 7, at Overture Center’s Capitol Theater, 10 a.m.
