Evelyn Ann Casey

×

Expand

Michelle Martin Photography

A close-up of Evelyn Ann Casey.

Evelyn Ann Casey

media release:  Garden Wall Bookshop hosts a special book event with Evelyn Ann Casey who was encouraged to write her gripping novel, Candlewood, by (former) national award-winning jurnalist, Bill Moyers. Bestselling author Christine DeSmet will lead the conversation on October 23, 5-6:30 p.m., 101 N. Main St., Verona

Everyone is Invited!

How the Story Began: Casey was working in public television at WNET in NYC in the summer of 1980. By coincidence, the famous journalist Bill Moyers got on the elevator with her. She had just picked up a copy of a book by him in the station’s library. They had a good laugh about it, and then he asked her what brought her to the city. For the first time, she said out loud “I want to be a writer, and this seemed like a good place to get started.” 

Moyers got off the elevator with her and asked what kind of writing she did. She told him mostly poetry and short stories. He asked if she could send a few samples for him to look at. That night, she polished a few poems and quickly finished a short story she was writing about an encounter with a UN diplomat. A few days later, she received a generous note from Moyers

In 2000, she was able to catch up with him at a PBS conference in San Francisco that she attended with her husband who was then Executive Director of Wisconsin’s Educational Communications Board (the state agency that licenses most public radio and TV stations in the state). Moyers’ groundbreaking series on end-of-life care had just aired. She had just started working at UW-Madison – and yes, she continued writing every day!

Moyers' Letter to the Young Writer (in Part)

"I came in this morning just to read those samples in the quiet of the hour. Although I read poetry, I am no expert in it. But I do know about words and their power, and I am a fair judge of their rhythm – whether it is natural or forced as the words themselves emerge from one’s mind. Your rhythm is strong and clear and imperative; most important, it is natural and even – well, pure. Which suggests to me a true talent for expression. I don’t know whether you could ever make a living with writing, but I know you write with conviction about ideas that pierces your language. It seems to come from deep within, especially when you are writing from experience (I could see the view from the diplomat’s window, but far more valuable, I could feel what you were feeling). Writing, therefore, could give you enormous satisfactions – and enlarge others’ world, as well. I forthrightly urge you to go back home, in a community where you feel comfortable with the scale of things; take a job that leaves you time to hone your talent, and write / write / write. Or, if you insist, stay in New York but be not distracted from time with your pen, your paper, and your soul. You have a way with words that, nurtured, could become the reason you’re here. Regards, Bill Moyers"

About the Book: Candlewood -A Different, but Complicated Love Story …What might happen if a young woman and a Catholic priest unexpectedly fall in love?  Evelyn Ann Casey’s book is filled with this challenge when love plays a part of a new relationship.

There are no easy answers in this hard to put down story ..the flawed characters try to find their footings and perhaps everlasting love in a tight-knit community—in this brilliantly written novel set in the St. Croix River Valley, following the 169-mile-long St. Croix River tributary of the Mississippi River, forming the border between Wisconsin and Minnesota.

Casey writes stories of grace and gumption ..she makes you think about the ‘possibilities’, the  what-ifs, when a story involves romantic, but forbidden love. 

She grew up in a storytelling family and neighborhood in Chicago filled with Irish pubs, Sicilian cannoli and Jewish delis. She went on to work in government relations in Milwaukee and at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Former Madison resident and best-selling international author, Jacquelyn Mitchard, whose book, “The Deep End of the Ocean,” –the first book in Oprah’s Book Club, was made into a blockbuster movie, said, “Casey’s book is a secular parable in a religious setting.” Mitchard is a big fan of the book and has written a glowing note on the book jacket.