Laura Dronzek, Jane Hamilton, Kevin Henkes, Dean Robbins

press release:

Join A Room of One's Own in a special evening of readings celebrating brand-new books by Kevin Henkes & Laura Dronzek, Jane Hamilton, and Dean Robbins!

ABOUT KEVIN HENKES: Kevin Henkes is the author and illustrator of close to fifty critically acclaimed and award-winning picture books, beginning readers, and novels. He received the Caldecott Medal for Kitten's First Full Moon in 2005, and Waiting won a Caldecott Honor and Geisel Honor in 2016. Kevin Henkes is also the creator of a number of picture books featuring his mouse characters, including the #1 New York Times bestsellers Lilly's Big Day and Wemberly Worried, the Caldecott Honor Book Owen, and the beloved Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse. His most recent mouse character, Penny, was introduced in Penny and Her Song (2012); her story continued in Penny and Her Doll and Penny and Her Marble (a Geisel Honor Book). Bruce Handy, in a New York Times Book Review piece about A Good Day, wrote, "It should be said: Kevin Henkes is a genius." Kevin Henkes received two Newbery Honors for novels-one for his newest novel for young readers, The Year of Billy Miller, and the other for Olive's Ocean. Also among his fiction for older readers are the novels Junonia, Bird Lake Moon, The Birthday Room, and Sun & Spoon. Kevin Henkes has been published by Greenwillow Books since the release of his first book, All Alone, in 1981. He lives with his family in Madison. You can visit him online at www.kevinhenkes.com.  

ABOUT LAURA DRONZEK: Laura Dronzek is a painter whose work has been exhibited nationally. Her picture books include the acclaimed Birds by Kevin Henkes, Oh! by Kevin Henkes, White Is for Blueberry by George Shannon, Tippy-Toe Chick, Go! by George Shannon, Moonlight by Helen V. Griffith., and, most recently, It Is Night by Phyllis Rowand. She lives with her family in Madison.

ABOUT JANE HAMILTON: Jane Hamilton lives, works, and writes in an orchard farmhouse in Wisconsin. Her novels have won numerous awards, including the PEN/Hemingway Award for Fiction, and The Book of Ruth and A Map of the World were both chosen as Oprah Book Club picks and made into movies. Her short stories have appeared in Harper's Magazine. She celebrates the release of her latest novel, The Excellent Lombards, which Karen Joy Fowler calls "A book with so much grace, wit, and resonance -- this is one you'll read and reread. I surely did. I laughed, I cried, I pondered, I mourned. I took these characters deeply into my heart. Hamilton at her amazing best. A timeless classic, in its first appearance." (Karen Joy Fowler, bestselling author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves and winner of the 2014 PEN / Faulkner Award).

ABOUT DEAN ROBBINS: Dean Robbins, the former editor of Isthmus, has won many state and national awards for writing. His television column ran in fifteen newspapers and magazines around the country, and he has written about the arts for the Grammy Awards, the Village Voice, and dozens of other publications. He also reads his personal essays on Wisconsin Public Radio. Dean's interest in history led him to a second career as a children's author, focusing on his real-life heroes. His picture book Two Friends: Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass is about the little-known friendship of two of America's greatest civil rights champions, with illustrations by Sean Qualls and Selina Alko. Dean lives with his wife and son in Madison. His website is deanrobbins.net.