All Writers Workshop welcomes Ann Garvin December 5

From the desk of Kathie Giorgio, Director, AllWriters' Workplace & Workshop LLC:

 

CELEBRITY SATURDAY: ANN GARVIN              

 

WAUKESHA – Plotting is afoot for AllWriters’ December Celebrity Saturday! There are lots of ways to tell a story, but expert plotting is the best way to keep your readers turning pages. AllWriters’ Workplace & Workshop welcomes special guest lecturer ANN GARVIN with her workshop, THE MOST COMPELLING WAY TO TELL A TALE: PLOT AND COHESION.

 

In this workshop, you’ll examine the numerous ways plotting is used to achieve cohesion. This approach will not only help with structure but also with resisting the mid-draft slump, and it can ultimately save time. Moving forward, we’ll discuss how plotting will help you find the most compelling way to tell your story. Whether you’re working on a novel, short story, essay, poem or memoir, each work must tell a compelling story and maintain the energy of that story all the way through to the end. This is a workshop for students with just a germ of an idea or a whole complicated manuscript.

 

ANN GARVIN is an Easterner who lives in the Midwest and a fiction writer who makes a living as a scientist and educator in the Masters of Fine Arts position at Southern New Hampshire University. While working as a nurse, she completed her PhD in exercise psychology at UW–Madison, publishing extensively in the area of exercise, mental health, and media and later became a prize-winning short story writer. Her experience proved a perfect backdrop for her novels On Maggie’s Watch and The Dog Year. She is a featured writer for Unreasonable.is, where she is devoted to helping people find health and tell their stories, and fundraises for www.girleffect.org and animal rescues.

 

Celebrity Saturdays are a great chance to broaden your knowledge of what it takes to be successful and to learn from writers who are already knee deep in an author’s life. Ann Garvin’s workshop will be held on Saturday, December 5^th, 2015. This event runs from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and costs $85, which includes a lunch catered by Waukesha’s own Café de Art.

 

AllWriters’ Workplace and Workshop offers on-site and online writing courses in all genres and abilities of creative writing, as well as coaching, editing, and marketing services. A schedule of classes, with online registration, is available at www.allwritersworkshop.com or by calling (262) 446-0284. AllWriters’ is located at 234 Brook Street, Unit 2, in historic downtown Waukesha, as featured in Milwaukee’s Journal Sentinel. 

Summer Hanford

AllWriters’ Assistant

summer@summerhanford.com

www.summerhanford.com

Summer Hanford on Facebook

234 Brook St., Unit 2
Waukesha WI 53188
Phone: (262) 446-0284
www.allwritersworkshop.com

Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books and Clothesline Project

This Saturday, November 7  3:30 pm at

Kathie Giorgio & Sarah Xerta: Shouting the Truth in Poetry and Fiction

What happens when a poet and a novelist team up to raise their voices, together lifting up the truth through lyricism and narration?  Against the moving backdrop of The Clothesline Project*, t-shirts featuring brave statements about violence against women and designed by women affected by that violence, novelist Kathie Giorgio and poet Sarah Xerta weave a dramatic reading of truth and testimony, and discuss the role of writing as witness. 3:30 PM Saturday, November 7 University of Wisconsin-Waukesha Northview Hall Room N140 For driving directions, campus map and a complete schedule of events, please visit http://www.sewibookfest.com/   *THE CLOTHESLINE PROJECT "Bearing Witness to Violence Against Women for 25 Years" presented by The Women's Center

Wisconsin Book Festival in Madison October 22-25

ABOUT THE FESTIVAL

We couldn't be more excited about the incredible slate of authors and events we have planned. From October 22nd through the 25th, Madison will play host to more than 70 events. There is certainly something for every reader. We are delighted to be hosting a wide array of authors; we will see prize-winners, debuts, laureates, luminaries. 

This year’s lineup includes:

• 2013 Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction Adam Johnson for Fortune Smiles

• New York Times best-selling author Azar Nafisi for The Republic of Imagination

• Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer David Maraniss for Once In a Great City

• The New Yorker copy editor Mary Norris for Between You and Me

• Wisconsin’s own master storyteller Nickolas Butler for Beneath the Bonfire

• Caldecott medalist and beloved children’s book author Kevin Henkes for Waiting

• Acclaimed journalist Evan Thomas for Being Nixon

• Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich for Saving Capitalism

• National Book Award winner Timothy Egan for The Big Burn

• 2015–16 Wisconsin Poet Laureate Kim Blaeser

And if you can't make the four-day celebration in October, looks for more stand alone events throughout the fall. October 30th, we will be hosting many more events throughout the fall, including evenings with Sarah Vowell, Tim Flannery, and Bonnie Jo Campbell.  We look forward to seeing you at an event this fall.

Best,

Conor Moran
Director

Wisconsin Authors needed

Authors needed to attend Local Author Book Fair

Where: Germantown Library Meeting Room- Germantown, Wisconsin

When:   Saturday, November 21, 2015

                Open to public from 10am-2pm (Authors should arrive at 9am to set up.

Who:     Need both fiction and non-fiction writers. Would like a variety of genres 

                represented, including children’s books and poetry. (Sorry, no erotica per library

                request)

I hope to include a children’s “story hour,” as well as a young author table, where kids can write a story of their own (helped by “Books Bunny” the writing rabbit!) Kids can show their story to the authors for a “treat.” (This will get a parent to your table to see your work!)

Will work in time for author readings if there is enough author interest.

Coffee, hot cocoa, and cookies will be served

What you need to bring: Books to sell, bag of treats for kiddies, and your smile! We hope to bring in a good number of community readers and plan to do extensive local advertising of the event. The event’s proximity to the holidays should encourage holiday gift-buying and the children’s activities should get some moms (and deer hunter widows) in the door. Participation cost is only $15 to put toward the refreshment table, advertising flyer printing, and the cost of “Books Bunny,” who doesn’t work for free, unfortunately.

If interested, please email Mary Zinda at info@maryzinda.com or call 282-224-4786

Laurel Mills visits Readers Realm in Montello, September 27

 

AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR AND POET TO VISIT READERS REALM 

 Sunday, September 27^th from 1 to 3 p.m.

 

Author and winner of the Posner Poetry Award, Laurel Mills, will do a reading from her new book of poetry Hidden Seed during an appearance at Readers Realm Gallery of New and Gently-Used Books on Sunday, September 27^th from 1 to 3 p.m.

 

Laurel Mills, who grew up in Maine and now lives in Wisconsin, is the author of five award-winning collections of poems, including “Rumor of Hope”, which won the Encircle Publications chapbook contest. She is also the author of three novels: “Taking Flight”, “Racing Toward Providence”, and “Undercurrents”, all from Intaglio Publications.  Her work has been published in many magazines, such as “Ms.”, “Yankee”, “Kalliope”, and “Calyx”, and in several anthologies, including “Boomer Girls: Poems by Women from the Baby Boom Generation”.

 

Mills holds a bachelor's degree in English and a master's degree in Humanities, and is Senior Lecturer Emerita at the University of Wisconsin-Fox Valley, where she taught English and edited the literary magazine “Fox Cry Review”.   She regularly teaches dynamic and nurturing creative writing workshops for both beginning and experienced writers of fiction or poetry. She has taught at The Clearing: A School of the Arts and Humanities; the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh; The University of Wisconsin-Fox Valley; The School of the Arts at Rhinelander; Fox Valley Technical College, and many other places, where she always earns high praise from her students.

 

About her new book of poems, “Hidden Seed”, author Knute Skinner said, “Laurel Mills writes on a potentially sentimental subject, love for a developmentally disabled child. To her great credit, she succeeds brilliantly. She handles the subject forthrightly but with admirable tact, using metaphor and understatement at just the right times and allowing her sensitive observations of nature to convey much of the emotion indirectly.  In addition, she has an honest and interesting story to tell, from the moment of the daughter’s conception to the moment when the mother realizes that her daughter, now a young woman, has achieved an important measure of independence from her. The sequence of poems makes a compelling narrative, and I found it, unlike many contemporary collections of poems, impossible to put down for even a minute.”

 

Mills will be available to sign her books after the reading.  

Readers Realm Gallery of New and Gently-Used Books, Gifts and Whimsy is located in an historic church at 147 E. Montello Street in Montello.  For more information, contact Readers Realm at 608-297-2200 or readersrealm@outlook.com.

CELEBRITY SATURDAY: MARGARET ROZGA

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

From the desk of Kathie Giorgio, Director, AllWriters' Workplace & Workshop LLC:

 

WAUKESHA – Need inspiration for new poems? Look no further than your favorite things! Paintings, photographs, pottery, music, and other art forms offer the details and vision to provide just what you are looking for. AllWriters’ Workplace & Workshop welcomes special guest lecturer MARGARET ROZGA with her workshop, WRITING EKPHRASTIC POEMS.

 

In this class, you’ll discuss the work of poets who provide a range of ekphrastic models and look at images in a variety of styles before drafting poems inspired by those images. You’ll consider how your own drafts respond to the art and to those models, and where your work explores productive new ground. The possibilities are endless! Though not required, participants are encouraged to bring a piece of visual art or a recording of music, to inspire themselves and others.

 

MARGARET ROZGA is a poet, playwright and professor emerita of English at UW Waukesha. She has published three books and was awarded a Creative and Performing Artists and Writers Fellowship by the American Antiquarian Society. Her poems have appeared in Nimrod, Burdock, New Verse News, Extract(s) and other journals. A Pushcart Prize nominee, Dr. Rozga also enjoys creating in concert and her work has appeared in many arenas, including a collaborative exhibit at the Ukrainian Museum of Modern Art in Chicago.

Celebrity Saturdays are a great chance to broaden your knowledge of what it takes to be successful and to learn from writers who are already knee deep in an author’s life. Margaret Rozga’s workshop will be held on Saturday, September 12^th, 2015. This event runs from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and costs $85, which includes a lunch catered by Waukesha’s own Café de Art.

 

AllWriters’ Workplace and Workshop offers on-site and online writing courses in all genres and abilities of creative writing, as well as coaching, editing, and marketing services. A schedule of classes, with online registration, is available at www.allwritersworkshop.com or by calling (262) 446-0284. AllWriters’ is located at 234 Brook Street, Unit 2, in historic downtown Waukesha, as featured in Milwaukee’s Journal Sentinel. 

Summer Hanford

AllWriters’ Assistant

summer@summerhanford.com

www.summerhanford.com

Summer Hanford on Facebook

234 Brook St., Unit 2
Waukesha WI 53188
Phone: (262) 446-0284
www.allwritersworkshop.com
Please "like" Author Kathie Giorgio on Facebook, and follow KathieGiorgio on Twitter!

The Masters Review Short Story Contest deadline July 15

$20 entry fee

Spread the Word: Short Story Award for New Writers $2000 + publication and consideration by Curtis Brown Agency Submissions for our anthology closed this spring and we were blown away by the quality of the writing, the heart behind the stories, the straight up talent behind your work. We want to see more. Acknowledge more. The Masters Review Short Story Award for New Writers is open NOW through July 15 and will pay $2000 and publication to the best short story. Second and third place stories will be paid $200 and $100 respectively and considered for publication. No guidelines. Just your best writing under 6000 words. If you haven’t published a novel, you qualify. Inspired? Awesome. You can SUBMIT HERE.

Share Tweet Forward Copyright © 2015 Masters Review, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because of your work in the literary community and support of emerging writers. Our mailing address is: Masters Review 1824 NW Couch St, Portland, OR, United States Portland, OR 97209 Add us to your address book

POETRY EVENT in APPLETON WI MAY 30

 

 

The Mill: A Place for Writers 

"Mill Saturday Event."

 

This workshop will consist of:

 

--presentation of short poem forms

--examination of short poems by authors, such as Lorine Niedecker, Cid Corman, Jonathan Green, and Tom Montag

--time for participants to write and discuss their work

 

What is "very short"? For our purposes, poems with a maximum of 30-35 syllables.

 

When: Saturday, May 30, 2015, 1-4 PM

Where: Monte Alverno Retreat Center, 1000 N. Ballard Rd., Appleton WI 54911. Class size limited to 12.

Total Cost: $55 (nonrefundable deposit of $25). Please send check for $25 to: The Mill, PO Box 861, Appleton WI 54912.

Deposit Due: May 25

 

**Please bring your own writing utensils and paper. Other class materials provided.

For more information, contact Karla Huston at info@karlahuston.com or Steve Polansky at smpolansky@hotmail.com

Jade Ring and Lindemann Humor Contests now open!

Wisconsin Writers Association Contests Submission Deadline: July 31st

Spring to Your Contest WiWrite.org Quick Links Enter Jade Ring Online Enter Florence Lindemann Online Print Entry Form Full Contest Rules

Welcome to the Wisconsin Writers Association's 2015 contest season! We invite you to enter the Jade Ring categories and the Florence Lindemann humor contest. Each year, writers from across the state hone their skills and present their work to exceptional judges. Now we offer the opportunity to get personal feedback from each judge, making entering a contest not only a measure of your skill, but a way to get important insight as to your strengths and weaknesses as an ever-evolving writer. Enter often and enter early to get the most out of this contest season!  Judges Poetry: Sarah Busse Sarah Busse (Sarah Sadie) is co-editor of Cowfeather Press and one of two Poets Laureate of Madison, Wisconsin (2012-2015), where she lives with her family. Her poems and books have won multiple prizes, including the Posner and Niedecker Prizes (CWW) and a Pushcart. A new chapbook, Do-It-Yourself Paper Airplanes, was published by Five Oaks Press in spring 2015, and a second full-length collection, We Are Traveling Through Dark at Tremendous Speeds is forthcoming from Lit Fest Press in the fall. These days you can find her at @sarahsadie1313 and sarahsadiesadiesarah.tumblr.com , or out on her screen porch, with a fresh mug of coffee and a blank page before her. Nonfiction: Richard "Dick" Radtke   Richard Radtke is the author of six novels; two collection of short stories; and a memoir, Persistence of Vision. His work has appeared in the Wisconsin Academy Review; Prime Times; Julien's Journal; Writers of Wisconsin anthology; Lines in the Sand; and the Wisconsin Writer's Jade Ring Anthology.   Dick served as a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and operated his own writing and editing firm, Dick Radtke Public Relations. His business writing included contributions to a wide spectrum of consumer trade and general publications. He is the author of more than 50 books and papers on financial management and related subjects. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin with his wife Clare and their dog Rocky. Fiction: Pam Hayry Pam is an 8th grade teacher in Spencer.    Florence Lindemann: Diana Schramer Diana is the owner of Write Way Copyediting. Diana Schramer is a freelance copy editor and owner of Write Way Copyediting LLC. She has edited numerous books, fiction (including paranormal and sci-fi) and nonfiction (including memoir, spirituality, religion, wellness, addiction and recovery, and true crime). She also edits personal essays, blog posts, newsletters, and business-related documents. Diana is a member of and is the south-central region coordinator for Wisconsin Writer's Association, Inc. and a member of American Copy Editors Society (ACES) and National Association of Independent Writers and Editors (NAIWE). For more information about Diana and to follow her blog, please visit www.writewaycopyediting.com.

Ann Garvin speaks in Waukesha June 6

From the desk of Kathie Giorgio, Director, AllWriters' Workplace & Workshop LLC:

 

CELEBRITY SATURDAY: ANN GARVIN              

 

WAUKESHA – Expert plotting is the best way to keep readers turning pages, all the way to the end. Whether you have just the germ of an idea or a whole complicated manuscript, this workshop will illuminate for you the numerous way structure is used to achieve cohesion and will help you find the most gripping way to tell your story. On Saturday, June 6^th, Ann Garvin will illustrate the most compelling way to tell a tale. AllWriters’ Workplace & Workshop welcomes special guest lecturer ANN GARVIN with her workshop, THE MOST COMPELLING WAY TO TELL A TALE: PLOT AND COHESION.

 

Whether you are working on a novel, short story, essay, or memoir, each work must tell a compelling story and maintain the energy of that story all the way through to the end. There are lots of ways to tell a story, but expert plotting is the best way to keep readers turning the pages. Plotting also helps with cohesion, resisting the mid-draft slump and can ultimately save time. This workshop examines the numerous ways structure is used to achieve cohesion and will help you find the most compelling way to tell your story. This workshop is for writers with just a germ of an idea or a whole complicated manuscript.

 

ANN GARVIN’s decades of teaching health and studying what makes people tick proved a perfect backdrop for her novels On Maggie’s Watch and The Dog Year. Her teaching position as an adjunct in the Masters of Fine Arts position at Southern New Hampshire University allows her to marry her love of people, story, and writing and help others do the same. She is a featured writer for www.Unreasonable.is, where she writes on entrepreneurs, health, and how to save the world. Ann is devoted to helping people find health and tell their stories, and fundraises for www.girleffect.org and animal rescues. Ann, a natural storyteller, is a sought-after speaker and educator at conferences where writing, health, and human nature are discussed.

 

Celebrity Saturdays are a great chance to broaden your knowledge of what it takes to be successful and to learn from writers who are already knee deep in an author’s life. Ann Garvin’s workshop will be held on Saturday, June 6^th, 2015. This event runs from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and costs $85, which includes a lunch catered by Waukesha’s own Café de Art.

 

AllWriters’ Workplace and Workshop offers on-site and online writing courses in all genres and abilities of creative writing, as well as coaching, editing, and marketing services. A schedule of classes, with online registration, is available at www.allwritersworkshop.com or by calling (262) 446-0284. AllWriters’ is located at 234 Brook Street, Unit 2, in historic downtown Waukesha, as featured in Milwaukee’s Journal Sentinel. 

Summer Hanford

AllWriters’ Assistant

summer@summerhanford.com

www.summerhanford.com 

Summer Hanford on Facebook 

234 Brook St., Unit 2
Waukesha WI 53188
Phone: (262) 446-0284
www.allwritersworkshop.com
Please "like" Author Kathie Giorgio on Facebook, and follow KathieGiorgio on Twitter!

Gritty Small Town Baseball fiction from the 60s

January 2014, Black Rose Writing
ISBN: 978-1612963068
Print $15.95
E-book $6.99
Buy on Amazon

From the publisher:
From right field of the sparse Ashippun's Fireman's Park to the vacated County Stadium dugout of the Braves final Milwaukee home game in 1965, The Ashippun Trap takes readers on a wild nostalgic ride using a unique blend of baseball fiction and extensively-researched baseball fact. Parlee is an aging town baseball player who's just good enough to be able to hustle the game for his own financial gain during an era where large crowds blur the lines between amateur and pro players. With age and other factors waiting on deck, Parlee contemplates his limited baseball future from his dim and damp vantage point in Ashippun's right field. Forty miles to the east, under the bright Major League lights of Milwaukee's County Stadium, Braves backup catcher Gene Oliver, Parlee's childhood friend from a chance meeting on an Iowa farm years earlier, also considers life without baseball as he and his teammates play in front of thousands of empty seats each day while being forced to endure the Braves' final, lame duck season in Milwaukee. Parlee and his hand-picked crew of talented feral ballplayers jump in Parlee's 1959 Chevy Impala and head off on a 90-mile beer-fueled journey to a weekend tournament in Plymouth where the pay out attracts the best amateur players in Wisconsin. The trip eventually ends with Parlee and Gene Oliver narrating their view of the aftermath of the Brave's final game in Milwaukee from the vacated County Stadium dugout as they search each other's soul for a compass to guide their own baseball futures. Readers ride along but there's no sense in fastening their seatbelts because none exist on this carefree, nostalgic ride that puts the reader in the wooden grandstand's front row for a first-hand look at the dirty, salty side of baseball with a fresh look at the Braves' one-of-a-kind final season in Milwaukee


My review:
What an interesting concept - small town baseball during the height of the 60s craze before television eliminated small town camaraderie and made monsters of us. If you love really gritty baseball stories from the small town team perspective, you'll enjoy Doug Welch's book. An entertaining story, Welch tracks one fictional summer league set among real south central communities in Wisconsin, its ups and downs, during the final home league of the Milwaukee Braves. If you didn't know what it was like back then, you will after reading this book. All the color (and language), ins and dirty little secrets come to life.

Recommended for later high school age and up - told from the manager, Parlee's, perspective throughout. Uses real-time plays from the major league, listened to by the characters while on a road trip.

Upcoming Reader and Writers Delights - Conferences and Book Festivals

Spring is the time of delight to pick up your summer reading, meet your favorite authors and find a new one to love, for writers to connect and network!

Check out these events in and around Wisconsin:

April 20-26, Fox Cities Book Festival; some events beginning the 14th; Appleton area

May 8-9, Lakefly Writers Conference, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, with Michael Perry as a keynote speaker. Author Showcase Saturday May 9, 8 am to 3 pm.

Writing Day Workshop in Milwaukee, with Chuck Sambuchino of Writers Digest, Friday May 15. Plenty of openings.

Saturday May 16, Author Showcase II in West Bend, WI, at the Threshold, Inc. Scavenger hunt for prizes! 2380 W Washington St. 10 am - 2 pm

Novel in Progress Bookcamp is May 17-23 in West Bend, WI, featuring SJ Rozan. Lisa Lickel will be teaching too. Editors and agents pitching sessions.

June 6 & 7 - Printer's Row Lit Fest, Chicago, Illinois: The Midwest's largest free outdoor book event

More Summer Hiker Fare with Rob Bignell

DULUTH, Minn. (April 13, 2015) – A new hiking guidebook details more than 200 day hiking trails in Minnesota’s North Shore, Arrowhead and St. Croix River regions.

Headin’ to the Cabin: Day Hiking Trails of Northeast Minnesota, by Wisconsin author Rob Bignell, marks the second book in the “Headin’ to the Cabin” series. It was released Monday, April 13.

The new book “Headin’ to the Cabin: Day Hiking Trails of Northeast Minnesota” (Atiswinic Press) describes more than 200 trails along the North Shore and St. Croix River and in the Arrowhead.

Day Hiking Trails of Northeast Minnesota covers trails covers trails in or near Chisago, Pine, Carlton, St. Louis, Lake, and Cook counties. It includes Voyageurs and Isle Royale national parks, the Superior National Forest and Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness Area, and each state park in the region.

“Northeast Minnesota is a hiker’s Shangri-La,” Bignell said. “From rocky beaches along Lake Superior to waterfalls surrounded by luxuriant pine forests, from a mine 52 stories below ground to a hill nearly half-a-mile above sea level, from nearly 2-billion-year-old lava rock to lakes formed just a few thousand years ago, northeast Minnesota offers an incredible number of sights for day hikers to enjoy.”

The books provide a plethora of information about each featured trail, including:

• Driving directions to the trail
• Where to park and find the trailhead
• Course the trail takes
• Scenic points to look for on the trail
• Wildlife and flora you might spot
• Interesting tidbits about the area’s geology and history
• Trailside amenities such as water fountains and bathrooms
• Best times to hike the trail

Following each featured trail are brief descriptions of other nearby day hiking trails.

“These trails are perfect for families with children or anyone who wants to spend just a couple of hours outdoors enjoying and discovering nature,” Bignell said. The trails run from a third of a mile to 6 miles in length, with most only a mile to three miles long.

Book specs:
Headin’ to the Cabin: Day Hiking Trails of Northeast Minnesota
Publish date: April 13, 2015
Publisher: Atiswinic Press
ISBN: 978-0-9896723-5-1
Price: $11.95 (paperback), $1.99 (ebook)
Pages: 164 (paperback)
Cover: Paper (paperback)
Trim Size: 5.5 x 8.5 (paperback)
Website: http://hikeswithtykes.com/headintothecabin_northeastminnesota.html

BUY: Paperback, Kindle, Nook, Apple iPad/iBooks, Sony Reader, Kobo, e-reading apps

“Headin’ to the Cabin’ is the latest in several bestselling hiking guidebooks Bignell has authored. Last year, Day Hiking the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway reached No. 1 on Amazon.com’s bestsellers list for Travel>Midwest books. Day Hiking Trails of Northwest Wisconsin, the first book in the Headin’ to the Cabin series, was a bestselling travel e-book on Amazon.com two years ago.

An avid backpacker, long-time editor, and Wisconsin native, Bignell is uniquely qualified to write about hiking, especially for families. Bignell has served in the Army National Guard and taught middle school students in New Mexico and Wisconsin. His newspaper work has won several journalism awards, from editorial writing to sports reporting. In 2001, The Prescott Journal, which he served as managing editor of, was named Wisconsin’s Weekly Newspaper of the Year.

This is Bignell’s 15th hiking guidebook, almost all of which focus on Wisconsin and Minnesota. He now lives with his son in western Wisconsin.


Headin’ to the Cabin guidebook series author Rob Bignell

Top Authors—Perry, Apps & Hildebrand—Join Literary Forces May 10, Eau Claire WI

 

IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 2015


Top Authors—Perry, Apps & Hildebrand—Join Literary Forces
for Wisconsin Historical Society “Writers Forum” in Eau Claire

New York Times Bestselling Author Michael Perry, Celebrated Rural Historian Jerry Apps,
and Award-Winning Author John Hildebrand join literary forces for a special Wisconsin
Historical Society “Wisconsin Writers Forum” at 10 a.m. May 12 at the Eau Claire Regional
Arts Center (the State Theater) in downtown Eau Claire.

The Wisconsin Historical Society Press’s top-selling trio will discuss how to capture a “sense
of place” and how to write about personal history and experiences in captivating ways. The
panel discussion will include time for audience Q&A. Eau Claire’s The Local Store will host an
on-site book signing at the Regional Arts Center featuring each author’s Society Press and
other titles immediately following the Forum. The Writer’s Forum is free, but reservations 
are suggested through the Wisconsin Historical Foundation at the website by May 8. 

The Wisconsin Writers Forum is part of the Wisconsin History Tour: Sharing Wisconsin’s
Stories One Community at a Time, a statewide outreach program conducted by the Wisconsin
Historical Society. The Tour offers a sampling of the history and stories the Wisconsin
Historical Society has been gathering since its founding in 1846 in a traveling exhibit and
history- related programming. The handcrafted exhibit will be displayed in Eau Claire
throughout the month of May at the L.E. Phillips Memorial Library. History-related
programming, including the Writer’s Forum and many other presentations and workshops,
runs from May 12-19. Check the Wisconsin History Tour web site at
www.wisconsinhistorytour.org for updates and more Tour programming information.
 
For more about the Wisconsin Writers Forum, contact Society Press Marketing
Manager Kristin Gilpatrick at kristin.gilpatrick@wisconsinhistory.org or Wisconsin History Tour
Coordinator Mary Jane Connor at 608-212-5497 or maryjane.connor@wisconsinhistory.org.


Wisconsin Historical Society
816 State Street
Madison, WI 53706

Collecting, Preserving and Sharing Stories Since 1846

Alice Allan writes Mrs. Ballou, Civil War-era reformer

~~Shedding new light on American history through the life of Addie L. Ballou (1838-1916), one story at a time~~

The biography (second edition) Addie L. Ballou

Spiritualist Reformer, Poet, and Artist 

ISBN-13: 978-1502496324 

LCCN: 2014917346

Published: September 2014

Buy on Amazon

The novel Mrs. Ballou

A novel inspired by actual people and events 

ISBN-13: 978-1499575538 

LCCN: 2014915144

Buy on Amazon

Her husband's Civil War diary He Said

Diary of a Civil War Hospital Steward

ISBN-13: 978-1475225068

Buy on Amazon

Sept. 24, 1861: At 33 years of age, A. D. Ballou enlisted in Company C of the 10th Reg't of Wisconsin Volunteers. He asked to serve in a hospital as a nurse, or somewhere suited to his tastes. Reflecting on his enlistment that day, he wrote, "It is a great step and I feel that my life is to change."

Indeed it did.

With no prior medical training, he started as a private and was promoted to a hospital steward (at times directed to be Acting Assistant Surgeon during battle).

His diary covers the Battles of Tunnel Hill, Hoovers Gap, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge; winter at Chattanooga and Tyner's Station; Sherman's campaign to Atlanta (Peachtree Creek, Kennesaw Mountain and more). Maps (by Hal Jespersen), genealogy connections of those appearing in the diary, annotations, and a comprehensive index have been added.

From the Author

WHAT PROMPTED ME TO WRITE A HISTORICAL NOVEL ABOUT THIS ASPECT OF ADDIE L. BALLOU'S LIFE:
For nearly fifteen years, I determinedly researched Addie Ballou's life and involvement in the Spiritualism movement that flourished in the second half of the nineteenth century. Doing so enriched not only my life, but other lives as well, in ways none of us could have foreseen.
     In particular, I was contacted by other descendants of Albert and Addie Ballou and offered pieces of history, including Addie's original diary from the year 1873. It was filled with names, observations, and beautifully written descriptions of her Spiritualist activities and family life. I spent the next two years deciphering her handwriting and determining which entries were meaningful and which ones were not.
     As I dug deeper into the Spiritualism movement and its connection to social reform in America, I realized the personal stories of women had been left untold and at a minimum misunderstood. Due to their inability to express what happened to them, and the lack of social acceptance if they had, unspeakable secrets went with them to their graves.
     That is, unless, a woman recorded just enough of those remembrances in a diary that somehow, miraculously, surfaced nearly 140 years later. Mrs. Ballou, as a historical novel, is the result.

Alice Allan holds a B. A. (Humanities) from Colorado State University and currently lives with her much-needed sense of humor in Denver, Colorado.

Visit my web page: http://www.aliceallan.com/

Bo Carter Memorial Contest from Waukesha Writer's Workshop

Waukesha Writer’s Workshop founded December 1951

BO CARTER MEMORIAL CONTEST – 2015                               RULES AND GUIDELINES

1. CATEGORIES:  Nonfiction: 1. Essay – not to exceed 2,000 words 

                                                   2.  Article – not to exceed 2,000 words

                                                   3. Nostalgia – not to exceed 1,500 words 

         Fiction:     4. Short Story – not to exceed 3,000 words (any genre)

                          5. Poetry – Up to 4 poems.  Total for all 4 poems inclusive not to exceed 90 lines.                                                                Enter as many of the four categories as you wish, but only ONE entry in any one category.

ONLY UNPUBLISHED MATERIAL (mms) WILL BE ACCEPTED

2.  ENTRY FEE:  Contest entrance is free to paid-up members of Waukesha Writer’s Workshop.      Nonmembers may either pay a $5.00 reading fee for EACH CATEGORY entered or opt to become a member by paying the annual dues of $15.00.  Make all checks payable for dues or reading fees to: Waukesha Writer’s Workshop.

3.  MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION:  Entries must be typed on one side, only, of 8 1/2 by 11 inch white paper, DOUBLE SPACED with standard one-inch margins.  ALL SINGLE SPACED NON POEM ENTRIES WILL BE DISQUALIFIED. Poems may be either double or single spaced.

TITLE, CATEGORY, PAGE NUMBER, and NUMBER OF WORDS OR LINES must be at the top of the FIRST PAGE of the manuscript.  Each page of the Manuscript must contain the TITLE and PAGE NUMBER.  DO NOT PUT YOUR NAME ON THE MANUSCRIPT PAGES.  Paperclip the manuscript – DO NOT STAPLE.

Prepare a COVER SHEET  FOR EACH CATEGORY, with your name, address, e-mail address, telephone number, name of the manuscript, category and number of words or lines ON IT.

4. DEADLINE:  Monday, April 20, 2015, 10:30 a.m. at the regular meeting of the Waukesha Writer’s Workshop at Brookfield Highland Senior Apartments, Community Room, 20825 George Hunt Circle , Waukesha , Wisconsin .  If you are unable to attend the April meeting, MAIL or DELIVER manuscript (s) to Mickey Burgermeister, S69 W17349 Kirkwood Dr., Muskego, WI 53150, with check for dues or reading fee (s), to be received PRIOR to meeting date.

5. PRIZES:  In each CATEGORY –    First Prize       $25.00

                                                              Second Prize   $15.00

                                                              Third Prize      $10.00

If the judge/judges do not think the manuscripts merit awards, they are not obligated to select winners for each prize.  Judges to be announced.

 WINNERS WILL BE ANNOUNCED AT THE WAUKESHA WRITER’S WORKSHOP’S

MAY 18,  2015 MEETING.

If you have any questions, contact Mickey Burgermeister (262-679-0862) or Ramon Klitzke (262-547-3570) or Don Schambow – dschambow1@wi.rr.com  

               PLEASE NOTE:  Failure to follow ANY of the above guidelines will automatically disqualify your entry.

GUIDELINES

Essay – 1. Begins with a premise.  2. Cites examples and data supporting premise. (allow reader to view issue or situation through author’s eyes)  3. Reveals author’s conclusion and an invites reader to reach same conclusion.  Author’s opinion. (Subjective – author personally involved)  Purpose: to convince

Article – Nonfictional prose.  An idea is honed into a theme that becomes the precise subject.  Four part structure – 1. lead (capture readers attention) 2. Theme paragraph   3. Body (develops the theme using quotes and anecdotes)   4. Conclusion (answers questions raised at beginning or summarizes main points)  Factual (objective – author not personally  involved, based upon research) – Purpose: to inform

Nostalgia – relates personal experiences intended to evoke an emotional response.  Most effective if has universal appeal, focusing on commonly shared experiences. Author’s remembrances.  Purpose:  to share life’s experiences.