No matter what season, there is often no pastime more pleasant than curling up with a good book. However, this fall, readers will have the chance to not only read their favorite authors, but also to meet them as well. The eleventh annual Fox Cities Book Festival is happening from October 8 to 14 at venues all across the Fox Cities and continues in its mission to connect readers and writers. This year’s festival has something for everyone, including panel discussions, craft presentations, workshops, and author events in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. There are even special events for the kids or for the entire family to enjoy together.

There will be some familiar faces at the festival, including Carolyn Porter, author of Marcel’s Letters: A Font and the Search for One Man’s Fate, who will be there to talk about her award-winning book recounting her obsessive quest for answers about Marcel Heuzé, the World War II forced laborer whose handwriting inspired the font. She’ll be speaking on October 8 at 1:30 pm and 6:30 pm, at the Kaukauna Public Library and Gerard H. Van Hoof Memorial Library, respectively.

Larry Scheckel will also be presenting at Fox Cities Book Festival. Author of four books, his most recent title, I Wondered About That, Too: 111 Questions and Answers about Science and Other Stuff, is a sequel to his widely popular book I Always Wondered About That and releases on November 1. During the Fox Cities Book Festival, Larry will be presenting his live Sensational Science Session show at all five Kaukauna Area School District elementary schools.

There are tons of diverse authors and exciting things happening at this year’s festival. It would be impossible to fit all of it in one blog post, so check out the full list of authors and events on the Fox Cities Book Festival website. And don’t forget to sign up for the Fox Cities Book Festival newsletter on the website homepage to get all of the latest festival updates.

Come out and join us this October for the chance to connect with authors, friends, and the greater Literary Arts community as a whole. Hope to see you there!

Writing and Listening — an Interview with Brooke Randel

3 weeks ago

As a young girl Brooke Randel knew little about the Holocaust—just that it was a catastrophe in which millions were murdered, and that her grandma Golda Indig barely escaped that fate. But her Bubbie never spoke about what happened, and the two spent most of their time together making pleasant memories: baking crescent roll cookies, playing gin rummy, and watching Baywatch. Until an unexpected phone call when Golda said, out of the blue: “You should write about my life. What happened in the war.” What results is a fascinating memoir—about one woman’s harrowing survival, and another’s struggle to excavate theRead more…