Shows
Madison BookBeatMelissa Faliveno makes the case for Midwestern gothicOn this edition of Madison BookBeat, host Sara Batkie chats with author Melissa Faliveno about her debut novel, Hemlock, now available from Little, Brown.
Sam, finally sober and stable with a cat and a long-term boyfriend in Brooklyn, returns alone to Hemlock, her family’s deteriorating cabin deep in the Wisconsin Northwoods, where her mother disappeared years before and never returned. But a quick, practical trip takes a turn for the worse when the rot and creak of the forest starts to creep in around the edges of Sam’s mind. It starts, as it always does, with a be...
2026-02-1052 minMadison BookBeatDoug Bradley, "The Tracks of My Years: A Music-Based Memoir"Stu Levitan welcomes back to the program Doug Bradley to discuss his new book The Tracks of My Years: A Music-Based Memoir, just out from the good people at Legacy Book Press. And it is exactly what the subtitle promises – Doug recounting the literal soundtrack of his life, putting the seminal events of his first quarter century or so in the context of the music that accompanied, or symbolized, those events. And since most of the events recounted took place in the sixties and seventies, it’s a pretty great 46-song setlist, which you can find on Spotify. https://open.spotify...
2025-12-291h 15Madison BookBeatThe Year in Books: three Madison booksellers on how their 2025 wentOn this edition of Madison BookBeat, host Sara Batkie chats with Madison booksellers Mira Braneck from A Room of One’s Own, Hilary Burg from Mystery to Me, and Molly Fish from Lake City Books to see how their 2025 went.
Take a listen to learn about the new releases they loved, event highlights from the past year, recommended reads that'll keep you cozy this season, and what's in store for them in 2026. And for those still doing some holiday shopping, stick around until the end to hear their order deadlines this December!
Photo by Jessica Ruscello.
2025-12-0850 minMadison BookBeatCheryl Schiltz: When The World Falls Away: One Woman’s Triumph Over Invisible Disability
WORT 89.9FM Madison · Cheryl Schiltz - When the World Falls Away
Lisa Malawski talks with Cheryl Schiltz today on Madison Bookbeat, November 24, 2025. Cheryl Schiltz is no stranger to silence—but not the peaceful kind. After a reaction to antibiotics destroyed her vestibular system—the part of the inner ear responsible for balance—Cheryl was plunged into a world of disorientation, instability, and invisible suffering. Even while lying down, she felt as if she were falling through space. The noise of disability wasn’t audible—it was internal, relentless, and isolating.
In her powerful book, Silencing the Noise of Dis...
2025-11-2549 minMadison BookBeatCary Segall, "A Walk in the Woods: Voices From the Appalachian Trail"Stu Levitan welcomes Cary Segall for a conversation about his engaging new book A Talk in the Woods: Voices Along the Appalachian Trail (Back Burner Books), recounting stories of the people he met along the world's longest hiking-only trail.
Built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the mid-1930s, the 2,197.4-mile Appalachian Trail runs through 14 states, from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine. More than three million people hike segments each year; fewer than one thousand earn the designation of thru-hiker, walking the entire trail within fifty-two weeks.
Cary Segall set out in 2014 to become a thru-hiker, bu...
2025-11-1753 minMadison BookBeatEmily Mitchell on the power of speculative fiction in strange timesOn this edition of Madison BookBeat, host Sara Batkie chats with author Emily Mitchell about her new short story collection, The Church of Divine Electricity, now available from University of Wisconsin Press.
Delightfully blending literary fiction with speculative genres, the stories in The Church of Divine Electricity somehow manage to feel as though they could take place today. In Emily Mitchell’s created worlds, as in our own, technology bewitches, especially with its ability to heighten both connections and isolation.
Whether being held by a giant and comforting machine, allowing micro-drones to record one’s every moment for a year to w...
2025-11-1051 minMadison BookBeatMargaret Mooney, "Radical Family: Trailblazing Lesbian Moms Tell Their Stories"Stu Levitan welcomes Margaret Mooney, editor of Radical Family: Trailblazing Lesbian Moms Tell Their Stories and her wife Meg Gaines to discuss this collection of nine first-person accounts from mainly Madison-area lesbians who gave birth, adopted or came out between 1980 and 2003. Just out from the good people at the Wisconsin Historical Society Press, the collection offers many important insights into the pressures and pleasures of participating in what Newsweek magazine called "the gayby boom" in the years before the US Supreme Court recognized the constitutional right to same-sex marriage. Among the well-known contributors: Mooney, former Meteorologist-in-charge at the Madison National Wea...
2025-10-2754 minMadison BookBeatPernille Ipsen on feminism & found families in "My Seven Mothers"On this edition of Madison BookBeat, host Sara Batkie talks with author Pernille Ipsen about the new translation of her memoir, My Seven Mothers (University of Minnesota Press.)
On New Year’s Eve in Copenhagen in 1972, seven women had a child together: one gave birth and six others attended. They had met a year earlier at a feminist women’s camp on a small island and now, with about twenty other women’s liberationists, they occupied three dilapidated apartment buildings in the center of Copenhagen. One became the country’s first Women’s House, the nerve center of the Women’s Movement i...
2025-10-1352 minMadison BookBeatMayor Dennis McBride, "A City on the Edge: Pandemic, Protest and Polarization"Stu Levitan welcomes Wauwatosa Mayor Dennis McBride for a conversation about his new book A City on the Edge: Pandemic, Protest and Polarization. It's a gripping and insightful first-person account of what it was like to be the newly elected chief executive of a Wisconsin city during the twin traumas of 2020 – the onset of COVID and the murder of George Floyd. In particular, a city with its own unique history of racial extremes – founded by east coast abolitionists in the mid-nineteenth century who made it a stop on the Underground Railroad, which by the early twentieth century had passed a “sundown l...
2025-09-291h 00Madison BookBeatDavid Michael Miller, "The Rise of Breese Stevens Field: Madison's ballpark and the team that made it home"David Michael Miller transcript
Stu Levitan welcomes David Michael Miller for a conversation about his new book, The Rise of Breese Stevens Field: Madison's ballpark and the team that made it home, the Centennial Edition.
You may know Breese Stevens Field today as a city, state, and national landmark at 917 East Mifflin Street, the place for professional soccer and ultimate frisbee, concerts, and community events. But once upon a time, it was the place for baseball, especially as the home field from 1926 to 1942 for the Madison Blues, five-time pennant winners in three different leagues in the 1930s, and for many...
2025-09-221h 20Madison BookBeatRon Rindo on animal medicine, Amish life & the PackersOn this edition of Madison BookBeat, host Sara Batkie talks with author Ron Rindo about his latest novel, Life, & Death, & Giants (St. Martin's Press).
Gabriel Fisher was born an orphan, weighing eighteen pounds and measuring twenty-seven inches long. No one in Lakota, Wisconsin, knows what to make of him. He walks at eight months, communicates with animals, and seems to possess extraordinary athletic talent. But when the older brother who has been caring for him dies, Gabriel is taken in by his devout Amish grandparents who disapprove of all the attention and hide him away from the English world.
But...
2025-09-0852 minMadison BookBeatA Kinship with Ash: Heather Swan’s Poetic Reckoning with Nature and Loss
WORT 89.9FM Madison · A Kinship with Ash: Heather Swan
In this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Lisa Malawski sits down with Wisconsin poet, essayist, and environmental humanities scholar Heather Swan. A lecturer at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Swan brings a unique blend of ecological insight and lyrical depth to her writing, exploring the fragile intersections between humans and the natural world.
Her poetry collection, A Kinship with Ash, published by Terrapin Books, is a meditation on grief, resilience, and ecological awareness. Through vivid imagery and quiet urgency, Swan’s poems invite readers to consider their place in a world...
2025-08-2548 minMadison BookBeatThe Journey Within: Exploring Life and Nature in Wisconsin’s Parks
WORT 89.9FM Madison · Time, Beauty, and Grief, Betsy-Korbinyr_7-28-25
In this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Lisa Malawski sits down with local author Betsy Korbinyr who is an award-winning author and retired social worker based in Madison, Wisconsin. With over 30 years of experience in hospice, medical, mental health, and school social work, she brings a deep understanding of aging, loss, and resilience to her writing.
Her debut book, Time, Beauty, and Grief: A Hike Through Wisconsin’s 50 State Parks, is part memoir, part trail guide, and part reflection on growing older. Korbinyr set out to hike five miles in...
2025-07-2946 minMadison BookBeatDean Robbins, "Wisconsin Idols: 100 Heroes Who Changed The State, The World, And Me"Robbins, Dean Transcript
Stu Levitan welcomes the very successful author, editor, and broadcast personality, Dean Robbins to discuss his latest book, Wisconsin Idols, 100 Heroes Who Have Changed the State, the World, and Me, (Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2025) . It's a collection of engaging short essays about 100 outstanding musicians, thinkers, actors, athletes, creators, and boundary-breakers who are either from Wisconsin, attended the UW, or did something special here, and who had an impact on Dean. People like the seven cover images -- Oprah Winfrey, basketball great and human rights activist Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (when he was still known as Lou Alcindor), comedian Chris...
2025-07-2253 minMadison BookBeatMadison BookBeat Featured Steven Davis, Author of "The Other Public Lands"On July 7th, Madison BookBeat host Bill Tishler welcomed Steven Davis, professor of political science at Edgewood University, to WORT 89.9 FM to discuss Davis’s new book, The Other Public Lands: Preservation, Extraction, and Politics on the Fifty States’ Natural Resource Lands (Temple University Press, 2025). While national parks and federally managed lands often dominate the conversation, Davis’s research highlights an often-overlooked category—nearly 200 million acres owned and managed by individual states. Drawing on extensive comparative analysis across all 50 states, he provided valuable insights into how these lands are governed, protected, and sometimes exploited. Davis also reflected on Wisconsin’s deep conse...
2025-07-1852 minMadison BookBeatKristina Amelong on accepting life (and death)'s mysteries in "What My Brother Knew"On this edition of Madison BookBeat, host Sara Batkie talks with author Kristina Amelong about her debut memoir, What My Brother Knew (She Writes Press).
As a boy, Jay Amelong predicted the accident that caused his death, down to the color of the car that hit him. "I will die young, while riding my bike," he told friends and family repeatedly. "It won't be much longer. I want you to be prepared." Baffling words to hear from the mouth of a content thirteen-year-old. When Kristina Amelong was only seventeen, her brother's tragic death unfolded exactly as he said it would...
2025-07-1449 minMadison BookBeatDoug Moe, “Saving Hearts and Killing Rats: Karl Paul Link and the Discovery of Warfarin”Stu Levitan welcomes the biographer of modern Madison, award-winning columnist Doug Moe, for a conversation about his latest book, Saving Hearts and Killing Rats: Karl Paul Link and the Discovery of Warfarin. It’s the first detailed look at one of the most important and most honored biochemists of the 20th century — the brilliant, unconventional, and seemingly bipolar University of Wisconsin scientist whose discoveries led to two synthetic compounds: the rat-killing Warfarin and the heart-saving Coumadin. And all because at the depths of the Great Depression a St. Croix farmer turned to his state government to learn why his cows...
2025-06-3051 minMadison BookBeatDenise S. Robbins on states of emergency in her debut novel “The Unmapping”On this edition of Madison BookBeat, host Sara Batkie talks with author Denise S. Robbins about her debut novel The Unmapping.There is no flash of light, no crumbling, no quaking. Each person in New York wakes up on an unfamiliar block after the buildings all switch positions overnight. The power grid has snapped, thousands of residents are missing, and the Empire State Building is on Coney Island—for now. The next night, it happens again.Esme Green and Arjun Varma work for the city of New York’s emergency management team and are tasked with...
2025-06-0950 minMadison BookBeatAmb. Tom Loftus, “Mission to Oslo”Stu Levitan interviews former U.S. Ambassador to Norway (1993-1997) Tom Loftus about his new book, Mission to Oslo, Dancing with the Queen, Dealmaking with the Russians, Shaping History (Mineral Point: Little Creek Press, 2024).Amb. Loftus served during a pivotal period in diplomatic and military history, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. It was a time of optimism, but it was fraught with uncertainty, a time of particular concern in neighboring Norway. Amb. Loftus’s success helping forge the agreement among the U.S., Norway and the new Russia to start the clean-up of the nu...
2025-05-191h 30Madison BookBeatA Conversation with Jane HirshfieldJane Hirshfield—widely regarded as one of America’s greatest living poets—joins Madison Book Beat for a rich conversation about poetry, the natural world, and the human condition. The New York Times Magazine has called her work “some of the most important poetry in the world today,” and her latest collection, The Asking: New & Selected Poems, showcases the depth and range of a life devoted to lyrical inquiry.In this episode, host David Ahrens and guest co-host Heather Swan, a poet and faculty member at UW-Madison and the Nelson Institute, delve into the themes that define Hirshfield...
2025-05-1450 minMadison BookBeatThe Art of Community — And Book DiscussionsA book club is a great way to build community—bringing people together around shared interests, while also introducing them to new perspectives and ideas.Today, Bill Tishler hosts his inaugural episode centered on community. Tishler, who is also a local elected official, has been hosting book clubs in his district. On today’s episode, four area residents join him in the WORT studio to share their thoughts on recent book clubs they participated in this year and how the books they read raised awareness about issues in our city.Those issues range from pedestrian and...
2025-05-0252 minMadison BookBeatI Choose Joy: AJ Romriell on Wolves, Loving Yourself, and Exiting the Mormon FaithIn this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Andrew Thomas speaks with AJ Romriell on his debut memoir Wolf Act (University of Wisconsin Press, 2025).Wolf Act is a “memoir in essays,” and these essays take on a variety of forms. The work is divided into three different Acts, and each act is made up of chapters that are both interlinked but can also stand on their own as well. While the majority of the prose is narrative nonfiction, there are a number of chapters that include lengthy lists, definition entries like you would find in a dictionary, as w...
2025-04-1448 minMadison BookBeatNew Wisconsin Poet Laureate Brenda Cárdenas on the mysteries and rewards of languageOn this edition of Madison BookBeat, host Sara Batkie chats with Wisconsin Poet Laureate Brenda Cárdenas about her new position and the exciting plans she has in the works during her service.Brenda Cárdenas was born and raised in Milwaukee and has also lived in Beaver Dam, Appleton, Menasha, and Fond du Lac. She obtained her undergraduate degree at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and a Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in Creative Writing (Poetry) at the University of Michigan. She recently retired from a 35-year career teaching Creative Writing to students at every leve...
2025-04-0751 minMadison BookBeatSitting down with Madison Public Libraries Director Tana EliasTana Elias has more than three decades of experience at the Madison Public Library. After one year in the role, she’s “just settling in” to the position as Director of the MPL.Elias sits down with Madison Book Beat host David Ahrens for a conversation about the history, funding, services and evolution of the Madison Public Library system, which has nine libraries in the city, operates the mobile Dreambus service, and is now building an “Imagination Center” on the north side.Elias and Ahrens also take up the changing role of libraries in the digital ag...
2025-03-1752 minMadison BookBeatChristine Wenc on the founding of "The Onion"On this edition of Madison BookBeat, host Sara Batkie chats with author Christine Wenc about her new book Funny Because It’s True: How The Onion Created Modern American News Satire.In 1988, a band of University of Wisconsin–Madison undergrads and dropouts began publishing a free weekly newspaper with no editorial stance other than “You Are Dumb.” Just wanting to make a few bucks, they wound up becoming the bedrock of modern satire over the course of twenty years, changing the way we consume both our comedy and our news. The Onion served as a hilarious and brutally...
2025-03-1051 minMadison BookBeatOn Jumping, Swimming, Sinking, and Floating: Poet Steven Duong Discusses His Debut CollectionIn this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Andrew Thomas speaks with Steven Duong on his debut poetry collection At the End of the World There is A Pond (Norton 2025)."Tell all the truth but tell it slant." Taking Emily Dickinson's dictum as a guiding principle, poet Steven Duong delivers a collection startlingly clear, formally innovative, and consistently funny. At the End of the World There is a Pond is divided into four sections–The Jumpers, The Swimmers, The Sinkers, The Floaters--and throughout each Duong explores themes of addiction, mental health, climate change, diaspora, and popular culture....
2025-03-0354 min
Madison BookBeatOn Jumping, Swimming, Sinking, and Floating: Poet Steven Duong Discusses His Debut CollectionIn this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Andrew Thomas speaks with Steven Duong on his debut poetry collection At the End of the World There is A Pond (Norton 2025)."Tell all the truth but tell it slant." Taking Emily Dickinson's dictum as a guiding principle, poet Steven Duong delivers a collection startlingly clear, formally innovative, and consistently funny. At the End of the World There is a Pond is divided into four sections–The Jumpers, The Swimmers, The Sinkers, The Floaters--and throughout each Duong explores themes of addiction, mental health, climate change, diaspora, and...
2025-03-0354 minMadison BookBeatTheresa Okokon on her memoir in essays "Who I Always Was"On this edition of Madison BookBeat, host Sara Batkie chats with author Theresa Okokon about her debut memoir in essays, Who I Always Was.When Theresa Okokon was nine, her father traveled to his hometown in Nigeria to attend his mother’s funeral…and never returned. His mysterious death shattered Theresa as her family’s world unraveled. Now a storyteller and television cohost, Okokon sets out to explore the ripple effects of that profound loss and the way heartache shapes our sense of self and of the world—for the rest of our lives....
2025-02-1051 minMadison BookBeatWhat Books Did You Like This Year?As 2024 draws to a close, David Ahrens reflects on his bountiful year of reading. He's joined by Chali Pittman, Andrew Thomas, and callers throughout the hour to share their recommendations. New York Times bestseller James by Percival Everett is a clear favorite. It's a re-imagining of Huckleberry Finn from a distinctly different point of view. That's not the only retelling worth reading — Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver reimagines David Copperfield as well. Also recommended by David: The Lucky Ones, a memoir by Madison's own Sara Chowdhary, recounts a personal exper...
2024-12-2353 minMadison BookBeatZara Chowdhary on The Lucky OnesZara Chowdhary sits down with David Ahrens to talk about her exquisite memoir The Lucky Ones (Penguin, 2024).In 2002, Zara Chowdhary was sixteen years old and living with her family in Ahmedabad, India, when a train fire claimed the lives of sixty Hindu passengers — and upended the lives of millions of Muslims.Instead of taking her school exams that week, Zara is put under a three-month siege, with her family and thousands of others fearing for their lives as Hindu neighbors and friends transform overnight into bloodthirsty mobs, hunting and mass...
2024-12-1653 minMadison BookBeatThe Year in Books with Three Madison BooksellersOn this edition of Madison BookBeat, host Sara Batkie chats with Madison booksellers Iris Tobin from A Room of One’s Own, Hilary Burg from Mystery to Me, and Molly Fish from Lake City Books to see how their 2024 went. Take a listen to learn about the new releases they loved, event highlights from the past year, reads they recommend for people who want to get back into the habit, and what’s in store for them in 2025. And for those still doing some holiday shopping, stick around until the end to hear their order dead...
2024-12-0953 minMadison BookBeatImagining Beyond Prisons: On Books-to-Prisons Bans and Abolition ActivismIn this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Andrew Thomas speaks with folx from LGBT Books to Prisoners and A Room of One's Own bookstore on the Wisconsin Department of Corrections’ recently-implemented restrictions on book donations, the condition of prison libraries, and the current state of abolition activism.“On the whole, people tend to take prisons for granted. It is difficult to imagine life without them,” she continues. “At the same time, there is reluctance to face the realities hidden within them, a fear of thinking about what happens inside them. Thus, the prison is prese...
2024-12-0252 minMadison BookBeatIf You Don’t Deal With Your Past, It’s Still Your PresentIn this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Lisa Malawski talks with local Madison author Tammy Borden. Tammy is a professional copywriter turned novelist. She has had a whirlwind of a year since releasing her novel, Waltraud. She has reached thousands of readers on 5 continents, had more than 70 speaking or book-related events, and approximately one thousand reviews! Waltraud was self-published by Tammy Borden in 2023. Waltraud is about a true story of Tammy’s mom growing up in Nazi Germany. Tammy grew up hearing her mom’s first-hand accounts of coming of age under Hilter’s regime...
2024-11-2552 minMadison BookBeatAuthor and geologist Marcia Bjornerud on the rocks that made herOn this edition of Madison BookBeat, host Sara Batkie speaks with author, geologist, and Lawrence University professor Marcia Bjornerud about her new book, Turning to Stone.Earth has been reinventing itself for more than four billion years, keeping a record of its experiments in the form of rocks. Yet most of us live our lives on the planet with no idea of its extraordinary history, unable to interpret the language of the rocks that surround us. Geologist Marcia Bjornerud believes that our lives can be enriched by understanding our heritage on this old and c...
2024-11-1147 minMadison BookBeatWe Do Not Make Very Good Gods: Nature Critic Boyce Upholt on the Sinuous History of the Mississippi RiverIn his 1979 Whole Earth Catalog, Stewart Brand wrote, “We are as gods, so we might as well get good at it.” Based on his time on the Mississippi River, however, Boyce Upholt concludes “that we do not make very good gods.” In the final pages of The Great River: The Making and Unmaking of the Mississippi, Upholt reflects, “The river is an unappeasable god, and to react to it with fear and awe is not wrong. . . . Perhaps what people learn after thousands of years of living along one of the world’s greatest rivers is that change is inevitable, that chaos w...
2024-11-0453 minMadison BookBeatObserving Ann Garvin as an Author and a Human BeingIn this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Lisa Malawski talks with local Madison author Ann Garvin.Ann Garvin became an author at age fifty. Ann Garvin Ph.D. is a nurse, a professor, and USA Today Bestselling Author. She thinks everything is funny and a little bit sad. Ann writes stories about people who do too much in a world that asks too much from them.Ann is the founder of the multiple award-winning Tall Poppy Writers where she is committed to helping women writers succeed. She is a...
2024-10-2848 minMadison BookBeatBob Wake & Diya Abbas, First-Place Fiction & Poetry WinnersToday on the show, incoming host Ella Saph speaks with the first-place winners in the 2024 Wisconsin People & Ideas Writing Contest. Cambridge writer Bob Wake took home the gold for his poem "Mending Ruth," and Madison poet Diya Abbas took home the prize for their poem “Al-Eashiq." Both will present at a reading next week at the Wisconsin Book Festival, which will feature all the winners of the statewide 2024 Fiction & Poetry Contests. That reading is on Tuesday, October 29 at 7pm at Central Library.About the guests: B...
2024-10-2152 minMadison BookBeatJane Rotunda and Jessica Calarco Preview the 2024 Wisconsin Book FestivalOn this edition of Madison BookBeat, host Sara Batkie speaks with festival director Jane Rotunda and author Jessica Calarco about her book Holding It Together, ahead of Calarco’s appearance at the Wisconsin Book Festival on Thursday, October 17th.Holding It Together: How Women Became America’s Safety Net chronicles the devastating consequences of our DIY society and traces its root causes by drawing together historical, media, and policy analyses and five years of Calarco’s original research. With surveys of 4,000 parents and more than 400 hours of interviews across the socioeconomic, racial, and political spectrum...
2024-10-1453 minMadison BookBeatNovelist E.M. Tran on History, Humor, and a Superstitious Beauty QueenIn this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Andrew Thomas speaks with E.M. Tran on her debut novel, Daughters of the New Year (2022, Hanover Square Press).Daughters of the New Year is a novel about the three Trung sisters and their mother. It’s also a novel about Vietnam and its long history of colonization at the hands of the Chinese, Japanese, and French. We catch glimpses of civil war and America’s devastating war in Vietnam. It’s a novel about diaspora and remembering an increasingly distant and fading homeland. It’s also a n...
2024-10-0757 minMadison BookBeatJennifer Kabat on the Importance of Solidarity in Unsettled TimesOn this edition of Madison BookBeat, host Sara Batkie speaks with author Jennifer Kabat about her memoir The Eighth Moon from Milkweed Editions, ahead of Kabat’s appearance at A Room of One’s Own on Tuesday, September 10th.A rebellion, guns, and murder. When Jennifer Kabat moves to the Catskills, she has no idea it was the site of the Anti-Rent War, an early episode of American rural populism. As she forges friendships with her new neighbors and explores the countryside on logging roads and rutted lanes—finding meadows dotted with milkweed in bloom, saff...
2024-09-0947 minMadison BookBeatA Raw and Tangible Discussion on Grieving the Loss of a PartnershipIn this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Lisa Malawski talks with Kathleen Paris about her book Gentle Comforts For Women Grieving the Loss of a Beloved Life Companion.As an author, educator, and management consultant, Paris has assisted organizations over the past thirty years to plan for new realities and improve their systems and organizational climate. She currently holds the title of Distinguished Consultant Emeritus from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.Paris has consulted in the United States and internationally in Canada, Cyprus, France,Guam, Switzerland, Virgin Islands, and the UK Kathleen lost...
2024-08-2649 minMadison BookBeatKatharine Beutner talks about her Edna Ferber Award-winning novel KillinglyIn this edition of Madison BookBeat, host Sara Batkie speaks with Milwaukee-based author Katharine Beutner about her Edna Ferber Award-winning novel, Killingly, which is out now in paperback from Soho Crime.Massachusetts, 1897: Bertha Mellish, “the most peculiar, quiet, reserved girl” at Mount Holyoke College, is missing. As a search team dredges the pond where Bertha might have drowned, her panicked father and sister arrive desperate to find some clue to her fate or state of mind. Bertha’s best friend, Agnes, a scholarly loner studying medicine, might know the truth, but she is being unhelpfull...
2024-08-1252 minMadison BookBeatA Voice Both Austere and Intimate: Poet-Turned-Novelist Henry Wise on his Debut, Holy CityIn this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Andrew Thomas speaks with Henry Wise on his debut novel, Holy City (2024, Grove Atlantic Press).Holy City is a novel that grabs your attention by the opening sentence and propels you into a world of crime, guilt, unrealized desire, and vanquished hopes and dreams. The narrative shuttles between Richmond, Virginia–the eponymous Holy City–and the rural county of Euphoria. Anything but euphoric, it’s peopled by a cast of characters both burned out on the passage of time and not very optimistic about the present. We encount...
2024-08-0549 minMadison BookBeatRobin and Joan Rolfs, Passionate About All Things Thomas EdisonIn this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Lisa Malawski talks with Robin and Joan Rolfs about their book Hearthstone: America’s Electrical National Treasure.Joan and Rob have been enthralled with Hearthstone since the 1970’s when theymoved to the Fox Cities. Joan developed a successful Interior Design program at FoxValley Technical College in 1971.In 1986, Joan was contacted by a member of The Friends of Hearthstone Board andinvited to become involved with the restoration of Hearthstone. Rob was also invitedbe...
2024-07-2249 minMadison BookBeatPoet Nikki Wallschlaeger Talks Getting The Rhythm Right In “Hold Your Own”In her fourth collection, Driftless Area-based poet Nikki Wallschlaeger further proves herself as a singular poet of astonishing emotional depth and formal range. Hold Your Own is a steadfast search for peace, self-acceptance, and pleasure in a world that makes those basic rights an everyday challenge for Black women. It was published in May 2024 by Copper Canyon Press.Nikki joins host Sara Batkie for a conversation about getting the right rhythm, the joys of working with books every day, and the natural beauty of her home state.Nikki Wallschlaeger’s work h...
2024-07-0849 minMadison BookBeatAuthor and publisher Richard Sweitzer on his own termsIn this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Lisa Malawski talks with Richard Sweitzer about his book ODE The Scion of Nerikan. Richard is award-winning author and longtime morning radio host. He received his Master’s of Arts degree in Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.Richard is the author and publisher of ODE The Scion of Nerikan which was published in 2023. The book is about an immortal monster who is searching for a way to die, and the little girl who gives him reason to live...for a little longer.
2024-06-2450 minMadison BookBeatAuthor Richard Scott Larson discusses his new memoir, "The Long Hallway"Richard Scott Larson's debut The Long Hallway (University of Wisconsin Press, April 2024) is a lyrical memoir that expresses a boy’s search for identity while navigating the darkness and isolation of a deeply private inner world. Growing up queer, closeted, and afraid, Richard Scott Larson found expression for his interior life in horror films, especially John Carpenter’s 1978 classic, Halloween. He developed an intense childhood identification with Michael Myers, Carpenter’s inscrutable masked villain, as well as Michael’s potential victims. In The Long Hallway, Larson scrutinizes this identification, meditating on horror as a metaphor fo...
2024-06-1050 minMadison BookBeatJust as a Serpent Sheds Its Skin: Priti Srivastava on Ecofeminism and Reincarnation in StorytellingIn this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Andrew Thomas speaks with Priti Srivastava about their novel The Nagini Anarchy, self-published in 2023.Priti Srivastava lives in Madison, Wisconsin with their best friends working to create inclusive spaces so that one day everyone will feel as though they belong. When Priti isn’t working or doing chores, they enjoy playing video games, making their friends laugh, eating samosas, and sitting quietly. Priti loves to connect with readers - check out thechaihouse.org to learn more or to request a virtual visit with your book club....
2024-06-0343 minMadison BookBeatRACHEL WERNER AND HER MANY TALENTSIn this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Lisa Malawski talks with Rachel Wernerabout her children’s book, Moving and Grooving to Fillmore’s Beat and her cookbook,Macro Cooking Made Simple.Rachel is a model, an author, a poet, a book reviewer, the founder of The Little BookProject, a freelance writer and digital medical consultant, teaching artist, certified holisticnutritionist, certified yoga instructor and mindfulness practitioner. Rachel has a daughternamed Phoebe and a dog named Butter.Mo...
2024-05-2754 minMadison BookBeatAuthor Beth Nguyen discusses her new memoir, "Owner of a Lonely Heart"Madison author Beth Nguyen’s latest book Owner of a Lonely Heart (Scribner, July 2023) is a memoir about parenthood, absence, and the condition of being a refugee: the story of Beth’s relationship with her mother.At the end of the Vietnam War, when Beth Nguyen was eight months old, she and her family fled Saigon for America. Only Beth’s mother stayed—or was left—behind, and they did not meet again until Beth was nineteen. Over the course of her adult life, she and her mother have spent less than twenty-four hours together. It...
2024-05-1354 minMadison BookBeatPoet Daniel Khalastchi on Wordplay, the Collision of Images, and White WhalesIn this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Andrew Thomas speaks with poet Daniel Khalastchi about hist new collection The Story of Your Obstinate Survival (2024, University of Wisconsin Press).The Story of Your Obstinate Survival is a propulsive collection. It’s very funny, uncannily mundane and starkly surreal. The poems are a collision of juxtapositions and images, each one brimming with a vigor and vitality that demands re-reading, reading aloud, and maybe even setting to music. The lyrical wordplay will stop you in your tracks, either with laughter or with an appreciation for the de...
2024-05-0650 minMadison BookBeatAngela Trudell Vasquez on Poetry in her LifeIn this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Lisa Malawski talks with Angela Trudell Vasquez, who until recently, was the City of Madison Poet Laureate.Trudell Vasquez is a poet, writer, performer, and activist. Her most recent chapbook, My People Redux (2022, Finishing Line Press) honors her heritage, contending with generational hardships immigrant families face in making a life in America. The chapbook won first place in the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets Chapbook Contest for 2022.Angie began writing seriously when she was seven years old. Her grandmother purchased a diary fo...
2024-04-2244 minMadison BookBeatMadison Poet Cynthia Marie Hoffman On “Exploding Head”Cynthia Marie Hoffman’s latest book of prose poetry, Exploding Head (Persea Books, February 2024) is described as an OCD memoir in prose poems.It chronicles her childhood onset and adult journey through obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), which manifests in fearful obsessions and counting compulsions that impact her relationship to motherhood, religion, and the larger world. It’s been called “Magnificently propulsive and evocative” by Rebecca Morgan Frank. Megan Wildhood said, “I want someone to make a haunted house of these poems.” She joins newest host, Sara Batkie, for a conversation about mental hea...
2024-04-1553 minMadison BookBeatBending Granite Tells Tales Of Leading Organizational ChangeHow do you make change at organizations that resemble hard granite, and aren’t designed to bend?Only by patiently and persistently nudging them forward day-by-day, one improvement at a time, according to the authors of Bending Granite: 30+ true stories of leading change (Acta Publications, 2022). It’s a compilation of stories from leaders, mostly in and around Madison, writing about the organizations they loved and sought to improve.It’s a book that promises “no big bang, no instant pudding, no quick fixes.” Nonetheless, it might lend insight for managers on e...
2024-04-0852 minMadison BookBeatAnn Garvin On Writing Her First Book At Age FiftyIn this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Lisa Malawski talks with local Madison author Ann Garvin.Ann Garvin became an author at age fifty. She has now written five books. Ann Garvin is a nurse, a professor, and USA Today Bestselling Author. She thinks everything is funny and a little bit sad. Ann writes stories about women with a good sense of humor who do too much in a world that asks too much from them. Ann is the founder of the multiple award-winning Tall Poppy Writers where she is committed to helping women writers succeed...
2024-03-1950 minMadison BookBeatCynthia Simmons On The “Wrong Kind Of Paper”Hallie Linden yearns to write for the New York Times. At the moment, she’s stuck at a daily newspaper in tiny Green Meadow, Indiana, a town known for its amusement park and nothing else. It’s 1989, and juicy reporting jobs are hard to find. She resolves to work hard, win a few awards, and then welcome the job offers.In this edition of Madison Book Beat, host David Ahrens speaks with Cynthia Simmons. She’s author of a recent novel called Wrong Kind of Paper, the story of a young reporter in a small t...
2024-03-1152 minMadison BookBeatFragile Institutions: Shibani Mahtani And Timothy McLaughlin on the 2019 Protests in Hong KongIn this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Andrew Thomas speaks with journalists Shibani Mahtani and Timothy McLaughlin for a conversation on their book Among the Braves: Hope, Struggle, and Exile in the Battle for Hong Kong and the Future of Global Democracy (2023, Hachette Books).Among the Braves is a narrative history of the 2019 pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong told through the eyes of four activists named Finn, Tommy, Chu, and Gwyneth. Imbedded reporters Mahtani and McLaughlin give insight into the development and ultimate dissolution of a movement more than 150 years in the making...
2024-03-0451 minMadison BookBeatJacquelyn Mitchard On The Importance of TitlesIn this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Lisa Malawski talks with prolific author Jacquelyn Mitchard. Mitchard is now a frequent lecturer and professor of fiction and creative nonfiction at the Vermont College of Fine Arts in Montpellier.She once worked as a journalist at several Wisconsin newspapers, including the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Capital Times, where her husband also worked before his sudden death - a tragedy that prompted her to write her first book.Lisa interviewed Jacquelyn for her book, A Very Inconvenient Scandal, published by...
2024-02-2635 minMadison BookBeatA conversation with Greg Mickells, retiring director of Madison Public LibraryFor more than a decade, Greg Mickells led the Madison Public Library. He's responsible for a significant transformation of the Madison library system.His tenure as Director took him to three continents, and to the White House in 2016, when Madison Public Library was recognized with a National Medal for Museum and Library Service. Additional awards received under Mickells' leadership include a Wisconsin Innovation Award for "The Bubbler" program, and as a Top Innovator by the Urban Libraries Council in the Race and Social Equity category.Under his hand, the L...
2024-02-1253 minMadison BookBeatIt’s Not Nothing: Essayist Peter Coviello on How Our Favorite Books and Songs Help Us Make Worlds TogetherIn this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Andrew Thomas speaks with Peter Coviello on his book of essays Is There God After Prince? Dispatches from an Age of Last Things (2023, University of Chicago Press).Exuberant, effusive, rye, and incisive, this collection of essays analyze a wide range of cultural objects in order to shore up some modicum of consolation against an intractable sense of impending doom. By focusing on beloved novels, films, and songs and the joyful connections they help foster between friends, families, and lovers, Coviello argues that these attachments are small m...
2024-02-0552 minMadison BookBeatMadison's Shoshauna Shy on bringing poetry to the publicIn this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Lisa Malawski talks with local poet Shoshauna Shy.Shoshauna Shy has been involved in local poetry and literary events for decades. She founded the Poetry Jumps Off the Shelf program in 2004, a project with the mission of placing poetry in public places where it isn't expected.She's previously worked for the Wisconsin Humanities Council, where she helped create, coordinate and facilitate poetry programs for the Wisconsin Book Festival when it was just getting started.Shoshauna and L...
2024-01-2948 minMadison BookBeatHeather Swan’s Lyrical Language Of Beauty And DevastationOn this edition of Madison BookBeat, host Cole Erickson interviews Heather Swan about her latest book Dandelion, a collection of poetry which explores our uniquely human relationship with this natural world, not only in its wondrous beauty, but also in its devastation and fragility.About the guest:Heather Swan is a poet, non-fiction writer, and educator in Madison. Her poetry includes the collection A Kinship with Ash, which was a finalist for the ASLE Book Award, and her chapbook The Edge of Damage, which was the winner of the Wisconsin Chapbook Award.She is also t...
2024-01-2352 minMadison BookBeatThomas Pearson, Author Of An Ordinary Future, On Disability And DifferenceIn this edition of Madison Book Beat, host David Ahrens talks with with Thomas Pearson.Thomas Pearson is a professor of anthropology at UW-Stout, where he also leads the social science department.As a cultural anthropologist, he understands and appreciates the diversity of cultures and expressions of a common humanity. After the birth of his daughter, who has Down’s Syndrome, he documents his struggle towards broadening the concept of humanity to all people-including those who are differently able and thinking about how we can enable them to achieve their full capabilities.
2024-01-0853 minMadison BookBeatThe Dane County Farmers' Market Cookbook With Food Writer Terese AllenThe Dane County Farmers' Market is the largest producers-only farmers market in the nation. Last year, it celebrated its 50th anniversary.In celebration of that significant milestone, the DCFM has released a hardcover, full-color, 258-page cookbook. The Dane County Farmers' Market Cookbook (published this year by Little Creek Press) features 125 recipes that give a global spin to locally-sourced ingredients.With a foreword written by chef Tory Miller, and photographs by Bill Lubing, the cookbook is written by Terese Allen. She's the author of a variety of local f...
2023-12-1148 minMadison BookBeatProf. Stephen Kantrowitz, ”Citizens Of A Stolen Land: A Ho-Chunk History Of The 19th Century United States.”Stu Levitan’s guest is UW history professor Stephen Kantrowitz, whose new book should be of special interest to those of us here in Teejop. It’s Citizens of a Stolen Land: A Ho-Chunk History of the 19th Century United States from the good people at the University of North Carolina Press.If you are like most Americans with an immigrant background, you probably think citizenship is a good thing, because it confers rights and privileges. But for Native Americans in the 19th century, it was something quite different – it was a way to destroy th...
2023-11-281h 30Madison BookBeatThe Life And Music Of Al JarreauAl Jarreau is one of the most beloved musical artists to come out of Milwaukee, and his music – from jazz to pop to R&B – defies easy classification. He performed with a bevy of jazz musicians, and blended an eclectic mix of other styles into his work.But Jarreau is perhaps best known for his live performances and expressive vocal improvisation. When he passed away in 2017, the New York Times wrote of Jarreau’s “virtuosic ability to produce an array of vocalizations ranging from delicious nonsense to clicks and growls to quasi-instrumental sounds.”...
2023-11-1653 minMadison BookBeatPoet Tacey M. Atsitty on Risking Your Heart and Being Swallowed UpIn this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Andrew Thomas speaks with Tacey M. Atsitty about her poetry collection (At) Wrist, (2023, The University of Wisconsin Press Press).In a fever dream of metaphor and image, Atsitty explores themes of loss, romantic love, and faith. Drawing on the familiar poetic form of the sonnet, Atsitty demonstrates how vulnerability, nakedness, and risk are an essential part of the connections we build with others across time. Delicate and visceral, (At) Wrist is a collection which "amplifies silence, so you can hear/ every crunch or offering of self."
2023-11-0651 minMadison BookBeatUW Prof. Stephen Kantrowitz, "Citizens of a Stolen Land: A Ho-Chunk History of the 19th Century United States"Stu Levitan welcomes UW history professor Stephen Kantrowitz, whose new book should be of special interest to those of us here in Teejop, it’s Citizens of a Stolen Land: A Ho-Chunk History of the 19th Century United States from the good people at the University of North Carolina Press.If you are like most Americans with an immigrant background, you probably think citizenship is a good thing, because it confers rights and privileges. But for Native Americans in the 19th century, it was something quite different – it was a way to destroy their coll...
2023-10-3052 minMadison BookBeatAlison Townsend On The Spirit Of PlaceOn this edition of Madison BookBeat, host Cole Erickson interviews author Alison Townsend. Alison is an award-winning author of two poetry collections, The Blue Dress & Persephone in America, and a volume of prose, The Persistence of Rivers. She is also a professor emerita of English at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.She joined us in the studio to discuss her latest book of memoir-in-essays titled The Green Hour: A Natural History of Home, published by the University of Wisconsin Press in 2022. The Green Hour can be described as a collection of sparkling lyrical prose that moves effortlessly through time...
2023-10-1854 minMadison BookBeatWhat Are You Reading?On Madison Book Beat, we aim to highlight local authors and book events. And sometimes, we hope that you just might learn about the next book on your to-read pile.On this pledge drive edition of Madison Book Beat, we flip the table, asking YOU: what’re you reading? What book should we add to our reading list? David Ahrens hosts today’s open line.Books mentioned by callers and by hosts in this episode include…
Elizabeth Engstrom’s When Darkness Loves Us (Valancourt Books, 1985),
Works by Ross Gay, inclu...
2023-10-0953 minMadison BookBeatA Musical Translation of Movement: Jérôme Camal on Guadeloupean Gwoka and (Post) ColonialityIn this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Andrew Thomas speaks with musician and scholar Jérôme Camal on his monography Creolized Aurality: Guadeloupean Gwoka and Postcolonial Politics (2019, University of Chicago Press).Jérôme Camal is assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and his research and teaching focus on music, dance, and postcoloniality across the French Atlantic world. Broadly speaking, he investigates how postcolonial ways of knowing and ways of being are created and transmitted through the body. In Creolized Aurality, Camal details how the practice and sounds of gwoka—...
2023-10-0254 minMadison BookBeatJoyce Carol Oates, "Zero-Sum"Stu Levitan welcomes to Madison BookBeat one of our greatest living writers, perhaps the preeminent American writer, Joyce Carol Oates. She holds a master’s degree and an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin, but of greater immediate interest is that she’s coming back to Madison for an appearance at the Wisconsin Book Festival this Thursday evening the 28th to talk about her new collection, Zero-Sum. That’s at 7 o’clock in the Madison Central Library. To call Joyce Carol Oates prolific is something of an understatement; her statistics are staggering. By one acco...
2023-09-2552 minMadison BookBeatB. Pladek’s Magical Intersection Of Ecology And HistoryOn this edition of Madison BookBeat, host Cole Erickson interviews author Ben Pladek about his debut novel Dry Land. It is 1917, and a young forester in the north woods of Wisconsin has just discovered he has a magical gift: his touch can grow any plant in minutes. Through this thought-provoking novel, Pladek brings us on a eloquent journey that explores the possibility that such a magical gift could actually be a curse, testing and uprooting the character’s beliefs of nature, love, and self-sacrifice.Ben Pladek is a literature scholar and writer based in Milwaukee, as well as As...
2023-09-1951 minMadison BookBeatJon Melrod's "Fighting Times" in WisconsinThis week on Madison Book Beat, host David Ahrens speaks with Jonathan Melrod, a prominent radical, political activist, labor organizer, human rights lawyer and pancreatic cancer survivor, now out with a memoir: "Fighting Times: Organizing on the Front Lines of the Class War" (September 2022, PM Press).Melrod's memoir highlights his time as a student radical on the UW-Madison campus, during the peak of anti-war upheaval in the 1960s. But unlike the vast majority of protesters, after the demonstrations ended, Melrod committed himself to organizing the industrial working class for revolution.
2023-09-1152 minMadison BookBeatNovelist And Poet Quan Barry On Nonduality, Communicating Beyond Language, And Writing Across GenresIn this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Andrew Thomas speaks with novelist, poet and playwright Quan Barry about her novel When I’m Gone, Look for Me in the East (2022, Vintage) and her forthcoming collection of poetry Auction (2023, University of Pittsburgh Press).“Why do we need to believe our lives must add up to some grand narrative, and what happens when we stop believing this?” asks the narrator of When I’m Gone, Look for Me in the East. Set in the vast steppes of Mongolia, the novel follows two brothers on their quest to...
2023-09-0453 minMadison BookBeatPoet Deshawn McKinney On Vulnerability As A MuscleOn this edition of Madison BookBeat, host Cole Erickson interviews poet Deshawn McKinney. The Milwaukee poet is out with his debut chapbook father forgive me (Black Sunflowers Poetry Press, 2021). It’s a collection described as “an acerbic hip hop hymnal” filled with “fearless, wounding and tender” poems.About the guest: Deshawn McKinney is a writer and poet out of Milwaukee and currently lives in Madison. His poetry has appeared in multiple journals, including River Heron Review as a poetry prize-winner.He’s a graduate of UW-Madison, where he earned a degr...
2023-08-2152 minMadison BookBeatScholar Nicole Fox On Memorials, Transitional Justice, And The Inescapability Of MemoryIn this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Andrew Thomas speaks with Nicole Fox about her monograph, After Genocide: Memory and Reconciliation in Rwanda (2021, The University of Wisconsin Press Press). How does a society move forward after the mass violence of genocide? What role do public memorials play in creating healing narratives ? Whose experiences get told and re-told, and whose experiences get marginalized as years go by? 2024 marks thirty years since the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, and scholar Nicole Fox provides insight into these questions based on years of interviews with survivors who n...
2023-08-0753 min