Welcome to Boswell!
B Pladek, author of Dry LandBoswell hosts an evening with University of Marquette Assistant Professor B Pladek for a conversation about his new novel, Dry Land, which tells the story of an idealistic young forester in Northwoods Wisconsin who has an incredible gift that may also be a curse. In conversation with poet and Marquette Professor Angela Sorby.
Please click here to visit bpladekmke.eventbrite.com and register for this event. And be sure to order your copy of Dry Land now, too.
Rand Brandt discovers a remarkable gift: his touch can grow any plant in minutes. He dreams of devoting his life to restoring a landscape devastated by lumbering. He reveals his secret only to his lover, Gabriel. But it isn’t long before Rand is drafted to grow timber for the war effort. Along with Gabriel, he’s shipped to France, though the army is a dangerous place for two men in love. In order to survive, he must confront the terrifying possibility that his gift is actually a curse, upending everything he believes about nature, love, and himself.
From Karen Joy Fowler: "Pladek has written an ode to the ordinary magic of our extraordinary world." And from Kirkus Reviews: "Compelling in its underlying conversation about environmental preservation, this book is rich with well-researched plant knowledge that conveys the delicate balance of ecosystems. A winning combination of history, magic, and science that reiterates the importance of environmental preservation."
B Pladek is an Associate Professor of English at Marquette University, and his short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Slate Future Tense Fiction, and The Offing.
David K Seitz, author of A Different Trek: Radical Geographies of Deep Space NineTrekkies unite at Boswell for an evening with scholar and Milwaukee native David K Seitz who chats about his new book, A Different Trek, the first scholarly monograph dedicated to a critical interpretation of DS9’s allegorical world-building, which draws upon on cultural geography, Black studies, and feminist and queer studies. In conversation with Gerry Canavan, Associate Professor of English at Marquette University and Greg Carter, Associate Professor of History at UW-Milwaukee.
Click here to visit davidkseitzmke.eventbrite.com and register for this event, please. And be sure to order your copy of A Different Trek now, too.
In 1993, Deep Space Nine debuted with a crew led by a reluctant Black American commander and an extraterrestrial first officer who had until recently been an anticolonial revolutionary. DS9 extended Star Trek’s tradition of critical social commentary but did so by transgressing many of Star Trek’s previous taboos, including religion, money, eugenics, and interpersonal conflict. Thirty years later, DS9 is beloved by critics and fans but remains marginalized in scholarly studies of science fiction. Seitz argues that its prophetic, place-based critiques of 1990s U.S. politics, which deepened the foundations of many of our current crises, have been vindicated politically, to a degree most scholars and even many fans have yet to fully appreciate.
From andré m. carrington, author of Speculative Blackness: "Seitz reopens this chapter in popular culture to remind us that staying in place - especially on a planet like ours, with its bloodstained maps and shifting tides of power - affords us every possibility to confront legacies of injustice and imagine radical futures."
David K Seitz is author of A House of Prayer for All People: Contesting Citizenship in a Queer Church. He is also Assistant Professor of Cultural Geography at Harvey Mudd College.
Marsha Gordon, author of Becoming the Ex-Wife: The Unconventional Life and Forgotten Writings of Ursula ParrottBoswell hosts an evening with author and director Marsha Gordon, who joins us for a presentation about her new book, Becoming the Ex-Wife, a riveting biography of best-selling author, Hollywood screenwriter, and voice for the modern woman Ursula Parrott. Cohosted by the UWM Film Studies Program.
Please click here to visit marshagordonmke.eventbrite.com and register for this event. And be sure to order your copy of Becoming the Ex-Wife now as well.
Credited with popularizing the label "ex-wife" in 1929, Ursula Parrott wrote provocatively about divorcées, career women, single mothers, work-life balance, and a host of new challenges facing modern women. Although she was frequently dismissed as a "woman's writer," reading Parrott's writing today makes it clear that she was a trenchant philosopher of modernity. Her best sellers, Hollywood film deals, marriages and divorces, and run-ins with the law made her a household name. Part biography, part cultural history, Becoming the Ex-Wife establishes Parrott's rightful place in twentieth-century American culture, and Marsha Gordon tells a timely story about the life of a woman on the front lines of a culture war that is still raging today.
From The New Yorker: "Gordon makes an excellent case for Parrott as an unjustly forgotten historical figure: a sociological flash point, a beneficiary of feminism and victim of patriarchy who got her enemies mixed up."
Marsha Gordon is Professor of Film Studies at North Carolina State University, a former Fellow at the National Humanities Center, and the recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar award.
Christina Ward, author of Holy Food: How Cults, Communes, and Religious Movements Influenced What We Eat - An American HistoryMilwaukee author and food historian Christina Ward appears at Boswell for an evening featuring her latest work, Holy Food, which explores the influence of mainstream to fringe religious beliefs on modern American food culture.
Please click here to visit christinawardmke.eventbrite.com and register for this event. And be sure to order your copy of Holy Food now, too.
Christina Ward unravels the ways religious beliefs intersect with food to tell a different story of America – one of true believers and charlatans, of idealists and visionaries, and of the everyday people who followed them, often at their peril. Religious beliefs have been the source of food ‘rules’ since Pythagoras told his followers not to eat beans (they contain souls). Holy Food studies how the explosion of religious movements since the Great Awakenings birthed a cottage industry of food fads that gained mainstream acceptance. Ward makes sharp observations with new insights into American history in her journey through the American kitchen.
From Julia Skinner, author of Our Fermented Lives: "An engaging book that shares everything from little-known facts to illuminating profiles of historical figures. Best of all, Ward shares recipes from historic religious communities, updated to reflect modern cooking technology. A must-have for food historians, religious historians, or just the curious and hungry folks in your life."
Christina Ward is author of American Advertising Cookbooks: How Corporations Taught Us to Love Spam, Bananas, and Jell-O. She is also Vice President and Editor of Feral House. Ward is also the certified Master Food Preserver for Southeast Wisconsin.
John Patrick Green, author of InvestiGators: All Tide Up Boswell hosts a special afternoon event with John Patrick Green, creator of the New York Times bestselling InvestiGators series, who’ll present his latest installment, All Tide Up. Super duper sewer surfing sleuths Mango and Brash are back for a new adventure on the high seas. The book is great for ages 7 and up, and this event is fun for the whole family.
Please click here to visit johnpatrickgreenmke.eventbrite.com and register for this event. And be sure to order your copy of InvestiGators: All Tide Up now, too.
Unsinkable detectives Mango and Brash are back for a high seas adventure that takes them deep into uncharted waters. When a cruise captain is found drifting at sea and delirious, the search begins for his missing ship and passengers. Did it sink? Was it boat-napped? Are supernatural forces at play? And can the InvestiGators unravel this maritime mystery before a second cruise befalls a similarly unfathomable fate?
The New York Times says the InvestiGators series: 'Has heaping helpings of surreal alligator action and wordplay gags to keep new readers bent on solving the mystery.' And from Kirkus Reviews: "With its rampant good-natured goofiness and its unrelenting fizz and pep, this feels like a sugar rush manifested as a graphic novel. Silly and inventive fast-paced fun."
John Patrick Green is a New York Times bestselling human author and not just a bunch of animals in a trench coat pretending to have a human job. He’s also author of Hippopotamister and the Kitten Construction Company books.
Lori Fredrich, author of Wisconsin Field to Fork: Farm-Fresh Recipes from the Dairy StateBoswell welcomes Lori Fredrich, Senior Food Writer and Dining Editor at OnMilwaukee and author of Milwaukee Food: A History of Cream City Cuisine, for a special evening featuring her latest taste of the dairy state, a new book titled Wisconsin Field to Fork.
Please click here to visit lorifredrichmke.eventbrite.com and register for this event. And be sure to order your copy of Wisconsin Field to Fork as well.
Farm-to-table dining has become best practice in restaurants across the nation, connecting consumers with those who make and grow their food. While farmers have diversified their crops to meet the needs of both creative chefs and increasingly adventurous home cooks, chefs have played a crucial role in bridging the gap between the field and the fork. Although states with longer growing seasons tend to take the credit for their ability to heed the call for locally grown food, Wisconsin has earned its place at the forefront of the movement.
Wisconsin’s chefs have capitalized on the state’s bounty, offering increasingly localized seasonal menus and extending the harvest through active preservation. Fredrich tells the tale of Wisconsin agriculture, not only through stories about the farmers who provide the wealth of vegetables, dairy, and livestock needed to sustain local restaurants but also through the seventy chef-driven recipes that take those products and weave magic into them.
Lori Fredrich is cohost of the FoodCrush podcast, and her recipes and writing have also been featured in a variety of publications including Cheese Connoisseur, Edible Milwaukee, and Milwaukee Magazine.
Ross Gay, author of The Book of (More) Delights: EssaysBoswell presents a special evening with National Book Award finalist and unofficial Poet Laureate of Joy Ross Gay, who visits us with The Book of (More) Delights, the follow-up to his New York Times bestselling collection, The Book of Delights. In this new book of lyrical essayettes, Gay shares a his chronicle of small, daily wonders. It’s a perfect antidote for unsettling times, an invitation to rediscover the ordinary joys in the world. Cohosted by our friends of Woodland Pattern Book Center.
Please click here to visit rossgaymke.eventbrite.com and register for this event now. And be sure to order your copy of The Book of (More) Delights now, too!
In a collection of genre-defying, one of America’s most original voices continues his ongoing investigation of delight. For Gay, what delights us is what connects us and gives us meaning, from the joy of a nostalgic to the pleasure of refusing "nefarious" QR code menus. Gay revels in the natural world – a sweet potatoes harvest, a hummingbird in the beebalm, a sunflower growing from the wall around a cemetery - and the trillion mysterious ways this glorious earth delights us. For the fans eagerly awaiting this new volume and for readers of Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Zadie Smith, and Rebecca Solnit, Gay’s new collection is a book to savor and share.
From Boswellian Chris Lee: "A new Ross Gay book is always, yes, I'm going to say it - a delight. Each essay is a little gift - an invitation to join the poet in moments when delight (and I can't say enough how important - how necessary - it is that he generally uses delight as an active word, as a verb) changes his relationship with the world around him - and maybe makes us reconsider our own, too. Man, this dude is a real one, and this book is an earthy, bare hands digging in the dirt kind of balm for alienation. Read it and live better."
Ross Gay is author of The Book of Delights and Inciting Joy, as well as four books of poetry, including Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and finalist for the National Book Award, and Be Holding, winner of the 2021 PEN America Jean Stein Book Award. Gay is a founding board member of the Bloomington Community Orchard and has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Bread Loaf, and the Guggenheim Foundation. He teaches at Indiana University.
Douglas Armstrong, author of Sun Dog MemoryBoswell welcomes back award-winning Wisconsin author Douglas Armstrong for an evening featuring his latest novel, Sun Dog Memory, a Depression era saga of a family at war with itself twenty years after their boom and bust struggles ended bitterly on the vast Kansas plain.
Please click here to visit douglasarmstrongmke.eventbrite.com register for this event. And be sure to order your copy of Sun Dog Memory now as well.
When railway mail clerk Jed Albright has a chance encounter with a girl who’s a dead ringer for his long-missing sister outside a cowtown depot, he’s drawn into a perilous web of lies, treachery, and vengeance. Soon, he’s a man on the run with a price on his head. The question for Jed, can he outrun his past and a determined killer in a race on the rails from dust bowl Kansas to the steamy streets of New Orleans?
Journalist and author Meg Kissinger says: "Armstrong's masterful tale of murder and intrigue on the Kansas prairie will have your heart pounding." And Kirkus Reviews says: "This fast-paced narrative effectively mixes intense family drama with rapid-fire action."
Douglas Armstrong is author of the novels Even Sunflowers Cast Shadows, Life on The Sun, and Color of The Sun. His short fiction has appeared in a variety of magazines, from Ellery Queen to Boys’ Life.
Andy Rash, author of EclipseBoswell is so pleased to welcome local author/illustrator Andy Rash back to the store for a Saturday Morning Special event featuring his heartwarming new picture book, Eclipse, which tells the tale of a boy and his dad going on an eclipse trip. Everyone who attends the event will get a pair of solar eclipse viewing glasses to take home for the upcoming partial solar eclipse, too.
Please click here to visit andyrashmke.eventbrite.com and register for this event. And be sure to order your copy of Eclipse now as well.
A boy and his dad make a plan to travel to see a total solar eclipse. They drive to the perfect campsite, not wanting to miss the couple of minutes when the sun will be completely hidden by the moon. When the moment happens, being together makes it even more special. Based on a trip Rash took with his son to see the eclipse in August 2017, Eclipse is a heartfelt and playfully illustrated ode to seeking out unique adventures and savoring the most special moments with the people you love.
Andy Rash is author and illustrator of several picture books, including The Robots Are Coming, Are You a Horse?, and Agent A to Agent Z. Rash’s illustrations have been featured in the New York Times, Wired, and the New Yorker, and his animations have been shown on Nickelodeon. He teaches illustration at MIAD.
Phyllis R Dixon, author of IntermissionNiche Book Bar presents a special afternoon with Phyllis R Dixon, a UWM graduate, former bookseller, author of Intermission, a brand new novel that’s something like Dreamgirls meets How Stella Got Her Groove Back with a nostalgic 90s twist.
Please click here to register for this event! And order a copy of Intermission now, too. Order here from Boswell. Or, order here from Niche Book Bar. Niche will also be selling copies of the book during the event. Please note, this event has been moved from its original location and now takes place at Boswell.
As glittering as their name, The Diamonds were on the brink of 1990s pop music stardom until betrayal tore them apart. Now these four very different women are getting a second shot at success. Will reuniting mend their rift? Or will lasting secrets, new temptations, and the hard-knocks of today’s music industry destroy them, and their dreams, for good?
Four talented Memphis girls had a brush with pop music fam, but their bitter breakup shattered the Diamonds' never-easy 'sisterhood.' Now a reunion offers a fresh start, just as mid-life struggles are pushing all four to the brink. As the women contend with the new and overwhelming demands of celebrity, they find that the old traps have stayed the same. Can they ever reach true sisterhood and help each other become the sparkling gems they were meant to be?
Phyllis R Dixon is author of Forty Acres and Down Home Blues, which was shortlisted for the Lariat Adult Fiction Reading List by the Texas Library Association. She is also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the African American Woman’s Soul. Dixon previously worked for the US Treasury Department and currently serves on several nonprofit boards.
Jeff Tweedy, author of World Within a Song: Music That Changed My Life and Life That Changed My MusicPabst Theater Group and Boswell Book Company welcomes Jeff Tweedy to the Pabst Theater for a special evening of conversation about his latest book, World Within a Song. In a heartfelt mix of memories, music, and inspiration, the Wilco frontman shares the songs that changed his life, the real-life experiences behind each one, and what he's learned about how music and life intertwine.
Tickets for this event cost $30 plus tax and ticket fees and include admission and an autographed copy of World Within a Song. Click here to visit the Pabst Theater website and purchase tickets now. Please note there is no public signing or meet-and-greet for this event.
What makes us fall in love with a song? What makes us want to write our own songs? Do songs help us live better lives? And do the lives we live help us write better songs? Jeff Tweedy is back to talk about his disarming, beautiful, and inspirational book about why we listen to music, why we love songs, and how music can connect us to each other and to ourselves.
World Within a Song features essays on 50+ songs that have both changed Jeff's life and influenced his music, including songs by The Replacements, Mavis Staples, the Velvet Underground, Joni Mitchell, Otis Redding, Dolly Parton, and Billie Eilish. Tweedy’s new book also highlights his own songs and his “Rememories,” a hit on his popular Substack, Starship Casual. Jeff Tweedy considers a mix of the musical, the emotional, and the inspirational in the best possible way.
Jeff Tweedy is a founding member and leader of Grammy Award–winner Wilco and cofounder of Uncle Tupelo. Tweedy is also author of the New York Times bestsellers Let's Go (So We Can Get Back) and How to Write One Song.
All event times are Central Time. To see a full event listing, visit our Upcoming Events page here. Read posts from The Boswellians (our bookseller contributed blog) here and Boswell and Books (from Daniel Goldin) right here, and visit our blog post archive right here.
