UW-Fox Valley will be hosting several events as part of the first-ever Fox Cities Book Festival. In addition to the events that will be hosted here at Fox, several of our current and former faculty and staff will be participating in the festival as presenters. Please take advantage of this opportunity to see some of the wonderful writers who will be presenting their work this week throughout the Fox Cities.
Wednesday, April 16 (Room 1229)
12:00p - Henry Golde
Henry Golde, author of “Ragdolls” will present “Reflections of a Holocaust Survivor. During World War II, Henry Golde was relocated to 10 different concentration camps in 5 years. As a teenage boy he experienced firsthand the horrors of Hitler’s Reign Of Terror. Having escaped death on several occasions while in captivity, Henry now tours the Midwest telling of his experiences so that we my never forget what happens when hatred and bigotry go unchecked.
Friday, April 18 (Aaron Bohrod Gallery)
11:00am – Jean Feraca & Randall Davidson
Reception
Join us in greeting Jean Feraca author of “I Hear Voices” and Randall Davidson author of “9XM”.
12:00pm – Jean Feraca
Jean Feraca is Wisconsin Public Radio's Distinguished Senior Broadcaster and has been host and co-producer of the Ideas Network's award-winning call-in news and cultural affairs program, Conversations with Jean Feraca, from 1990 to 2003. In 2003 she started her new weekend program Here On Earth. Jean Feraca was the recipient of The Nation's l975 Discovery Award and was named "one of the most promising poets of her generation." She published her first book of poems, South From Rome: Il Mezzogiorno, with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her work is anthologized in The Dream Book, which won The American Book Award in l986. She received a Wisconsin Arts Board Fellowship to complete Crossing the Great Divide, her second book, which was published in l992 and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. In l996 she was named the lead poet in a major public series commissioned by Wisconsin's Dane County Cultural Affairs. She is a member of Poets and Writers, Inc. and is listed in the International Who's Who in Poetry, and Who's Who in American Writers, Editors and Poets. Also in 1996, she was featured as "A Woman for Lears," in Lears Magazine. Madison Magazine named her one of its "10 Most Talented".
She will be reading from and discussing her recent book “I Hear Voices.”
1:00pm – Randall Davidson
Randall Davidson joined WPR in 1990 and is the network's afternoon newscaster. He is also the network's chief announcer. Randall is also a news producer and handles much of the news audio and scripts from the WPR reporters. He manages the WPR News Agency, a service that distributes WPR news scripts to the WPR website, wire services and about 40 weekly newspapers.
In addition to his on air work, Randall also serves as the unofficial historian of WPR, answering listener questions about the early years and keeping track of historical artifacts and collections relating to the network's history. His book on the topic, "9XM Talking: WHA Radio and the Wisconsin Idea" was published by the University of Wisconsin Press.
Randall is a native of Neenah, and received bachelors and masters degrees in business administration from UW-Madison.
He is the author of “9XM Talking: WHA Radio and the Wisconsin Idea” a history of Wisconsin Public Radio.
2:00pm – Charles Baxter & Dean Bakopoulos
Reception
join us in greeting Charles Baxter author of “Feast of Love” and Dean Bakopoulos author of “Don’t Come Back from the Moon”.
2:30pm - Charles Baxter and Dean Bakopoulos
Best known for his fictional novel "The Feast of Love," Charles Baxter brought this National Book Award-nominated story to the big screen with a movie of the same name starring Morgan Freeman and Greg Kinnear. Baxter has written novels, short stories and essays and his resume includes the recent "Saul and Patsy" as well as "Believers" and "Burning Down the House." As a recipient of the Award of Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Baxter has also spent time as an English professor and editor and currently calls Ann Arbor, Mich., home. www.charlesbaxter.com
Dean Bakopoulos is executive director and Lillian Greenwood Artist-in-Residence at the Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts in Mineral Point. He is the former Director of the Wisconsin Humanities Council. Bakopoulos' first novel, "Please Don't Come Back from the Moon," was selected by the New York Times as one of 100 Notable Books of 2005 and received "Book of the Year" awards from the New York Public Library, the Council of Wisconsin Writers, the Library of Michigan, and the Friends of American Writers. He was also a recipient of a 2006-07 National Endowment for the Arts fellowship and is at work on a second novel, "My American Unhappiness," to be published by Harcourt in 2009. He has taught at UW-Madison and has been a guest lecturer at a number of colleges and universities. This month, Bakopoulos was awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship. The $50,000 Fellowships are awarded to men and women who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts.
Saturday, April 19 (Weis Earth Science Museum)
3:00pm – Marcia Bjornerud
Lawrence University Geology Professor, Dr. Marcia Bjornerud will present “Reading the Rocks.”
For more information contact Jeff Kuepper at jeff.kuepper@uwc.edu