Madeline Miller

If you weren’t able to join us for Miller’s live event or are interested in watching it again, click below to watch the recording.

This event is being presented virtually.

Madeline Miller’s first novel and New York Times bestseller, The Song of Achilles, was awarded the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction. Her second novel, Circe, also a New York Times bestseller, won the Indies Choice Best Adult Fiction of the Year Award as well as being shortlisted for the 2019 Women’s Prize for Fiction.

The goddess Circe is infamous for turning Odysseus’ men into pigs, but is isn’t her divinity that gives her power, it’s witchcraft. Miller will talk about ancient witchcraft, what makes a witch, and the long literary history of these powerful women from ancient Rome to Shakespeare to Oz, and modern day.

With unforgettably vivid characters, mesmerizing language, and page-turning suspense, Circe is a triumph of storytelling, an intoxicating epic of family rivalry, palace intrigue, love and loss, as well as a celebration of indomitable female strength in a man's world. Circe is currently being adapted for television series by HBO Max.

The program will include a live question and answer session at the end of the presentation.

Learn more about Madeline Miller at madelinemiller.com.

Miller’s appearance is made possible with technology assistance from L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library.

CLICK HERE to buy Miller’s books locally from Dotters Books.

Kate Moore

If you weren’t able to join us for Weaver’s live event or are interested in watching it again, click below to watch the recording.

This event is being presented virtually.

Kate Moore will join us live from England to discuss her new book, which charts the incredible true story of Elizabeth Packard, a nineteenth-century housewife from Illinois who was committed to an insane asylum for daring to defy her husband and whose courageous fight for justice changed the world. Moore will share with us her research journey and the inspiration behind the book, as well as stun listeners with shocking facts about this piece of little-known history—facts that, powerfully, still resonate today. The program will include a live question and answer session at the end of the presentation.

A British writer based in London, Moore writes across a variety of genres and has had multiple titles on the Sunday Times bestseller list.

Moore’s appearance is made possible with technology assistance from L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library.

CLICK HERE to buy Moore’s book locally from Dotters Books.

KATE MOORE is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Radium Girls, which won the 2017 Goodreads Choice Award for Best History, was voted U.S. librarians’ favorite nonfiction book of 2017, and was named a Notable Nonfiction Book of 2018 by the American Library Association. A British writer based in London, Moore writes across a variety of genres and has had multiple titles on the Sunday Times bestseller list.

Her passion as a writer is to help people to have a voice, especially those silenced through injustice. With every book, she hopes to take readers on a visceral journey so that they too can experience the extraordinary lives of others.

Learn more about Kate Moore at kate-moore.com.

Brian Freeman

If you weren’t able to join us for Freeman’s live event or are interested in watching it again, click below to watch the recording.

This event is being presented in-person and virtually.

Great stories can lift you out of the real world and transport you somewhere completely different. In this fun, funny look at his 15+ years in the publishing business, thriller writer Brian Freeman talks about the creative process, changes in the book world for writers and readers, and the challenges of taking over an iconic hero like Jason Bourne.

Freeman’s appearance is made possible with technology assistance from Pablo Center at the Confluence.

CLICK HERE to buy Freeman’s book locally from Dotters Books.

BRIAN FREEMAN is a New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty thrillers, including the Duluth-based Jonathan Stride series and multiple popular stand-alone novels. In 2019, he was selected by the Robert Ludlum estate to take over Ludlum’s iconic Jason Bourne series, and his novel The Bourne Evolution was named one of the best mysteries and thrillers of 2020 by Kirkus Reviews. Since 2005, Freeman has sold books in 46 countries and 23 languages. He has also won the Thriller Award for Best Hardcover Novel and been a two-time Edgar Award finalist.

Learn more about Brian Freeman at bfreemanbooks.com.

Dasha Kelly Hamilton

If you weren’t able to join us for Dasha Kelly Hamilton’s live event or are interested in watching it again, click below to watch the recording.

This event is being presented in-person and virtually and is the Nadine St. Louis Memorial Poetry Conversation 2021.

Dasha Kelly Hamilton uniquely engages communities in a forward dialogue on race, class, and equity. Hamilton will be the sole presenter for our annual Nadine St. Louis Memorial Poetry Conversation. Hamilton is a national Rubinger Fellow and, concurrently, Poet Laureate for the City of Milwaukee and the State of Wisconsin.

Her non-profit, Still Waters Collective, has initiated literary arts programs for the last twenty years. A collection of her micro-stories was released in 2020, and her stage production Makin’ Cake is currently doing a national virtual tour, including a visit to Eau Claire in early 2022.

Hamilton’s appearance is made possible with technology assistance from Pablo Center at the Confluence.

DASHA KELLY HAMILTON is currently the Poet Laureate for the state of Wisconsin. She is a writer, performance artist, and creative change agent, applying the creative process to facilitate dialogues around human and social wellness. She is also the author of two novels, three poetry collections, four spoken word albums and one collection of personal vignettes. She has taught at colleges, conferences, and classrooms and curated fellowships for emerging leaders. An Arts Envoy for the U.S. Embassy, Hamilton has facilitated community-building initiatives in Botswana, Toronto, Mauritius, and Beirut. Hamilton is a national Rubinger Fellow and Poet Laureate for the City of Milwaukee.

Learn more about Dasha Kelly Hamilton at dashakelly.com.

Kao Kalia Yang

If you weren’t able to join us for Yang’s live event or are interested in watching it again, click below to watch the recording.

This event is being presented in-person and virtually.

Join award-winning author Kao Kalia Yang for a reading and discussion of her newest memoir, Somewhere in the Unknown World, a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2020. The book is a collective refugee memoir and speaks to the powerful stories that many refugees carry in their search for peace and their quest to build homes for those they love, for the ideas and ideals of belonging. Dive into the incredible refugee experience and explore the beauty and eloquence of their collective and communal yearning to be understood.

Yang’s appearance is made possible with technology assistance from Pablo Center at the Confluence.

CLICK HERE to buy Yang’s books locally from Dotters Books.

KAO KALIA YANG is the award-winning author of three memoirs: The Latehomecomer, The Song Poet, and Somewhere in the Unknown World. She’s the contributor and co-editor of the groundbreaking collection, What God is Honored Here?: Writings on Miscarriage and Infant Loss By and For Native Women and Women of Color. She is also the author of the children’s books: A Map Into the World, The Shared Room, The Most Beautiful Thing, and Yang Warriors. Yang works from Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Yang’s work has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Chautauqua Prize, the PEN America Literary Awards, the Daytons Literary Peace Prize, as Notable Books by the American Library Association, Kirkus Best Books of the Year, the Heartland Booksellers Award, and garnered four Minnesota Book Awards.

Learn more about Kao Kalia Yang at kaokaliayang.com.

Lila Quintero Weaver

If you weren’t able to join us for Weaver’s live event or are interested in watching it again, click below to watch the recording.

This event is being presented virtually.

Go behind the scenes of a graphic memoir, 50 years in the making, and get a glimpse of an alternate interpretation of the Jim Crow era. Darkroom: A Memoir in Black & White is primarily about immigration and race, but also about a shy girl who arrives in America knowing no English. She grows up in a house where Argentine culture is kept alive through food, music, and letters from the home country.

Weaver is that shy young girl. For her, the cultural clash was short-lived, as she adapted to the language and customs of her new home in the U.S. However, she never could swallow the racial attitudes of the Deep South. Her discomfort with segregationist views grew as the Civil Rights Movement gained momentum and eventually led to an urgent need to take a stand.

This virtual presentation is co-hosted by the University of Wisconsin–Stout and is made possible with technology assistance from L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library.

Buy Weaver’s books locally from Bookends on Main by emailing (info@bookendsonmain.com) or calling (715-233-6252).

LILA QUINTERO WEAVER is the author-illustrator of the graphic novel Darkroom: A Memoir in Black and White, which details her family’s 1961 immigration from Argentina to the racially torn American South. As a documentarian of the immigrant experience, Weaver has lectured at college campuses across the United States and exhibited original art at numerous institutions, including Whitman College, the University of Richmond, Levine Museum of the New South, The Ohio State University’s Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, and The Rosa Parks Museum.

Learn more about Lila Quintero Weaver at lilaqweaver.com.