Bemidji Library Book Festival June 13th-18th

Cool literary events happening in our listening June 13th-17th.... The event is put on by the Kitchigami Regional Library System and made possible by a grant from the MN Arts & Cultural Heritage Fund.  Here's the lineup/information:

Monday June 13th:

Phyllis Root author of children's picture book "The Big Belching Bog" 10:30 Bemidji Library

Sandra Benitez author of "The Night of the Radishes" "The Weight of Water" and more 2pm Headwaters School of Music & The Arts

Todd Boss poet and author of "yellowrocket" 7pm American Indian Resources Center, BSU

Tuesday June 14th:
Mary Casanova children's author of many books including "Some Dog"  10:30 am Bemidji Library
Cynthia Kraack 2pm Headwaters School of Music & the Arts
Linda Grover 7pm Am. Indian Resource Center BSU

Wednesday June 15th
Catherine Friend author of "Sheepish:  Two Women, Fifty Sheep & Enough Wool to Save the Planet" 10:30 Bemidji Public Library
Catherine Friend 2pm Diamond Point Park
Colin Wesaw 7pm Am. Indian Resource Center, BSU

Thursday June 16th
Lynne Jonell 10:30pm Bemidji Library
Roy C. Booth 2pm Rail River Folk School
Heid Erdrich 7pm American Indian Resource Center BSU

Friday June 17th
Don Houseman 10:30am Bemidji Public Library
Julie Schumacher 2pm Headwaters School of Music
Author Fair 5-7pm Bemidji High School
Roxana Saberi 7pm BHS Auditorium (Keynote Author)

Saturday June 18th
Susan Marie Swanson 10:30am Bemidji Library

All events are free and open to the public.  Check Kitchigami Regional Library's website for more info. 

Women and their connection to the land

This is a photo from Gayla Marty's blog where she is writing about memory. It's a great photo that is obviously overexposed but ends up really saying a lot about how we remember our lives. It's not always entirely clear, is it?

Minnesota author Gayla Marty is coming to Grand Rapids on Tuesday November 16th. She'll be speaking about her book "Memory of Trees - A Daughter's Story of a Family Farm" from 6:30-8:30. The event is sponsored by the MN Women's Woodland Network . The organization was formed to help women learn about trees, nature and caring for the land. It's a new program that is informal learning that is conversational by nature. This event is free but a RSVP is required. See here for more information.

I'll be talking to Gayla Marty again this week on Realgoodwords. We spoke last summer about "Memory of Trees" but I was so intrigued I wanted to talk about more of the issues she writes about in her book. It's been described as a story of a farm in Central Minnesota... Marty explores "the relationship of forests, farms, and migration in Western civilization is uncovered through the example of this farm in the “golden triangle” between the Mississippi and St. Croix rivers. On the journey to understanding, trees provide touchstones, connections to sacred and classical history—companions leading the way forward."

Also this week on Realgoodwords - a satire of office life with Richard Hine's "Russell Wiley is Out to Lunch" a book as clever as its website. Check it out here and tune in for our conversation!

NEWS TO ME by Laurie Hertzel (book trailer)

Don't miss Laurie Hertzel in Grand Rapids tonight! She'll be at the Grand Rapids Area Library at 7pm....it's also a great event to get ideas on books to read for you and your bookclub!!!

Billy Collins is coming to northern Minnesota!!!

I'm not someone who complains that there isn't enough to do up here in northern Minnesota, but I do miss opportunities. But this one I WILL NOT MISS! Coming up Saturday September 25th Former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins will be in Bemidji. A poetry reading? Sounds stuffy! But here's the thing: it's Billy Collins. The farthest thing from stuffy. He's real and funny and smart and has this way of making you forget that what he's doing is reading poetry. The New Yorker wrote "What Collins does best is turn an apparently simple phrase into a numinous moment.... a poet of plenitude,irony and Augustan grace."

You can hear Billy Collins on Saturday September 25th at the Bemidji High School Auditorium at 7:30pm. Tickets are available at the Headwaters School of Music and the Arts 218-444-5606 or at KAXE 218-326-1234.

You can also hear Billy Collins this week on Realgoodwords - Wed. September 8th(6pm) with a rebroadcast on Sunday September 12th (9am). Also on the show this week is Christopher McDougall author of "Born to Run - A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen". McDougall's book has become an international movement - with an idea at the center that the answer to pain free running and endurance is to run barefoot. YES, run barefoot. Stay tuned!

Christopher McDougall will be in Minnesota - in Wayzata at The Bookcase on Wednesday September 15th.

Could you handle....

living off the land, with no electricity, sometimes faulty equipment, monitoring the habits of sea ottters for over a year??? Wait, there's as second part to this question. Could you handle all of that, with your spouse?

Judy Swain Garshelis and her husband Turk did just that. They spent over a year in the remote near Prince William Sound in Alaska, studying the breeding and eating and general movements of sea otters.

Judy told me how the head of the project (from the University of Minnesota) said that he didn't think it was a good idea for a married couple to do the project together. But the Garshelis' proved him wrong. Now, years later, Judy has written about their experiences. The book is called "Otter Spotters - A Wildlife Adventure in Alaska". Judy will be talking about her book and experiences on Thursday Dec. 1st at 7pm at the Grand Rapids Area Library and also signing copies of her book at the Village Bookstore on Saturday Dec. 5th.

Tonight!

The Minnesota Crime Wave is coming! The Minnesota Crime Wave is coming!

Tonight is the last big event for The Big Read of Dashiell Hammett's "The Maltese Falcon". All month long, along with discussing the book and watching movies we've been reading mysteries.

I've had the privilege to read MINNESOTA mysteries this months - thanks to the fine folks you see in costume here - Carl Brookins, Ellen Hart and William Kent Krueger.

Each writes mysteries set in Minnesota that are unique to the genre. Ellen's are more of the "cozy" type - involving amateur sleuth/restauranteur Jane Lawless. This doesn't mean they are timely or pertaining to current events. In her latest "The Mortal Groove" Jane's father Ray is running for Minnesota governor. What could be more timely than political races that dig into the private lives of candidates?

The author of over 20 novels, Ellen is a five-time winner of the Lambda award for Best Lesbian mystery, and twice winner of the Minnesota Book Award for Best Crime & Detective Fiction. She was made an official GLBT Literary Saint at the Saints & Sinners Literary convention in New Orleans in 2005, and she has been awarded the Alice B. Readers Appreciation Medal. She teaches mystery writing at the University of Minnesota and at the Loft Literary Center.

Carl Brookins latest "Bloody Halls" is set on a college campus right in the middle of downtown Minneapolis. Jack Marston is an administrator who has been asked to look into the murder of a student. Brookins writing is sharp, funny and compelling.

Carl has written crime fiction reviews for Mystery Scene Magazine, two Internet sites, Reviewing The Evidence and Books n' Bytes, and for the Saint Paul Pioneer Press. An avid sailor, he is the author of a sailing mystery series featuring Michael Tanner and Mary Whitney, published by Top Publications. They are titled Inner Passages, A Superior Mystery, set in Wisconsin's Apostle Islands, and Old Silver, published in May, 2005. His first detective novel, featuring PI, Sean NMI Sean, was released in September 2005 in hardcover from Five Star Mysteries called The Case of the Greedy Lawyers.

William Kent Krueger is the award winning writer of the mysteries with Cork O'Connor at the center. The latest "Thunder Bay" sets Cork on the trail of his spiritual advisor/Mide's long lost son and long lost love. Krueger's work is set firmly in the wilds of Northern Minnesota and Canada, with setting almost important as character. In Thunder Bay he also writes a seering love story, a tale of a Native medicine man, and a contemporary family drama.

His first two books, Iron Lake and Boundary Waters, received a number of awards including the Anthony award for Best First Novel, the Minnesota Book Award and the Loft-McKnight Fiction Award. His third novel, Purgatory Ridge, won the Minnesota Book Award for 2001; his fourth, Blood Hollow, won the Anthony Award for Best Novel of 2004. One critic has dubbed him the Michael Connelly of the Midwest.

Join us tonight for the free event at Itasca Community College. It's at 7pm at Davies Hall!