On the Move

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Summer Reading

Okay people, you are in for a treat.

In yet another attempt to avoid writing anything that requires me to miss out on the beautiful weather we’re having here in Wisconsin (minus today ... it’s a little brisk) I have pestered some of the nicest and most talented writers in the state, no, in the world, to find out what they are reading right now.

Dwight Allen, author of the newly released novel The Typewriter Satyr:

I have been reading the new translation of War and Peace, and given its length and my tendency to shut my eyes at ten at night, I will probably be reading it until at least the beginning of the second Obama Administration. I am almost finished with Mario Vargas Llosa’s Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter. I gave this novel to my son last Christmas, when he was in South America, and when he got back, he told me to read it. Vargas Llosa is a South American T. Coraghessan Boyle—antic, full of surprises. I recently read A. Manette Ansay’s Good Things I Wish You. (I reviewed it for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.) Ansay tries to answer the question of whether men and women can be friends, whether friendship can survive passion. She is a sure-handed storyteller. I am also reading In Love With Jerzy Kosinski, the new novel by my friend (and fellow Madisonian) Agate Nesaule. It’s about a Latvian woman living alone in Wisconsin, trying to find her way, after leaving her nutty control freak of a husband. It is written with great heart and quiet humor.

Well, speaking of Agate Nesaule: she tells me what she’s reading, too:

Here are two books I love. Kate Atkinson’s When Will There Be Good News? is suspenseful, funny, and smart; it also deals with the serious theme of survival after extreme experiences. But I don’t believe I have been as head-over-heels in love with a character since I read Jane Eyre. Sixteen-year old orphan Reggie is brave, resourceful, loyal, and a terrific liar. I want to go live with Reggie, her employer Dr. Hunter, and the baby. Larry Watson’s Montana 1948 is a small jewel. It’s a short, compelling, and morally complex account of courage and of prejudice and crimes against Native Americans, which never once descends into racial stereotypes. The writing is beautifully nuanced and understated.

Soon after I received this e- from Agate I got a P.S. e-mail.

I should have said that I haven't been in love like that since I read Jane Eyre AND A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

And, incidentally, I am about to read Montana 1948 a second time just to see how Larry Watson does it.

I’m glad I got in touch with Dean Bakopoulous, author of Please Don’t Come Back from the Moon, because I learned some news about a fascinating life change:

We’re in the process of moving to Iowa, and my wife and I are selling and/or giving away most of our stuff, burning our mortgage, and heading west. I’ve been inspired to do this, in part, by a classic book, Where I Lived, and What I Lived For, by Henry David Thoreau, which made me hate most of my possessions and despise the idea of debt. It’s remarkably apt in the age of economic collapse. (The book was recently published in a very cool new “Great Ideas” series from Penguin Books.)

I’ll be joining the faculty at Iowa State University’s MFA program in Creative Writing & Environment. The great Pulitzer-Prize winning novelist Jane Smiley recently retired from there, so, in hopes of getting some of that good karma, I’ve been reading Smiley’s wonderfully insightful Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel, as well as her hilarious satire of academic life in the Midwest, Moo.

I was bummed when Dean moved from Madison to Mineral Point, but Iowa? At least it’s for all the right reasons:

Meanwhile, I found David Marannis, whose most recent work is Rome 1960, “happily enjoying these beautiful Madison days” at his home on the near west side:

I’m reading a collection of short stories by Mavis Gallant’s Paris Stories. I had just read an interview with her in Granta magazine that made me want to read her, and I’ve not been disappointed. The stories are amazing. Other than that, I’m reading books on Kenya, Chicago, and Indonesia for my next book, a multigenerational biography of Barack Obama.

Just reading up on some books for his next biography on Obama. Um, wow.

Me? What am I reading? How nice of you to ask. I recently put down The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski. I have an old dog who also may have to be put down soon and if you’ve read the book I think you know where I’m going with this. So I switched to non-fiction, which doesn’t inflict as much emotional damage on me even when a real human dies. I’m now back to reading Max Perkins: Editor of Genius by A. Scott Berg. Writer Frank Bures gave it to me and for a while I wasn’t sure if it was a compliment to us both or a subtle hint to switch careers. Perkins is the guy who discovered F. Scott Fitgerald, among other famous American authors of the early-to-mid 20th century. I’m obviously hoping to learn how he did it so I can discover and edit more talented writers like Frank. It’s a great biography and literary history and I haven’t cried once.

So, what are you reading this summer?

Blog More, Sun Less

Who on earth can blog when it’s beautiful outside? When your kid’s room needs a fresh coat of purple paint? When you’re trying to re-launch a magazine website?

Well, Madison Magazine contributing writer Maggie can. But she has a room of her own and ads on her blogs. That’s blogs-zzz ... plural. Here's the other one. She's the founder and moderator.

Style editor Shayna can, because fashion and style wait for no one. Meanwhile she’s still managed to work on her tan. Outside. In a stylish swimsuit to be sure.

Mad Mag food writer Dan Curd can, though he’s also a master of Facebook and Twitter and all things PR and marketing—so he doesn’t count because he’s way out of my league. He's probably grilling ribs with one hand and posting the recipe with the other as we speak. Jerk.

C3K sports fan Jeff Robins blogs even when he’s in pain—as noted in his most recent posting. Here's the thing about fans of anything, though (especially sports). FAN is short for FANATIC.

I have no doubts that associate editor Katie Vaughn will blog soon. She was on vacation so we’ll give her a break (see above note on beautiful weather) because she is one of the best and most disciplined arts journalists in the city. And because Art Fair On the Square (and Off!) is this weekend and she won’t want you to miss it.

I can’t prove this (which is why it’s in the blog and not the magazine) but I’m pretty sure northern clime bloggers are more dedicated and prolific. One can only snowshoe so much before one’s tootsies freeze and one must head inside to drink brandy and post a blog about it. If, in Madison, Wisconsin, seductively warm days came around more often, we’d probably have to hand over our “most wired city per capita” crown to Ann Arbor. That or take up tweeting en masse from the Memorial Union Terrace.

Have I mentioned—in my blog I finally got around to posting—how beautiful it is outside?

The Green Scene

Veronica Rueckert of Wisconsin Public Radio was broadcasting live from Custer, Wisconsin, during my morning commute. She’s covering the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair, which bills itself as “the nation’s premier energy education event.”

Rueckert’s guests were the folks from Inn Serendipty, an environmentally conscious B&B near Monroe in southwestern Wisconsin that operates on solar and wind energy. The proprietor couple, who quit their Chicago careers to live off the land, also grow seventy percent of the food they and their guests consume. Imagine your grocery expenses if your garden out back provided you and your family with nearly three quarters of your three squares a day—year-round. That’s impressive.

The couple, Lisa Kivirist and John Ivanko, also write about their experiences in ECOpreneuring, Rural Renaissance, and Edible Earth, a book of essays mixed with vegetarian recipes.

At one point during the show, Ivanko talked about how humans shouldn’t have or need landfills because nature doesn’t have or need landfills and it really made me think, what if? I’m so grateful these conversations are happening in the mainstream, over the airwaves and in books and schools and on blogs…



Speaking of blogs, my previous post brags about how much free stuff editors get. Here’s three books with green themes that have found their way to my desk recently, though I feel it my journalistic duty to point out that they weren't delivered on foot or by horseback so their carbon footprint isn’t zero.

Vegan Brunch: Homestyle recipes worth waking up for (Lifelong Books, $19.95) by Isa Chandra Moskowitz of Portland, Oregon. Curry scrambed tofu with cabbage and caraway, anyone? I'm being serious. It sounds really good.



Cooking Green: Reducing your carbon footprint in the kitchen (Lifelong Books, $17.95) by Kate Heyhoe of Austin, Texas. Did you know “Americans throw out 27 percent of all food available for consumption”? Good to know the old “Clean your plate, children are starving in Africa” line I stole from my mom is as pertinent as ever.



The Compassionate Carnivore: Or, how to keep animals happy, save Old MacDonald’s farm, reduce your hoofprint, and still eat meat (Lifelong Books, $24) by Catherine Friend of Minnesota. I haven’t cracked the spine on this one because I’m still recovering from Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma.
Please pass the tofu.

American Girl Goodies

Magazine editors get a lot of free stuff: beer, wine and liquor, music CDs and movie DVDs, bath and body products, jewelry and invitations to grand openings with complimentary food and drink. Marketing and publicity departments shower us with all these goodies, hoping for what’s known in the business as “earned media.” I swear that's what it's called.

While these attention-grabbing gifts are fun when the envelopes and boxes show up on my desk, I usually pass them on to other writers and editors who might actually include them in an article. When the goodies box is food-related, we invite the whole staff to taste test the product with us. The wine-infused ice cream from Metcalfe’s Sentry was a welcome late-afternoon treat. And the gourmet cupcakes from the new bakery/café on the east side were out of this universe.

Once or twice a year I receive a box of new books from American Girl in nearby Middleton and founded by Pleasant Rowland. While most Madisonians know Rowland as one of the city’s leading arts philanthropists (along with her husband, Jerry Frautschi) and the brains behind our beloved Concerts on the Square, she made her fortunes building a business that caters to the wholesome hearts and minds of little girls. The historical character dolls and educational books and products are a refreshing antidote to Barbies and Bratz Girlz, whose anatomically impossible body parts and purposely misspelled words help turn out sassy, body conscious teenyboppers rather than smart, confident young women. Just sayin'.

The latest American Girl offerings include a new doll, Rebecca Rubin, who joins a terrific collection spanning American history from 1764 to 1974. Rebecca also stars in a six-book series about growing up as a first-generation Jewish immigrant in New York City in 1914. In Meet Rebecca, readers are introduced to an adventurous young girl with a flair for the dramatic whose parents and grandparents were among the mass exodus of Jews from an increasingly prejudiced Eastern Europe. The book is well-written and beautifully illustrated and, like all the American Girl dolls, historically accurate right down to the stoop she and her four siblings likely lingered on outside the family’s front door on the Lower East Side.

“The most enjoyable part of preparing to write the stories was spending several days in New York City…,” writes author Jacqueline Dembar Green. “We walked the streets that would have been part of Rebecca’s world. We toured the cramped apartments preserved by the Tenement Museum on Orchard Street, were invited into a period apartment like Rebecca’s fictional one, and toured the Coney Island Museum.”

Another youth novel newly released is the latest in American Girl’s mystery series. In Clues in the Shadows by Middleton author Kathleen Ernst, World War II-era’s Molly is the main character out to catch the troublemaker wreaking havoc on the Red Cross drive she volunteers for.

What I love most about the AG books—and what most girls probably like least—is the “Looking Back” history essays at the end of every book that provide more context to the setting in which the stories take place. The Molly mystery essay explains how the government enlisted all Americans, not just soldiers, in the war effort, from children’s volunteer drives to women working outside the home for the first time. Rebecca’s “Looking Back” essay includes a glossary of Yiddish terms used throughout the book. Reading them felt like I was back in high school reading Cliffs Notes for Moby Dick rather than the real Moby Dick, without the guilt.

The Rebecca doll and book series was released this past Sunday, the same day my daughter turned eight, so I took Meet Rebecca and the rest of the AG shipment home for her to be my “taste-tester." She is now, as my husband likes to say, "in the wheelhouse" of American Girls' target age range. True to form, my little sweet-tooth smiled at the Rebecca and Molly books, then went straight for the fun: the activity books the company does so well. Here’s a sampling.

Dazzling Desserts Dubbed “awesome” by my kiddo, this recipe and treat decorating book is, let me just say myself, SO COOL. It comes with five cookie cutters, including one in the shape of a cute little dress, and some of the coolest sprinkle, spread, color, cut and devour ideas ever.

Is This Normal? Girls’ questions, answered by the editors of The Care & Keeping of YOU is a Dear Abby Q&A for the eight-to-twelve “tween” set. “Look, Mom: advice for nail biters!” my daughter yelped. Sadly, she was referring to MY nasty habit and proceeded to read me the sage advice about doodling, squeezing a stress ball, and other fixes. They don’t work, but then again I didn’t have this book for counsel when I was gnawing away in second grade.

a smart girl’s guide to her parents’ divorce Unfortunately, I didn’t have this book as a kid either, and thumbing through the contents, I see I could’ve used a chapter or two when divorce happened to me—even as a grown-up college kid. I have to say that I was impressed that AG doesn’t shy away from the really rough and often scary issues that can surround a family split. The book tackles fathers who leave and don’t come back and domestic violence. The final page is a wonderful “girl’s bill of rights” that touches on the books mains themes of staying healthy, safe and happy—and most of all, trusting your instincts.

Good stuff. And for me: free!

Cancer is a Total Bitch

A few weeks back I headed south of the border with a bag full of goodies for one of my best friends and her two kids. For Ann the Eldest, I packed hand-me-down princess purses and a dolphin charm for the bracelet I gave her when she was baptized. When Ann’s mom Sarah asked my husband and I to be Ann’s godparents, she joked we’d provide the agnostic view from above—the “above” being liberal Madison north of their Chicago suburb. For Kyle the Youngest I came bearing a Scoobie Doo DVD. I almost brought him a Packer T-shirt, too, but I decided not to offend my gracious hosts.

On the way down I stopped at the Border’s in Schaumberg (yes, it’s right next to Ikea) and bought my friend Sarah a terrific new book, Cancer is a Bitch, by Madison author Gail Konop Baker. When the book came out last fall, I wasn’t ready to read it. Cancer is a bitch, I thought to myself. I certainly didn’t need a memoir to convince me. Then last February, Sarah called me in tears. “I have breast cancer.”

She’s my age: thirty-eight. I honestly didn’t know what to do with the fear and frustration that came over me. So I grabbed Gail’s book from the cluttered little shelf that is my bedside table and devoured her story in a single afternoon. It was like chicken soup for the sad friend’s soul.

Later, when I interviewed Gail for this blog, she wasn’t surprised that I had found comfort in her book—sisters and friends of survivors were reacting the same way. What surprised her, though, is that another audience had found its way to her book, and the blog that led up to it.

“The diagnosis crystallized a lot of stuff women face mid-life,” Gail says. “The book brought it out like a strong reduction sauce.”

The memoir’s themes of age, marriage, family and relationships caught her publisher’s attention as well. Read on for where Gail’s writing career is headed next.

The book explores your marriage pretty explicitly. What’s that been like for your husband and family? When I started writing the column, he said, “Just please change the names,” because he felt like it would be better for the kids. Now we go out and everybody calls him ‘Mike’ (the name of his character in the book).

I love how many Madison references you use. Getting that sense of place is really always important to me as a writer.

What’s it been like since the book came out? Nothing like I imagined. I really didn’t expect to launch with a memoir because I’d written fiction forever, and certainly not a breast cancer memoir. You just don’t plan these things. There’s a bittersweet quality, where I had to suffer through this to get that kick that got me launched. After the column and the book contract, I thought, “Do I really want to stand up and be the woman who had breast cancer?”

It’s turned out to be such a blessing in disguise. Not only do I have this new, exciting wonderful career, I’m doing patient advocacy. I hear from survivors who tell me my words help them feel less alone, and it gives them courage facing surgery. That never would’ve happened if I had launched with a fiction career.

But it’s still hard.

At a recent book reading, my son and husband were in the audience. I feel like I’m retraumatizing all of us. On the other hand, when patients and survivors come up and thank me, this is what I’m giving back. I do believe that cancer is a last-standing taboo in that you say the word and there is a stigma. So if I can stand up here and wear that label it helps someone else.

Last fall when the book was coming out Andrew [her youngest of three children] kept riding down to Borders to see if the book was there. Then he calls me from his cell phone, “Mom, I’m standing at the front table and I’m holding the book. You’ve gotta come down here.” He’s looking at me and the book and me and the book. And he said, “You know mom, you really turned this thing around didn’t you.”

How has it affected your two college-age daughters? A woman can launch herself mid-life in the midst of something so scary. A woman can do that. Now I’m traveling, I’m being interviewed all over the place. I was on Dr. Oz!

What about some of the characters in the book that didn’t always come off as friendly or supportive? I was open and honest but careful. I always erred on the side of kindness. In every situation that I recounted, it had to be accurate but when you write something you can tilt it in the way of kindness. Eleanor was a composite of three women. Everything that was said was true but I put into detail enough that they wouldn’t identify themselves. “Everyone knows an Eleanor.”

The book title, is, well, so right on! I didn’t have any of that writer’s distance. That’s why it reads very raw and intimate. When I read it again now I get choked up because it was so raw and unfiltered. Dr. Oz loved the title!

Was it difficult to write? I moved my pen across the page. It came out really fast. The columns I wrote over a period of months. The rest of it I wrote in four months. Getting it out on the page was very cathartic. And then playing with it—flipping the words and changing the phrases—felt like something I could control.

You’re very revealing about marriage, which can be a taboo subject, too. People have identified and thanked me for being so honest about marriage. My new book is about marriage. Somehow this whole thing did really make me re-examine my marriage. The working title is “Anatomy of a Marriage.” I conducted interviews. Every story is unique and universal. In every story there was a kernel that talked to me personally.

I’ve learned that what we think of as a typical or normal marriage doesn’t exist. We’re a wedding and a divorce culture. We don’t discuss a lot about that complicated thing called marriage and what it really looks and feels like. To not talk about it as a culture means we really need to talk about it. It’s a very moment-to-moment thing. People who aren’t married look at it as a monolithic thing.

Besides your marriage, what were some other “a-ha!” moments? It woke me up to the fact that now was the time in life I was always meant to live, to be the person I was always meant to be. I feel like I’m living with a stronger sense of purpose and urgency. When an opportunity would come up I could talk myself out of it. But I went from the why of everything to why not?

It’s had a dramatic impact on my life. Book, career, travel, a million more new experiences in the last year than in the last fifteen years combined. I’ve run two half-marathons; I’m running the Chicago Marathon in the fall; I’m getting my yoga certification. The fear of experience turned into a fearlessness.

Tell me about the normal writing process for you. Getting started is always the hardest thing for me. A lot of times I get physical. I get the pen. I like to write sensorally and a lot of that experience is feeling the pen in your hand and on the page. If I’m feeling stuck, I often pick up the pen. When you’re writing you shouldn’t be thinking. I think it’s important to move the pen across the page. There’s a parallel to running. A lot of times it’s just putting your shoes on and tying them and putting one foot in front of the other. If you’re not over-thinking it you don’t get stuck.

How do you know when you’re done with the book? It’s really hard and it’s done when you send it off to your editor. It’s kind of like sending your child off to school.

After a double mastectomy in April, Sarah started chemo this week. Cancer is definitely a bitch. But for the first time in six weeks, Sarah was able to pick up Kyle from his crib. He wrapped his legs around her waist, tucked his sweet little face into the well-worn groove between her neck and shoulder, and let out a primordial sigh of relief. Mother and child were both back home where they belonged. Cancer and all.

Getting the Watchdog Word Out

It's the Midwest, so it can't possibly be beautiful out two weekends in a row. Plus, we have all summer to enjoy the outdoors. So why not join me for the Investigative Reporters and Editors Better Watchdog Workshop this weekend?

Great training, great speakers and great price -- just $20 for students ($40 pros) for Saturday, 9-5:30, $30 for 3 hours of optional hands-on computer-assisted reporting training on Sunday, 9 to noon. The online registration period is over but your fee will gladly be accepted Saturday on-site at Capital Newspapers.

The workshop includes 6 months of IRE membership.

Here's the official release. Join me!

IRE is bringing its Better Watchdog Workshop to Madison on May 9-10,
Saturday-Sunday.

Hosted by The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, The
Wisconsin State Journal, The Janesville Gazette, The Clarion and Madison
Area Technical College

Highlights:

* Producing quick-hit enterprise stories
* Tips on interviews and developing sources
* Bulletproofing stories
* Freedom of information laws and public records
* Using the Web effectively, including wikis, blogs, and RSS feeds

http://ire.org/training/watchdog/madison09schedule.html

To Belle and Back

It must’ve been excruciating, not to mention overwhelming, to condense a hundred years of magazine writing into one publication. But the result, the May edition of The Progressive, founded and still based right here in Madison and edited by the extremely smart and dedicated Matt Rothschild, is a masterpiece—not to mention a collector’s item.

A powerful cover image of a white dove whose trailing footprints stamp peace signs across the page is a powerful introduction to a remarkable collection of excerpts from dozens of writers, activists, politicians and intellectuals through the years. Regardless of your personal politics, this magazine is worth reading for its historical significance if not its raw and uncensored social, political and economic commentary. At times it’s heady stuff, and in the “history repeats itself” category, many of the essays can be bitter pills to swallow.

The Progressive does not, has never and will never mince words, which is why the next three days of conversation and celebration are going to be so well attended. Starting with a concert tonight and ending with a star-studded sendoff by Robert Redford himself on Saturday night, the magazine’s 100th-anniversary fete is chock full of anti-Establishment fun.

While the Sundance Kid will have the last word this weekend, Yoko Ono nabbed the last page of the anniversary issue. A full-page ad featuring a small billowy cloud floating in the clear blue sky below her signature message, “IMAGINE PEACE,” graces the magazine's back cover. It’s simple, subtle and stunning—and, I imagine, it covered a huge chunk of the production costs!

With today’s report by the Wisconsin Women’s Council on a continuing gender pay gap—77 percent here and 79.9 percent nationwide—it’s clear The Progressive’s seasoned voice crying out for equal justice for all is as valuable in 2009 as it was in 1909. I’m sure the magazine’s co-founder and spirited suffragette Belle Case La Follette—and probably Yoko Ono—would agree on that.

Remembering Midge

I was so saddened to open this morning's paper and find out Midge Miller had passed away. She was an inspirational feminist and civic activist who changed the world with her true grit, smarts and sincere honesty. I am going to miss having her on the planet.

Here's an article I wrote about a woman's place in Wisconsin ... Midge's place.
A Woman's Place is in Wisconsin

By Brennan Nardi

Go back to 1856 and tell the stories of not just the men but the women who built this city into what it is today and Madison: The Formative Years author David Mollenhoff would have another hefty tome on his hands. To do the women of Madison and their contributions justice, you really need a Ph.D., a book deal, and permanent residence at the state historical society. I possess none of the above, but I did once ponder a Ph.D. - in women's history, no less. That is, in fact, what drew me to Madison.

It started back in 1989 at the University of Virginia, where a fledgling women's studies program was offering a freshman course called "The History of Feminism in America." It would be my subversive ticket out of plain-old history and into a world where the lives of Jane Adams, Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Eleanor Roosevelt and Betty Friedan leapt off the pages of a different academic canon, and landed inside my psyche.

Along my merry undergraduate way, I discovered a political activist and historian named Gerda Lerner from the University of Wisconsin--Madison. Not only did she teach history, she had made history as a young Jewish woman who escaped the Holocaust in 1938, chronicled in her 2002 autobiography Fireweed. Lerner's work turned up on more than one course syllabus during my college career (she pioneered women's history as its own academic discipline). Then, in my senior year, I took a class called "Women's Health in America." When I saw that the textbook was written by UW professor Judith Leavitt, I took it as a sign. My grandmother's family had "summered" in Wisconsin since that late 1800s. Having spent glorious vacations in the Northwoods as a girl, I was eager to find a way to extend my time there as a grownup. Grad school in Madison seemed like a respectable option.

I chose journalism over women's history, and never did meet Professor Emeritus Lerner, though I did solicit her for a campaign donation or two during my brief career in Madison politics. Instead of following Dr. Lerner into Bascom's Ivory Tower, I shadowed the women who were making history right before my eager eyes. It was on former State Rep. Midge Miller's porch -- where my mentor, political activist Jeanne DeRose, had wisely taken me one sunny afternoon -- that I fell in love with Wisconsin's progressive tradition, passed down to me by someone who had lived it and fought to keep it alive for nearly half a century.

Inspired by the Madisonians who came before them -- names like Belle Case LaFollette, Ruth Doyle and Carrie Lee Nelson -- women like Midge Miller, Supreme Court Justice Shirley Abrahamson, NOW co-founder Kathryn Clarenbach, Native American leader Ada Deer, and many, many others carried the torch of female leadership during the upper decades of the 20th century. While many are still hard at work today, that generation of leaders has begun to pass its legacy on to the women of Madison who are making history into the 21st century. Women like Madison's first female mayor: Sue Bauman; Fire chief: Debra Amesqua; UW System president: Katherine Lyall; County Executive: Kathleen Falk; Elected Lieutenant Governor: Barbara Lawton; conservationist Tia Nelson (daughter of Gaylord) and U.S. Representative: Tammy Baldwin.

It's the last name on that impressive (and not at all comprehensive) list that might resonate most for the next generation of women leaders in this city. A product of Madison public schools, and of Madison politics from the city council to the county board, the state assembly to the U.S. Congress, Tammy Baldwin has intelligently and gracefully broken through gender and diversity barriers all of her life. And she's only forty-four.

This fall, my daughter will start kindergarten. She will grow up not only witnessing but learning in school the accomplishments of Tammy Baldwin and the scores of influential women who have made Madison the kind of rich and varied community the Belle LaFollettes, Midge Millers and Ada Deers intended. The women's history of the next 150 years will be nothing less than … history itself. And it won't take a Ph.D. to find it.

Brennan Nardi is the first female editor of Madison Magazine, which was founded in 1978.

Hearing the Whispers

I can’t remember when I first read Jason Stein’s byline, but I do remember thinking to myself that this guy had a future in writing. I knew his name from the UW–Madison journalism school where we’d both studied. He was a real talent and everybody knew it. Since 2003, Jason’s been a full-time reporter for the Wisconsin State Journal.

Last June, he wrote a series on Native American languages in Wisconsin called “Down to a Whisper.” It was an emotionally charged, beautifully crafted story about the vanishing languages of the tribes—what had happened to them and how, maybe, some of them could be saved, or at least preserved, in a way that future generations could appreciate and understand their heritage. It was published in print, and the online version was presented into a nicely crafted new media format with audio, slideshows, maps and graphics.

Jason’s piece was so good it recently won a national honor—the Freedom Forum/American Society of Newspaper Editors Award for Distinguished Writing on Diversity—and two Milwaukee Press Club awards.

I asked Jason about why and how he decided to take on such a complex and multifaceted story—without much time off from his regular state government beat.

“It sort of germinated for a while,” he says. “It was just a little thing that led me to write the story.” And then he launches into the “little thing,” which like most big things has deeper roots once you start digging around in your mind for the seeds. Jason lived in Strasbourg, France, for a year, where residents speak a regional language called Alsatian, but like Native languages here it’s not being passed on to future generations as readily as it once was. He also spent time in a Mayan village in Guatemala. “Some of the languages have hundreds of thousands of speakers but I still noticed them weakening,” he says.

While he was in grad school at UW, he read about a professor’s language preservation work with the Menominee tribe, which piqued his curiosity. This was about five years before he would actually sit down to write the story.

“I reached out to a couple tribes and tried to break through and I really didn’t,” Jason explains. “For years I tried to reach out to people. I finally broke through and got to the right people. It’s not easy coming in from the outside to do the kind of story that I wanted to do.”

Before he started the research and reporting in earnest, Jason had a feeling he might not find evidence that any of the five languages had much chance for survival. Years of federal government assimilation practices and benign neglect by tribal elders who believed their children and grandchildren might be better off without it had taken their toll. But the further he delved, the more confident he became that solutions were out there, they just wouldn’t be easy. And in some cases, the spoken word might be preserved but not entirely restored or with total authenticity.

I asked Jason how the tribes, particularly the educators and advocates for the cause, reacted. “It was really gratifying. I was prepared for it not to be,” he says. “For you to spend your life working on preserving these languages, you have to really have a believe that you can accomplish that goal. And yet a real finding of the series was that the situation was dire. I was prepared for people to feel uncomfortable with that. But they weren’t.”

I’m always fascinated with the ritual of writing. For some the words spill onto the page like beer from a tap, and the writer returns to them only to revise, polish and send off to the editor. But for many more of us the words need coaxing before they trickle out like erratic drips from a leaky faucet. Writer’s block is real and menacing. I love Jason’s leads, so I asked him how he approached them.

“It comes very slowly and painfully for me,” he says. “On day one I went back and forth on a couple different leads. Up until the end that was one thing that I was prepared for people to object to because [the lead] comes out and states pretty explicitly that these languages are dying and that isn’t really their view of it.”

But the consummate journalist has only one master: “I felt an obligation to present things as a mainstream reader would see them,” he says.

At the same time, Jason took a measured and diligent approach to the story—it took about a year to write and produce for the web—that feels deeply respectful of the state’s Native American culture and experience.

“We ended up using a lot of historical photos. We did slide shows and a lot of them told stories that crossed over decades. Because of the nature of this particular story, I was very concerned about not having something perceived as just being taken and not adequately credited.”

While Jason says he’s skeptical about how much a newspaper story can affect the political process, he’s proud of the fact that his has had some impact. Gov. Doyle’s budget bill includes $250,000 a year for competitive grants tribes and school districts can apply for as part of a broader strategy on native language preservation that Jason details in his story.

Of course the funding is controversial in a recession, and Jason’s been reporting on the proposal’s fate from his desk at the state Capitol. Stay tuned.

Don't Know Much About History

I minored in history in college, so I got pretty geeked up when we decided to write about local history in the May issue of Madison Magazine. The last time we tackled the topic in earnest was to mark the sesquicentennial back in 2006. This time around we’re returning to the city’s roots with the help of some remarkable historians and archival experts.

We started our journey back in time by meeting with the good folks at the Wisconsin Historical Society. Jammed into a dated and dusty conference room, a half-dozen history geeks shared ideas and inspiration for how we might frame the article. The conversation was so stimulating we weren’t quite sure what to do with it all. Editorial director Neil Heinen came away geeked up about the idea of history in the digital age and how the Internet has made it more accessible than ever. We both began to think about the instructive if not eerie connections between the past and the present given the unprecedented economic downturn the world is experiencing.

Then next step was a fascinating follow-up conversation with WHS archival historian Jim Draeger, co-author of Fill’er up: The Glory Days of Wisconsin Gas Stations. I’d worked with Jim a few years back on a terrific Mad Mag article featuring Frank Lloyd Wright protégés so I was confident his mega-brain would help set the story in motion. After we peppered him with dozens of questions on historic corollaries to modern-day issues and he responded with enlightening answers, it occurred to me that we had a really nice story in the making.

I’m about three-quarters of the way through all the research and halfway through the writing, and I’m happily spent. The folks at WHS continue to amaze me, and books like David Mollenhoff’s Madison: A History of the Formative Years and Stuart Levitan’s Madison: The Illustrated Sesquicentennial History Vol. 1 are life savers. Mollenhoff offers a sweeping journey through the social, economic and political history of our city, while Levitan places particular emphasis on biographical portraits of influential people and the politics and turning points that have shaped the city’s growth and development. Both are remarkable in their intellectual depth and accessible prose.

These two books, the WHS website and local historian Ann Waidelich have helped me make sense of the past; UW–Madison professors Patrick Remington and Ann Smart Marin, along with an encouraging associate editor and art history major Katie Vaughn, are helping me draw comparisons and conclusions about the present. What fun! I hope readers are just as geeked.

Good News

For the second year in a row, Madison Magazine has been chosen as a finalist in a prestigious national city and regional magazine awards competition. Five magazines from around the country are vying for the top spot in the General Excellence category. There are three tiers based on circulation; our magazine is in the 30,000 and under group. We're a small market compared to, say, Chicago, New York and L.A, but our competitors are not lightweights. And neither are we! There's some spectacular magazine editorial and design work happening across the country, and we are grateful to be named among the best. Click here for the details. They'll announce the winner in early May. No matter what happens, making the cut is an accomplishment, and I'm proud of the staff and those who've supported us in our efforts.

Violence UnSilenced

I'm ripping this headline from the headlines, since the blog by the same name has become an instant success. You might think success is a weird, even insensitive word to use for an online forum where victims and survivors of domestic violence share their stories.

But it's true. The blog is three days old and already averaging a thousand hits a day. Its founder, Maggie Ginsberg-Schutz, is one of my writers, and she began her journey (well, her public one anyway) to give voice to a silent epidemic in an article published in Madison Magazine in 2007. Then last year she worked with Domestic Abuse Intervention Services to find women who’d be willing to tell their stories publicly, which among other things threatens their safety. Last November we published her amazing article on seven local survivors.

Maggie didn’t stop there. She worked all winter to launch Violence Unsilenced, and for all you Internet smarties who know how to measure success in the blogosphere, this is the reaction to the site after 24 hours.

2,250 hits on violenceunsilenced.com
1,329 hits on okayfinedammit (where comments were closed)
106 comments
126 emails (not including the 44 between the designer and I)
51 mentions of the words 'violenceunsilenced' on Twitter -- (a fun illustration of this is to go to www.summize.com and type in 'violenceunsilenced' and also 'maggiedammit')
10 direct messages on twitter (a secondary email, like facebook emails)
22 new twitter followers
9 Facebook messages
an instant Technorati rank of 7 right out of the gates (wicked good)
a request for an interview on blog talk radio next week
a request for a Q&A on some blog I can't think of the name of right now
a guy actually made a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wnxaSs4wZY
the editor of BlogNosh magazine requested a badge to put in rotation on her (megapopular) site for free
32 new survivor stories sitting in my inbox ready to publish
countless numbers of Diggs, Stumbles, and Google Reader shares (no way for me to track this)
#2 spot on Kirtsy.com for the day

Maggie has been writing a very popular blog from her home in rural southern Wisconsin for a few years, so her social networking universe is huge and paying off. Widely read blogs like Alltop and BlogNosh are noticing, but more importantly the word is spreading in an innovative way to reach a whole new audience of people who are touched by this, or who simply care.

Maggie knows viscerally how this kind of success turns your stomach when you think about it. It’s such a sad and frightening thing. But at the same time it’s beautiful and powerful, like the “Take Back the Night” marches designed in part to return the power abusers have deliberately taken away. And to begin the healing. And this writer/blogger Maggie who is not a social justice advocate but a journalist is using the power of words and now, the Internet, to try to heal deep wounds but even more importantly to prevent the first act of violence from ever happening. Take Back the Night 2.0.

You know when somebody like Sully, the guy who landed the plane in the Hudson, shies away from the word "hero" because through his lens he was just trying to help? That's Maggie. She's just trying to help. And so far she's had some terrific success.

Absolut Improv

Writer, humorist and corporate trainer Jodi Cohen is at it again. She’s teaching improv workshops this winter and spring and lemme tell you they are special. A couple workshops ago Jodi asked friends to stop by the last class to serve as audience for her students’ to practice their technique. A half-dozen of us showed up like groupies outside a concert tour bus. I was so excited to see Jodi in action that it never occurred to me she would be busy instructing rather than performing that evening. No matter. Watching her teach was almost as much fun.

Her nurturing calm and pragmatic, reasonable approach to teaching stood out. The folks taking this class weren’t budding Saturday Night Live comedians (though did you know Jodi worked with Chris Farley during his Madison days?); they were ordinary people—some shy, some funny, some dramatic—who were taking the class to fulfill a variety of personal needs and goals. Watching the moment take over their nervousness and inhibitions was inspiring. They had all come there simply to learn new skills and in the process they had become an improv troupe for one night. My little girl was so entertained she didn’t want to leave. Of course, she was smitten with Jodi, having recently seen her fabulous one-woman holiday show “Oy to the World.”

When Jodi sent a call out for classes this spring, I actually considered taking one myself. Coming out of my shell has been a lifelong project and I think Jodi’s class would help shed more of my turtle-like habits. Alas, I had conflicts (both real and internal, I’m sure)… but maybe you don’t?

Says Jodi, “The improv for writers is really quite wonderful. I’m teaching it differently than I have before. You don’t have to leave your chair. At all. It’s using some of the basic improv principles in writing practice. Lots of room for one’s imagination to blossom.”

Hm. Maybe I should reconsider.

Jodi also tells me she’s excited about her improv for adults class. “It’s a great group,” she says. “One man crawled around on the floor in pretty much every scene. I’ve labeled him ‘the crawler’ in my subtext.

“We did this one exercise where we give each other imaginary presents. The person ‘receiving’ the present gets to say what it is. One young man in the class who is tres adorable said, for some reason people kept giving me dead animals. We were hysterical, as it was always his own imagination at work.”

If you're a writer in need of an imagination kick-start (and let's be honest, who isn't?), get thee to Jodi's class! There's one this weekend called "Eight Ways to Create a Character." Take it in the afternoon, then dazzle your partner with more than one romantic you...

Stayin' Alive

I’m sitting at my kitchen table trying to get my slow-as-molasses-in-the-summertime computer connection to click through to the 29 comments on the second-to-last blog entry to Judith Strasser’s “In Lieu of Speech.”

While I wait impatiently I open her latest book, “Facing Fear: Cancer and Politics, Courage and Hope,” to the first chapter. I should’ve read it the day it came out in 2008 but instead it sat on my desk as the days’ and weeks’ mail slowly buried it beneath ten and twelve and sixteen other books by local authors I should be reading and blogging about.

The comments I'm waiting to read are in response to the post titled “Changing Voices” (which is a brilliant title) written by her sister, Susie, who signed on to let us know Judith was “declining fast.” Susie has encouraged her community of friends, fans and colleagues to write, as Judy is still "definitely interested" in hearing what people have to say.

God I want to know what people are commenting about. How do you even BEGIN to respond to such a beautiful and sad and heartfelt blog post?

I don’t even know this woman and I’m touched by the mark she made on humanity.

She raised the money to build the Children’s Museum that my daughter treasures. She is a domestic violence survivor and now that the comments have finally popped up I know she was an inspiration to the DV community. She has a loving family and a rich spiritual life. She wrote a book while she was being treated with stomach cancer.

I recognize a few of the godspeed-wishers. Harriet. Dean B. Ronnie. I’m not surprised these writer-intellectuals crossed paths with Judith Strasser, who passed away three days after the blog post.

Isn’t it funny how all of a sudden, now that she’s dead, I’m curious to know everything about a woman I’ve never known?

“Everything happens for a reason,” a brain tumor survivor was once quoted as saying in Madison Magazine. “You just have to figure out what it is.”

I found this poem on Judith Strasser's website and for some reason it feels like the perfect way to remember a I person I will never have the pleasure of knowing.

How to Stay Alive
by Judith Strasser
Trash your cigarettes. Shun restaurants and bars
that traffic in second-hand smoke. Eat organic
and low on the food chain. Steam vegetables;
don't grill meat. Just say "no" to marijuana, Jack
Daniels, and cocaine. Stay home: do not rent cars
at Miami's airport, or ride the New York subways,
or dig potshards in the Negev after massacres
in Hebron. Don't drive vans older than you are
to places you've never been. Always buckle your
seat belt. Have someone else strip the asbestos
from your furnace and heating pipes. Test for radon
in the basement, lead in the drinking water, cracks
in the microwave shield. Avoid electric blankets.
Use condoms, or don't have sex. Walk to work.
Remember your sunblock. Don't go jogging after dark.
Keep off the neighbors' grass after they've sprayed
the yard. Wear a helmet when you bike. Take
a buddy to the lake. Don't lie about your weight
to the man who adjusts your skis. Lower stress
with yoga; divorce your husband if you must. Cross
your fingers, say "Star Bright" to Venus, avoid
black cats, spit three times over your shoulder
on your thirteenth annual visit to the oncologist.

Originally published in Prairie Schooner, Winter 1995
Books

Big Hugs

Check out Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz's blog on journalism. When elected officials respect, appreciate and understand the role of the media, you just want to hug 'em. Last year on Neil Heinen's Sunday news show, For the Record, I opined that Mayor Dave was a great city manager but a political animal he was not. Among the many issues I was reacting to were his quietly confident style—as opposed to some of his more outspoken and dramatic predecessors—as well as a few high-profile dust-ups, like the Meadowood Neighborhood meeting where residents took aim at him for not putting public safety first.

Soon after the mayor dropped his campaign for light rail and redoubled his efforts on crime and other grassroots problems the city faced. I've heard plenty of folks say he's actually an extremely skilled politician who simply gets the job done differently. I'm starting to see what they mean. Maybe now it's time those neighbors whose concerns Mayor Dave took to heart step up again, this time to help him fight for a greener, more affordable and cost-effective transit system, including streetcars, to get them where they need to go.

Writing a New Day

It’s kind of daunting to be an editorial writer today. So I took the easy way out and solicited my contributing writers to paint a portrait of “right now” from Madison, Wisconsin. I asked them to tell me what was on their minds on the eve of the inauguration of our first Black president, Barack Obama, during such tumultuous times. As I read each entry, what slowly emerges from the dialogue is a collective sigh of relief. That’s no surprise. Eight years after we were encouraged to go shopping as a solution to terrorism, we are suddenly being asked to participate in our future. Change we can believe in? I sure hope so.

First, let’s hear from the baby boomers:

“Two months ago, for the first time in my life, I walked past a young African American child and thought, 'She might be president some day.' Imagine during the rioting of the late 1960s if someone said, 'Hey, there’s an African American child six years old living in Hawaii, conceived out of wedlock, who will be president of the United States in forty years.' All good things are possible." –Denis Collins

“My memory takes me back to Lakewood School in Maple Bluff, January 20, 1961, where we watched John F. Kennedy sworn in on a black and white TV set. I was in seventh grade and one of very few Democrats watching at that place on that day. I have never had as much enthusiasm for a presidential candidate since that day. I actually was a paid employee of the McGovern campaign in 1972 and it soured me on Presidential politics. Until this past year. I remember watching Barack Obama’s keynote speech four years ago and realizing this was someone who was on fire. I supported his bid for President from the very start, but admit I had little hope he would win. That was until the Iowa caucuses. Tomorrow, I will be watching his inauguration with that same sense of awe and admiration that I did back in 1961." –Dan Curd

“It’s been said the first responsibility of any American politician is to 'get right with Lincoln.' By his character, temperament and intellect, Barack Obama has done more to get right with Lincoln than any politician ever. His combination of emotional maturity, intellectual curiosity and political openness augers well for the republic.” –Stu Levitan

“I have never thought of Barak Obama as a man of color. For a lot of people that is the most significant change. That is true but is not what is most important or impressive to me. … My earliest awareness and impression of Barak Obama was of a very bright, very articulate person. The night he spoke at the Democratic Convention during the Clinton administration, I was blown away with his speaking ability. I believe he thinks about topics thoroughly, gathers advice from a variety of sources, and is able to reach decisions by weighting the information in a balanced manner. In addition, his ability to be articulate means he is able to communicate those decisions in a way that we (the public) can understand. For me, I don't care a bit about the color of his skin but about that attitude and ability.

“I am most excited about the comparisons Lincoln and FDR. This is a terrible time in our history, two wars, an economic crisis, and yet, I am full of hope, great hope. I think President Obama has to be honest with us, that it is not going to be easy to recover from these challenges and, at the same time, speak to the 'better angels' that Lincoln referred to and 'nothing to fear but fear itself' that FDR spoke of. He has to get all of us behind our ability to get through this difficult time and to move forward in positive ways. Make the America that we as Americans think we have, or thought we had, or think we messed up the promise of. This time is the closes to that promise in my adult life." –Nancy Lynch

"I am struck by this nation’s barbarities of her past and the brave hopes of her future. As a toddler, when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. visited Chicago, I watched the sunset in the west, the beauty of the orange and red hues, all colors playing in harmony. Then, forsaking the moon and the stars, riotous flames danced on the horizon as the city burned. In my life I have seen legalized segregation and the fact that, because of their skin, people could not vote. Now a black man is President. That transformation symbolizes hope for me." –Kent Palmer

“Hooray, we finally chose intelligence over ‘one of us’ and inspiration over lies. The challenge is great. Consumption as a percent of our GDP will drop. What will fill its place? We must envision a new business model for our economy, not just stimulus to get us back to the old economy. The former could usher in a wonderful future. The latter will be a disaster.” –Kay Plantes

It’s interesting that as I separate these thoughts by generation I notice how the lens starts to change. While baby boomers are hopeful and resolute, Gen X-ers are anxious, ready to roll up their sleeves and get to work.

“I’d love to be eloquent, witty or even cheeky, but really I’m just a jumble of nerves, excitement, hope, relief and pride. I’m also a little nostalgic. I lived in D.C. when Clinton was inaugurated (the second time), and I’d love to be back in my apartment on Connecticut Avenue this week, bars on the windows and hold-ups in my basement and all. And I lived in a good neighborhood!" –Jennifer Garrett

"For me, the idea of Obama transcends policy and procedure. Does that make me a dreamer? Probably, but I’m not apologizing for it. We can argue politics and practice until we’re blue in our faces, but that’s the thing—Obama makes me want to. I haven’t felt that way in my entire adult life. This is a first." –Maggie Ginsberg-Schutz

"I hope he doesn’t get shot. What I mean is, I love this guy and I am worried that we are not post-racial in this country." –Robert Gutsche, Jr.

"Obama has (wisely) not been shy about stating the challenges we face. But for Inauguration Day, I am going to try to push those worries somewhere toward the back of my head, so I can appreciate and marvel at everything this historic event means to our country and to the rest of the world. After a couple months of nothing but bad news, I am more than ready to revel in a little hope." –Jenny Price

“When I saw the crowds at the McCain rallies, I thought of America as she used to be.
When I saw the crowds at the Obama rallies, I recognized the America that is.
For anyone who still thinks diversity is a trend, the train has left the station. We’ve leapfrogged our prior consciousness of what we are as a country.
Buckle up." –Rebecca Ryan

"As our new president takes to the stage, we have finally reached a long overdue milestone that, despite the challenges ahead, has helped renew the spirit of a nation. Partisan politics and pundits aside, I hope we all can continue to ride this wave of inspiration and meet community, nationwide and global challenges head on." –Laura Salinger

Contributing writer Mary Erpenbach just called me to say she was sorry she didn't send anything. She's headed to watch the festivities with her son, Ted. We talked about her granddaughter Lucia, who's just over a year old, and about what a difference this all makes to the next generation. And the best part? They'll never think twice about it.

And this just in—fashionably late—from Mad Mag's back-page columnist and boomer:

"After so many years, it feels good to know that the Declaration of Independence, and our Constitution, are now true.: –John Roach

Food in the City

Food is a bit of a rock star these days, loved and loathed just like celebrities.

In a recession, food—especially healthy food—is a luxury to a lot more people. Folks are having a hard time finding enough of it for their families. Thankfully, we have a strong food bank and distribution system in our community, so we find and feed as many hungry stomachs as possible.

How we grow and produce our food is another lively topic of conversation. I’m a big fan of anything Michael Pollan writes, outlining in excruciating detail how the failures of the modern agricultural system is one of the most important subjects on earth. The guy is brilliant (and coming to Madison later this year) and if he and others are successful in convincing the Obama family to plant a garden at the White House, the Sashas and Malias of the world might not grow up (like I did) wondering how hard they have to scrub to remove the chemicals on their apples and carrots.

Here in Madison, local and organic food conversations are lively and abundant. We have them in the magazine every month, thanks to senior food writer Nancy Christy and her hungry husband, Neil. Each time I edit their column, “Genuine Articles,” I’m smarter, and more interested than ever in the food chain. They bring us insightful and intelligent food for thought from all over the planet, including people and ideas in our own back yard.

Dan Curd’s blog is another great source of information and inspiration for me. He’s an encyclopedia of knowledge about local restaurants, the state’s culinary contributions, and more. Nancy Lynch’s recipe columns beautifully connect what’s cooking in the kitchen to the warmth of family and friends—she shows how food and nostalgia go hand in hand.

I’m excited to read Terese Allen’s latest book that updates the late Harva Hachten’s amazing Flavors of Wisconsin, a history of food and cooking in the state. It’s due out later this year. Meanwhile, there’s a really great book out right this minute called Hungry for Wisconsin: A Tasty Guide for Travelers (Itchy Cat Press, $25). It’s by Madison’s own Mary Bergin, a syndicated travel columnist whose byline has appeared in The Capital Times for many years. When I picked it up I flipped right to the Madison section eager to see what she’d chosen to feature. There were a few usual suspects—the Farmers' Market and L’Etoile, for example—because they are always worthy of mention. But I was surprised by the diversity of food Bergin finds and loved the way she presented it. So I asked her for an interview and she graciously accepted.

It’s interesting that you open your chapter on the Madison area with its exciting relationships with Chicago restaurants. What was your reasoning? We are not an island. Others notice our good work, good taste and find it attractive. The ever-growing connections between southwest Wisconsin farmers and Chicago restaurateurs add credibility to the product abundance and quality that we locals might otherwise take for granted.

The Madison businesses you chose to profile are a nice cross-section of the food community—from upscale to ethnic to heritage to taverns to, of course, the Farmers’ Market. And the mixture of storytelling and service stands out to me. How did you determine who and what to include? My aim, throughout the book, was to gather the most eclectic mix of food businesses and stories/situations that I could find. It was important to go beyond the obvious.

By the way, you stole my big idea for a picture of Keith Daniels of the Harmony Bar standing next to his bumper sticker door. I’ve been dying to get that shot in the magazine! Keith is a gem, and genuine. I very much like what he stands for. He seems to care about his neighborhood as much as he wants to operate a successful business that bucks stereotypes. “Bar food” can have a “gourmet flair.”

Anybody you regret leaving out? Yes! We had more material than we could accommodate, even though much is written pretty concisely.

I make a point of mentioning that “Hungry” is not a “best of” book. It’s a discriminating glimpse at our wealth of diversity and integrity, as it pertains to food. I continue to hear about enticing enterprises, be it Alpha Delights—a nifty European bakery in DePere, or a farm near Stockholm whose public “pizza nights” during the growing season involve all-local ingredients.

How long did the book take to research? To write? I began my syndicated “Roads Traveled” column in 2002, but my interest in food writing predates that. Some of what I wrote years ago was recycled for this book project. Other material was written just for it. I signed a book contract with Itchy Cat Press in October 2007 and had the project finished (that means even the index – ugh!) shortly before summer 2008 arrived.

What, if anything, was news to you? The depth of our culinary creativity and integrity in Wisconsin’s small towns is amazing. I knew a few of these players when my research began, but I keep hearing about more and more!

What kind of reaction are you getting? It’s been extremely positive, and I’m grateful.

What’s next? I continue to build a full-time freelance writing and photography business, seeking projects instead of traditional employment. Wisconsin people/places/topics are the core of my work, but I’m also traveling far away. Will be in Egypt, for example, in early February.