Thanks go out to our wonderful 2012 sponsors!
FCBF official booksellers:
The 2012 Fox Cities Reads is underway! Pick up a copy of Make the Impossible Possible by Bill Strickland at your local library and join in community-wide discussions about the book. The author will visit the Fox Cities April 16-18 during the Fox Cities Book Festival.
Author Biography
Author Sara Rath has the unique ability to write entertaining fiction as well as engaging nonfiction. Her biography H.H. Bennett, Photographer: His American Landscape, published in 2010, is a well-written and sympathetic portrait of the innovative Wisconsin photographer Henry Bennett.
Her popular novel Night Sisters (2008) follows the adventures (and misadventures) of Nell Grendon, a Madison woman whose chance visit to a spiritualist camp causes her to channel the spirit of a 1920s actress. Publisher's Weekly described the book as "a witty blend of the occult, suspense, mystery and a dash of romance" (9/1/2008), and it was featured on Wisconsin Public Radio's program Chapter A Day. In addition to her prose work, Rath has published several collections of poetry, including Dancing with a Cowboy (1991).
Rath grew up in Manawa, Wisconsin. She received her undergraduate degree from UW-Madison and her MFA in Writing from Vermont College. Her other professional accomplishments include a career in teaching creative writing, being named a MacDowell Fellow, and receiving a Wisconsin Arts Board Individual Artist's Fellowship. She lives near Spring Green, Wisconsin, where she continues to write in many genres. Other works include: Star Lake Saloon and Housekeeping Cottages: a Novel (2005) and the nonfiction books The Complete Cow (1998) and The Complete Pig (2000).
Additional Information
H. H. Bennett, Photographer: His American Landscape.
With a PowerPoint presentation, Rath will share the work and life-story of Henry Hamilton Bennett who is best known for exploring the canyons and craggy cliffs of Wisconsin Dells after the Civil War with camera in hand. But his legacy goes far beyond his photographs (including those of Milwaukee, Chicago and the Fox Valley). Although he faced dire personal challenges, his accomplishments, both technical and artistic, granted Bennett a lasting legacy and a solid reputation in the history of photography.
Tags: Sara will read excerpts from her novels Star Lake Saloon & Housekeeping Cottages, and Night Sisters, plus the opening chapter for her new work-in-progress, The Waters of Star Lake, and describe the agonizing and sometimes humorous challenges an author faces when choosing a narrator or point-of-view for each story. She will give examples of earlier (unpublished) attempts for each of these, and compare them with the finished manuscripts.
If you participated in the 2012 Fox Cities Book Festival, we would love to get your feedback. Please take a moment to complete this brief survey. Thank you!
Big thanks go to Atlas Coffee Mill for hosting monthly meetings for the Fox Cities Book Festival Board! We appreciate your support of the Festival and just can't thank you enough for providing a welcoming meeting space for us to plan and dream.