Blog

How a registered nurse became a breakout police procedural novelist—and why she adores historical romance By Laura Anne Bird Amy Pease’s immensely readable debut is one you’ll have a hard time putting down. From Northwoods’ eerie opening scene, we know we’re in for a wild ride. Deputy Eli North, an alcoholic veteran of the War in Afghanistan with PTSD and a checkered past, stumbles upon the body of a teenager in a lake in northern Wisconsin. Can Eli and his mother—the sheriff of their small resort town—solve the mystery of who killed the boy, and why? Pease introduces us to [...]

On word vitamins, substance abuse, and her complicated love letter to small-town Wisconsin By Laura Anne Bird The moment has finally arrived for Maggie Ginsberg. Her debut novel, Still True, which took “three months, five years, or a lifetime to write,” is being launched into the world. Still True is the unsettling, slow burning, deeply pleasurable story of Lib Hanson, a fiercely independent woman with a silver braid down her back. On a hot summer night, a man shows up at her farmhouse in Anthem, Wisconsin, and she understands instantly he’s the son she left four decades ago—“a reunion-in-the-making so [...]

Q&A with debut author illustrator Joseph Taylor + three book recommendations By Laura Bird Madison, Wisconsin-based working artist Joseph Taylor is many things: pianist, vocalist, yogi, gardener, dad. Now, he’s an author illustrator, too. Taylor’s debut children’s picture book, The Walking Tree, celebrates a centuries-old woodworking technique called Intarsia—but with his own vibrant spin. “I make wooden wall art by cutting recycled skateboards and other found woods, and I arrange the pieces on hand-painted backgrounds,” Taylor says. “My final pieces might feature a whimsical submarine floating in the sky or an ancient tree balancing in the wind. I play with [...]