2024 Presenters

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Christina Clancy

Christina Clancy is the author of The Second Home, selected by booksellers for Indie Next and Indies Introduce, and Shoulder Season. Her novels have been featured on Good Morning America, Travel + Leisure, CNN, the New York Post, and elsewhere. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Sun magazine, and in various literary journals. She has a PhD in creative writing from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Melissa Faliveno

Mollie Morning Star

Mollie Morning Star is an evidential psychic medium who communicates validating messages from loved ones in the afterlife that reduce the pain of grieving. With a personable approach and self-effacing humor, she has hosted group events and created an online community that looks to her for daily inspiration. She lives in Kohler, Wisconsin, and has two grown children. And yes, “Morning Star” is her real name, given at birth!

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Inga Witscher

A fourth-generation dairy farmer and local-food enthusiast, Inga Witscher loves milking cows and making cheese on her small farm in Osseo, Wisconsin. When she’s not working on the farm, she is collaborating with her team to tell the stories of Wisconsin’s family farmers on her popular PBS television series Around the Farm Table.

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Quan Barry

Quan Barry is the Lorraine Hansberry Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the author of eight books of fiction and poetry, including the recent collection Auction, which the New York Times named one of the five best poetry books of 2023. A recipient of NEA fellowships in both poetry and fiction, Barry is currently Forward Theater’s first-ever writer-in-residence. The world premiere of her play, The Mytilenean Debate, was staged in spring 2022.

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Tamara Dean

Tamara Dean, a former Kickapoo Valley resident, writes both fiction and nonfiction. Her stories and essays have appeared in the American Scholar, Creative Nonfiction, the Georgia Review, the Guardian, One Story, Orion, the Southern Review, and other publications. Her article “Safer Than Childbirth” received a 2024 Pushcart Prize special mention and “Slow Blues” was named a 2021 National Magazine Award finalist. Her essay collection, Shelter and Storm, is forthcoming in 2025. More online at tamaradean.media.
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Marty Schreiber

Former Wisconsin Governor Martin J. Schreiber is an award-winning crusader for Alzheimer’s caregivers and those with dementia. Reaching audiences nationwide via live events and various forms of media, Schreiber uses humor and compassion as he shares lessons from his decade-plus journey as a caregiver. Net proceeds from his book, My Two Elaines, go to caregiver support programs. He and his wife, Elaine, who died in 2022, are the parents of four children and have thirteen grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

Chad Lewis

Chad Lewis

Chad Lewis is a researcher, author, and lecturer on topics of the strange and unusual. The more bizarre the legend, the more likely it is that you will find him investigating it.

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Al Cornell

Al Cornell has a degree in natural resource management and is a retired Wisconsin DNR wildlife technician. He is a member of the Wildlife Society and has published more than two hundred articles on wildlife ecology and outdoor inspiration as well as having more than seven hundred wildlife photos appear in magazines, books, and calendars. He and his wife reside on a portion of the farm where he grew up in southwestern Wisconsin.

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Cynthia Marie Hoffman

Cynthia Marie Hoffman is the author of four collections of poetry: Exploding Head, Call Me When You Want to Talk about the Tombstones, Paper Doll Fetus, and Sightseer. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, and the Wisconsin Arts Board. Her poems have appeared in Electric Literature, the Believer, the Los Angeles Review, and elsewhere. She lives in Madison.

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David Shih

David Shih is a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the New Republic, the Progressive, Slate, Code Switch, Electric Literature, Literary Hub, and Inside Higher Ed, and he has appeared on NPR’s All Things Considered, WPR’s The Joy Cardin Show and The Larry Meiller Show, and WNYC’s All In with Alison Stewart. He grew up in Texas and lives in Eau Claire with his family.

Melissa Faliveno

Eric Schlehlein

Eric Schlehlein is an author and freelance writer who is passionate about most things Americana. He is the author of the American Civil War novels Black Iron Mercy and The Dim White Light and makes his living as a firefighter/EMT in Hartland, Wisconsin. He is married to Brenda and has three adult children, one granddaughter, and a grandson on the way.

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Larry Scheckel

Larry Scheckel grew up on a family farm, attended eight years of a one-room country school, served in the military, and taught high school physics. Retired and living in Tomah, he and his wife, Ann, have published nine books and write columns for local newspapers and several magazines.

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Jeff Nania

Jeff Nania draws upon his careers in law enforcement and natural resources to captivate readers and keep them wondering who is on the right side of the law in his award-winning Northern Lakes Mystery series. Throughout his life, Jeff has taken the path less traveled. These adventures have provided fodder for his engaging crime fiction while grounding his storytelling in the things he holds dear: family, community, and natural resources.
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Amy Sullivan

Amy C. Sullivan, PhD, teaches the U.S. history of drugs, medicine, race, gender, and childhood at Macalester College in St. Paul. Her oral-history-based research projects highlight narratives rooted in social change, community, and healing. She has worked on projects for the National Library of Medicine, the Bakken Museum, and the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. Her book, Opioid Reckoning: Love, Loss, and Redemption in the Rehab State, a 2022 Finalist for the Minnesota Book Award, explores the complexity of America’s opioid epidemic and the reverberating effects of stigma, treatment, and recovery. She lives in Minneapolis but fondly remembers the decade she spent living in Vernon County.

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Steve Johnson

The author of more than forty books from destination guides to children’s titles, Steve Johnson writes for National Geographic, Outside, Backpacker, and Forbes as well as partnering with national and global influencers to write their riveting stories.

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Credit: John Fisher

Kimberly Blaeser

Kimberly Blaeser, a past Wisconsin Poet Laureate and the founding director of Indigenous Nations Poets, is the author of six poetry collections—including Ancient Light and Copper Yearning. An enrolled member of the White Earth Nation, she is an Anishinaabe activist and environmentalist. Blaeser serves as the 2024 Lois and Willard Mackey Chair in Creative Writing at Beloit College and is a Vassar College Tatlock Fellow. She is an MFA faculty member at the Institute of American Indian Arts and a professor emerita at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

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Carol Dunbar

Carol Dunbar is the author of the critically acclaimed novel The Net Beneath Us—winner of the Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award—and A Winter’s Rime. A former actor, playwright, and coloratura soprano, she left her life in the city to live off the grid in northern Wisconsin. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the South Carolina Review, Midwestern Gothic, and on Wisconsin Public Radio.

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Stephen Shaskan

Stephen Shaskan is the author and illustrator of several picture books, including Big Choo, Toad on the Road, Max Speed, The Three Triceratops Tuff, A Dog Is a Dog, and the wildly popular graphic chapter book series starring Pizza and Taco. He also illustrated the picture book Punk Skunks and the graphic novel series featuring Q and Ray, written by his wife Trisha Speed Shaskan. They live in Minneapolis.

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Melinda Myers

Nationally known gardening expert, TV and radio host, author, and columnist Melinda Myers has more than thirty-five years of horticulture experience and has written more than twenty gardening books, including the Midwest Gardener’s Handbook. She hosts the Melinda’s Garden Moment radio program and How to Grow Anything DVD series. Myers is a columnist and contributing editor for Birds & Blooms and hosted The Plant Doctor radio show for more than twenty years and PBS’s Great Lakes Gardener for seven seasons. More at melindamyers.com

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Sue Berg

Sue Berg began her writing career after retiring from teaching. She has published five titles in her Driftless Mystery series set in the beautiful Driftless region of Wisconsin, and several of her books have received regional recognition. She lives in rural Viroqua with her husband, Alan.

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Nicholas Petrie

Nick Petrie is the author of eight novels in the Peter Ash series, most recently The Price You Pay. His debut, The Drifter, won both the ITW Thriller Award and the Barry Award for Best First Novel and was a finalist for the Edgar Award and the Hammett Prize. A husband and father, he lives in the Milwaukee area.

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Ben Riggs

Friend to mortal, beast, and undead alike, Ben Riggs is the hard-bitten yet heroic historian of the tabletop roleplaying-game industry. His first book, Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons & Dragons, which was a 2022 Goodreads Award nominee, unveiled the never-before-told story of how the first company to publish D&D nearly went bankrupt due to disastrous management decisions and was saved by its bitterest rival.

Melissa Faliveno

BJ Hollars

B.J. Hollars is the author of several books, most recently Wisconsin for Kennedy: The Primary That Launched a President and Changed the Course of History, the forthcoming Year of Plenty: A Family’s Season of Grief, and Go West Young Man: A Father and Son Rediscover America on the Oregon Trail. A professor and award-winning columnist, he lives and works in Eau Claire.

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Gary Jones

Teacher and writer Gary Jones published his memoir Ridge Stories: Herding Hens, Powdering Pigs, and Other Recollections from a Boyhood in the Driftless with the Wisconsin Historical Society Press in 2019.  He began his teaching career in 1966 at Weston High School and ended it at his alma mater, UW-Platteville in 2014, but his writing continues.  He and his wife, Lu, summer in Door County and winter in Platteville.

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Jane Schmidt

Jane Schmidt owns and operates Fitness Choices and Trailblazer Health & Wellness Coaching, from her home in rural Viola, Wisconsin. Her award-winning column, “Jane’s World,” appears weekly in the Crawford County Independent & Kickapoo Scout. Jane’s books include two essay collections, Not a Perfect Fit and Thunderstorms & Tiny Turtles, and a series of books for children featuring her rat terrier mix, Finnegan. Jane enjoys hiking, biking, backpacking, and spending time with her many critters.
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Kathy Kuderer

Kathy Kuderer is a local author from Cashton who has spent more than thirty years working with the local Amish community. She started and ran a gift shop and tour business that spanned three decades, sharing this unique culture with people from around the world. In 2009 she self-published her first book, Down a Country Road with the Amish. It is filled with the history, traditions, and customs of the Old Order Amish as well as heartwarming stories of her experiences of building a business working with this community.
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Anneka Baird

Anneka Baird is a master craftswoman based in Wisconsin’s Driftless region. Baird maintains a practical curiosity about the technological foundations of life as we know it– foundations that have often been obscured in layer upon layer of successive technologies. Baird is an MFA graduate of the University of Iowa Center for the Book, a sitting board member of the Midwest Ox Drovers Association, and a persistent student in the school of experience.
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Annika Mersmann

Annika Mersmann, social worker, mother, and primitive-skills educator, has spent seventeen years leading groups of all ages in the wilderness. Her passion is to live outdoors with others for extended periods of time with minimal gear in interdependence with the natural environment and one’s human community.
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Ria Thundercloud

Unfortunately, Ria Thundercloud cannot attend the Ridges & Rivers Book Festival this year. We hope to welcome her in the future.
Ria Thundercloud is from the Ho-Chunk Nation and Sandia Pueblo and practices both styles of traditional dance. She began training in classical dance at age thirteen and danced professionally at sixteen. Thundercloud is a 2019 graduate of the Institute of American Indian Arts with a degree in Indigenous Liberal Studies. Her art is influenced by the stories of the women who came before her, which highlight the resilience and knowledge of Indigenous women.

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Credit: Else Karlsen

George Hesselberg

George Hesselberg is a native of Bangor, Wisconsin, and grew up in the Coulee Region wandering those ridges as a boy. In his forty-three years as a reporter and columnist for the Wisconsin State Journal, Hesselberg covered every beat and wrote hundreds of news obituaries of the famous and the not-so-famous. In addition to Dead Lines, he is the author of several previous books, including Paint Me Green and Call Me Fern, and The Vesper Stories.
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Kevin and Patsy Alderson

Kevin and Patsy Alderson of rural La Farge are co-authors of Letters Home to Sarah and Barns without Corners about the round barns of Vernon County. Kevin taught American history for thirty-three years, and Patsy is an artist. They are both tour guides in the Cashton Amish community and present various programs on local historical subjects. They enjoy traveling and spending time with their family and friends.
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Amara Rose Foundation

The Amara Rose Foundation, Inc. was formed in 2022 after the founders lost their daughter, Amara, to fentanyl poisoning. She was thirty-one. She had struggled with the disease of addiction for many years. She might still be alive if her drug hadn’t been laced with a lethal dose of illicit fentanyl. The foundation is passionate about saving lives and families by educating and raising awareness.
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National Eagle Center

The National Eagle Center encapsulates a world in which the iconic power and presence of eagles are known, respected, advocated for, and protected. Located in Wabasha, Minnesota, the National Eagle Center is home to several non-releasable Bald Eagles and a nesting place for hundreds of others who come for the winter.
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Wisconsin Family Theater

Wisconsin Family Theater is a new theater company founded by Ian and Elisabeth Baird with the mission to bring professional, family-friendly theater to the people of Wisconsin. The couple studied theater in college before working in the field professionally and have been performing together for thirteen years, since their first production, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. They live in Viroqua with their dog, two cats, and adorable son, Moses.

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Ruth Kittelson

Ruth Kittelson, a previous resident of Viroqua for over 20 years, now lives in the North Cascade mountains at Lake Chelan, WA. Ruth is the musician for the Lake Chelan Lutheran Church and is a music-thanatologist (using harp and voice at the bedside of those who are dying). She is active in serving the dying using our book Peace at the Last and facilitates a No One Dies Alone program.
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Paul Palumbo

Paul Palumbo is a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He has served two congregations in 35 years of parish ministry. He is a community pastor, spiritual director, minister to Vietnam veterans and, along with his congregation in Chelan, Washington, co-authored Peace at the Last: Visitation with the Dying. He continues the ministry of accompanying the dying and is now working to share this resource with the wider Church and community.

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Credit: Priyanca Rao

Sarah Kain Gutowski

Sarah Kain Gutowski is the author of two books, The Familiar and Fabulous Beast: Poems, winner of the 14th annual National Indies Excellence Award for Poetry. Her poems have appeared in various journals, including The Gettysburg Review, The Threepenny Review, and Painted Bride Quarterly. A member of the National Book Critics Circle, her criticism has been published by Colorado Review, Calyx: A Journal of Art and Literature by Women, and New York Journal of Books.

McIntosh Memorial Library

 

205 South Rock Avenue, Viroqua, Wisconsin

 

(608) 637-7151 Ext. 8