Madison BookBeat

On this edition of Madison BookBeat, host Sara Batkie chats with author Melissa Faliveno about her debut novel, Hemlock, now available from Little, Brown. Sam, finally sober and stable with a cat and a long-term boyfriend in Brooklyn, returns alone to Hemlock, her family’s deteriorating cabin deep in the Wisconsin Northwoods, where her mother disappeared years before and never returned. But a quick, practical trip takes a turn for the worse when the rot and creak of the forest starts to creep in around the edges of Sam’s mind. It starts, as it always does, with a beer. As Sam dips back into the murky waters of dependency, the inexplicable begins to arrive at her door in the forms of a neighbor who leaves no trace, a talking doe who sounds just like Sam’s missing mother, and a series of mysterious gifts that might be a welcome or a warning. And as Sam’s stay extends—as the town’s grip on her tightens and her body takes on a strange new shape—the borders of reality begin to blur, and she senses she is battling something sinister—whether nested in the woods or within herself. Melissa Faliveno is the author of the essay collection Tomboyland, named a Best Book of 2020 by NPR, New York Public Library, Oprah Magazine, Electric Literature, and Debutiful, and recipient of a 2021 Award for Outstanding Literary Achievement from the Wisconsin Library Association. Her essays, interviews, and reviews have appeared in Esquire, Paris Review, Kenyon Review, and Literary Hub, among many others. A first-generation college graduate, Melissa received a BA from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. She is currently the Margaret R. Shuping Fellow and assistant professor of creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

Stu Levitan welcomes back to the program Doug Bradley to discuss his new book The Tracks of My Years: A Music-Based Memoir, just out from the good people at Legacy Book Press. And it is exactly what the subtitle promises – Doug recounting the literal soundtrack of his life, putting the seminal events of his first quarter century or so in the context of the music that  accompanied, or symbolized, those events. And since most of the events recounted took place in the sixties and seventies, it’s a pretty great 46-song setlist, which you can find on Spotify.  https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2SiTq5A3GboxJ4uTNdMGJ1 Doug spent his early childhood in Philadelphia with his parents and older doo-wop singing brother, in a house filled with music. The family moved to Ohio for two years, then the Pittsburg suburb  of Clairton, where Doug graduated from Thomas Jefferson HS in 1965, doing some party DJ work along the way, thanks to his brother’s record collection. He was admitted to Notre Dame but couldn’t afford the tuition; as a scholarship student to Bethany College in Bethany WV, Class of ’69, he was a Big Man on Campus as two-term chairman of the Social Committee , booking a lot of major pop acts. That's how he came to share a joint with the Jefferson Airplane’s Grace Slick and a drink with jazz legend Count Basie, play some pick-up hoops with Smokey Robinson’s Miracles, and hold Dionne Warwick’s hand on a tragic night in American history. He was drafted into the US Army in March 1970 and fortunately for him aced the job aptitude test and so was made an Army journalist, first domestically and then in 1970-71 at the Army’s Vietnam HQ in Long Binh. After his honorable discharge, he finally acceded to the entreaties of his high school mentor – whose interest in Doug may have been more that academic – and he received an MA in English from Washington State University in 1972. He also acceded to the entreaties of his wife, Pam Shannon, and relocated to Madison in 1974, where he was one of the first employees and later president of the community-based service center Vet’s House, which helped him work through some of his postwar issues. Pam also got him to appreciate the Grateful Dead, which gives her bonus points. Never a student at the UW, he spent more than 30 years in various communications and marketing positions there, including 15 years as director of public information at UW Extension, where his father-in-law Ted Shannon was a top administrator. He also for many years co-taught with his co-author Prof. Craig Werner a course based on their award-winning book “We Gotta Get Out of this Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War.” Doug later continued the theme, writing Who’ll Stop The Rain: Respect, Remembrance and Reconciliation in post-Vietnam America, both books the subject of a BookBeat episode in February 2020. It’s a pleasure to welcome back to Madison BookBeat the 2025 recipient of the Vietnam Veterans of America’s Excellence in Arts Award, Doug Bradley

On this edition of Madison BookBeat, host Sara Batkie chats with Madison booksellers Mira Braneck from A Room of One’s Own, Hilary Burg from Mystery to Me, and Molly Fish from Lake City Books to see how their 2025 went.  Take a listen to learn about the new releases they loved, event highlights from the past year, recommended reads that'll keep you cozy this season, and what's in store for them in 2026. And for those still doing some holiday shopping, stick around until the end to hear their order deadlines this December! Photo by Jessica Ruscello.

WORT 89.9FM Madison · Cheryl Schiltz - When the World Falls Away Lisa Malawski talks with Cheryl Schiltz today on Madison Bookbeat, November 24, 2025. Cheryl Schiltz is no stranger to silence—but not the peaceful kind. After a reaction to antibiotics destroyed her vestibular system—the part of the inner ear responsible for balance—Cheryl was plunged into a world of disorientation, instability, and invisible suffering. Even while lying down, she felt as if she were falling through space. The noise of disability wasn’t audible—it was internal, relentless, and isolating. In her powerful book, Silencing the Noise of Disability, Cheryl shares her deeply personal journey of loss, adaptation, and transformation. With raw honesty and poetic insight, she invites readers into the lived experience of invisible disability and the groundbreaking science that helped her reclaim her life. Through her collaboration with neuroscientist Dr. Paul Bach-y-Rita and the use of the BrainPort device—a tool that rerouted balance signals through her tongue—Cheryl became a living example of neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to rewire itself. Her story was also featured in Norman Doidge’s bestselling book The Brain That Changes Itself, but in Silencing the Noise of Disability, Cheryl tells it in her own voice. “I didn’t just learn to walk again—I learned to live again.” This book is more than a memoir. It’s a call to recognize the dignity and complexity of those living with invisible disabilities. It’s a celebration of science, spirit, and the human will to adapt.  

Stu Levitan welcomes Cary Segall  for a conversation about his engaging new book A Talk in the Woods: Voices Along the Appalachian Trail (Back Burner Books), recounting stories of the people he met along the world's longest hiking-only trail. Built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the mid-1930s, the 2,197.4-mile Appalachian Trail runs through 14 states, from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine. More than three million people hike segments each year; fewer than one thousand earn the designation of thru-hiker, walking the entire trail within fifty-two weeks. Cary Segall set out in 2014 to become a thru-hiker, but  soon took such enjoyment talking to his fellow hikers -- most with trail names like Deacon, Northstar, Birdman, Gearhead, Leave No Tracy, Mama Bear and the Cubs --that he took the time to interview them; every so often, he'd use the computer at a public library the trail was passing to write their stories. That slowed him down, so he only got to New York that first year; illness, injury and bad weather stymied his efforts in 2015-2017, but he finally summited in 2018. Impressive and no doubt satisfying, but nowhere near as extraordinary as what Segall, 75, accomplished on Nov. 9  – completing the Madison Marathon 26 days after a UW doctor replaced his defective aortic valve. That was on top of about 80 prior marathons in  31 states, plus a record 44 straight 20-mile Syttende Mai races. Segall began his racing and writing careers at Green Bay East High School, where he ran cross-country and was sports editor of the Hi-Light newspaper. He was also both a stringer and delivery boy for the Press Gazette, and delivered Vince Lombardi's Sunday Milwaukee Journal. Before joining the State Journal, Segall applied his UW degree in wildlife ecology as a ranger-naturalist for the National Park Service, and his UW law degree as a public interest environmental lawyer before quitting to raise his newborn son Craig, with whom he would later do much hiking.

On this edition of Madison BookBeat, host Sara Batkie chats with author Emily Mitchell about her new short story collection, The Church of Divine Electricity, now available from University of Wisconsin Press. Delightfully blending literary fiction with speculative genres, the stories in The Church of Divine Electricity somehow manage to feel as though they could take place today. In Emily Mitchell’s created worlds, as in our own, technology bewitches, especially with its ability to heighten both connections and isolation. Whether being held by a giant and comforting machine, allowing micro-drones to record one’s every moment for a year to win prize money, or choosing self-mutilation in exchange for a bionic hand, these characters navigate technological and social change. The familiar can turn unrecognizable and disorienting—sometimes in a flash, sometimes gradually. Lyrical, haunting, and often funny, these stories ask us to consider what—and who—gets left out of a seemingly utopian future of technological advancements. Finely observed, thoughtful, and vivid, Mitchell’s stories get under your skin. It’s not that the best-laid plans could lead us astray—it’s that they may already have.  Emily Mitchell, associate professor of English at the University of Maryland, is the author of a collection of short stories, Viral, and a novel, The Last Summer of the World. Her fiction has appeared in Harper’s, Ploughshares, The Sun, and elsewhere; her nonfiction has been published in the New York Times, the New Statesman, and Guernica. She serves as fiction editor for the New England Review. Author photo by J.M. Tyree.

Stu Levitan welcomes Margaret Mooney, editor of Radical Family: Trailblazing Lesbian Moms Tell Their Stories and her wife Meg Gaines to discuss this collection of nine first-person accounts from mainly Madison-area lesbians who gave birth, adopted or came out between 1980 and 2003. Just out from the good people at the Wisconsin Historical Society Press, the collection offers many important insights into the pressures and pleasures of participating in what Newsweek magazine called "the gayby boom" in the years before the US Supreme Court recognized the constitutional right to same-sex marriage. Among the well-known contributors:  Mooney, former Meteorologist-in-charge at the Madison National Weather Service and Gaines, founding emerita director of the UW Law School's Center for Patient Partnership; Community Shares of Wisconsin co-founder and retired Project Home executive director Denise Matyka and her wife, education consultant Margaret McMurray; retired Madison Police Detective Alix Olson and her late wife Martha Dixon Popp; former Dane County Judge Shelley Gaylord; former Wisconsin Historical Society Press editor-in-chief Kathy Borkowski, and Janet Wright, one of the co-founders of the Advocates for Battered Women, now known as Domestic Abuse Intervention Services.   From Left: Meg Gaines, Stu Levitan, Margaret Mooney

On this edition of Madison BookBeat, host Sara Batkie talks with author Pernille Ipsen about the new translation of her memoir, My Seven Mothers (University of Minnesota Press.) On New Year’s Eve in Copenhagen in 1972, seven women had a child together: one gave birth and six others attended. They had met a year earlier at a feminist women’s camp on a small island and now, with about twenty other women’s liberationists, they occupied three dilapidated apartment buildings in the center of Copenhagen. One became the country’s first Women’s House, the nerve center of the Women’s Movement in Denmark, and the other two were women-only communal living spaces that were Pernille Ipsen’s first home. In this intimate portrait of life during the exhilarating early days of women’s liberation in Scandinavia and dramatic social change around the globe, she tells the stories of these seven women, her seven mothers. Recounting her mothers’ history—from the passions and beliefs they shared to the political divisions over sexual identity that ultimately split them apart—Ipsen captures the individuality of each of her mothers as well as the common experiences that drew them together. As she deftly reflects the practical and emotional realities of her mothers’ women-centered life, Ipsen presents an engrossing picture of intersecting lives that, half a century ago, raised questions we still grapple with today: What is a family? Who is a woman? And who gets to decide? A chronicle of gender, sexuality, and feminism as it was constructed, contested, and lived, My Seven Mothers is an eye-opening account of the challenges and possibilities connected with liberation and radical social change during the 1970s. In this time of fierce struggles over family, sexuality, and child-rearing, it reminds us that new worlds are always possible. Pernille Ipsen was professor of gender and women’s studies and history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison for fifteen years and is now a full-time writer. The Danish-language version of this book, Et åbent øjeblik (An open moment), was published in 2020 and was awarded the Montana Prize for literature, one of Denmark’s top literary prizes.

Stu Levitan welcomes Wauwatosa Mayor Dennis McBride for a conversation about his new book A City on the Edge: Pandemic, Protest and  Polarization. It's a gripping and insightful first-person account of what it was like to be the newly elected chief executive of a Wisconsin city during the twin traumas of 2020 – the onset of COVID and the murder of George Floyd.  In particular, a city with its own unique history of racial extremes – founded by east coast abolitionists in the mid-nineteenth century who made it a stop on the Underground Railroad, which by the early twentieth century had passed a “sundown law” requiring nonwhites to leave before dusk. And in the 21st century, a city where a Black police officer had fatally shot three persons of color in five years, the third coming less than four months before Black Lives Matter protests rocked urban areas around the country. Wauwatosa is politically liberal, home to the state’s largest medical center, the state's busiest mall, leading manufacturers, research parks, and several college campuses. Th best thing about Wauwatosa, of course, is that Bob Dylan immortalized it as Wow Wow Toaster in lyrics he wrote in late 1961 he called “On, Wisconsin,” which Milwaukee musician Trapper Schoepp developed into an actual song. Dennis McBride is Tosa’s 17th Mayor, elected to four-year terms in 2020 and 2024.  He earned a journalism degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, a master’s degree in public administration from Princeton University, and a law degree from New York University, and served 24 years as a Senior and Supervisory Trial Attorney for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Prior to his election as mayor, he served ten years on the Wauwatosa common council, including two terms as its president. He’s also a member of the UWM and Tosa East Athletics Halls of Fame.  Attentive longtime BookBeat listeners may recall the name Dennis McBride from an episode in 2022 featuring his twin brother, UW Prof. Emeritus Dr. Patrick McBride talking about his memoir as the youngest Equipment Manager and Assistant Trainer in professional sports history, “The Luckiest Boy in the World,” which Dennis helped write.

David Michael Miller transcript Stu Levitan welcomes David Michael Miller for a conversation about his new book, The Rise of Breese Stevens Field: Madison's ballpark and the team that made it home, the Centennial Edition. You may know Breese Stevens Field today as a city, state, and national landmark at 917 East Mifflin Street, the place for professional soccer and ultimate frisbee, concerts, and community events. But once upon a time, it was the place for baseball, especially as the home field from 1926 to 1942 for the Madison Blues, five-time pennant winners in three different leagues in the 1930s, and for many other activities as well. Over its first hundred years, everything from marbles to the National Football League. It's the oldest city-owned and operated athletic field in Madison and the oldest extant masonry grandstand in Wisconsin. It bears the touch of the notable local architects Claude and Stark and the federal largesse of the New Deal and served as the backdrop to some of the most noted athletes of the 30s and 40s. It's a great Madison story which David Michael Miller tells with a verve and nerve befitting its sporty milieu, dozens of well-chosen photographs and some hard-won statistics.

On this edition of Madison BookBeat, host Sara Batkie talks with author Ron Rindo about his latest novel, Life, & Death, & Giants (St. Martin's Press). Gabriel Fisher was born an orphan, weighing eighteen pounds and measuring twenty-seven inches long. No one in Lakota, Wisconsin, knows what to make of him. He walks at eight months, communicates with animals, and seems to possess extraordinary athletic talent. But when the older brother who has been caring for him dies, Gabriel is taken in by his devout Amish grandparents who disapprove of all the attention and hide him away from the English world. But it’s hard to hide forever when you’re nearly eight feet tall. At seventeen, Gabriel is spotted working in a hay field by the local football coach. What happens next transforms not only Gabriel’s life but the lives of everyone he meets. Ron Rindo is a professor of English and creative writing at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. He has published one previous novel, Breathing Lake Superior, and three short story collections. He lives in Pickett, Wisconsin.

WORT 89.9FM Madison · A Kinship with Ash: Heather Swan In this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Lisa Malawski sits down with Wisconsin poet, essayist, and environmental humanities scholar Heather Swan. A lecturer at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Swan brings a unique blend of ecological insight and lyrical depth to her writing, exploring the fragile intersections between humans and the natural world. Her poetry collection, A Kinship with Ash, published by Terrapin Books, is a meditation on grief, resilience, and ecological awareness. Through vivid imagery and quiet urgency, Swan’s poems invite readers to consider their place in a world marked by environmental loss and transformation. The collection is both an elegy and call to attention—an exploration of what it means to live with reverence in a time of ecological crisis. Rather than seeking solace in an untouched wilderness, Swan’s work turns toward the overlooked and the endangered: insects, birds, ash trees, and the quiet spaces where life persists. Her writing is rooted in Wisconsin’s landscape but reaches far beyond, drawing connections between personal sorrow and planetary grief. A mother, beekeeper, and award-winning author, Swan’s reflections are informed by her deep engagement with environmental literature and her own lived experience. Her previous nonfiction book, Where Honeybees Thrive: Stories from the Field, received the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award and explores the global plight of pollinators through stories of hope and activism. When not writing or teaching, Heather Swan can be found hiking, observing insects, or crafting essays that bridge science and poetry. Her work has appeared in The Sun, Aeon, Emergence, Terrain, and Minding Nature, among others. A Kinship with Ash is a lyrical reckoning with loss—both personal and ecological—and a reminder that kinship can be found in the smallest creatures and quietest places.

WORT 89.9FM Madison · Time, Beauty, and Grief, Betsy-Korbinyr_7-28-25 In this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Lisa Malawski sits down with local author Betsy Korbinyr who is an award-winning author and retired social worker based in Madison, Wisconsin. With over 30 years of experience in hospice, medical, mental health, and school social work, she brings a deep understanding of aging, loss, and resilience to her writing. Her debut book, Time, Beauty, and Grief: A Hike Through Wisconsin’s 50 State Parks, is part memoir, part trail guide, and part reflection on growing older. Korbinyr set out to hike five miles in each of Wisconsin’s 50 state parks within a single year. The result is a life-affirming collection of essays exploring grief, healing, resilience, and the natural beauty of her home state. It is the first book to feature all 50 Wisconsin state parks, making it both a practical guide and a heartfelt meditation on growing older. Rather than focusing on far-flung adventures, Korbinyr chose to explore the natural beauty of her home state, offering readers an accessible and heartfelt journey through all 50 Wisconsin state parks. The book blends practical hiking tips with personal essays that touch on grief, healing, and the search for meaning in later life. A woman turning 65 ends up with one of her hiking boots in the grave as she embarks on a Quest to complete five miles in all 50 Wisconsin State Parks in one year. Life, like hiking, is unpredictable—despite preparation, the terrain can surprise you. Korbinyr’s reflections encourage readers to reject ageist stereotypes and embrace aging with curiosity, courage, and color. In addition to her writing, Betsy is a certified thanatologist (CT), trained in death, dying, and bereavement counseling—a perspective that subtly informs her reflections on life’s transitions. She is also an avid traveler and hiker, having explored trails across England, Ireland, India, and the U.S. When not writing or speaking at local events, Betsy enjoys gardening, creating art, and hiking, often reflecting on life with humor and humility. Time, Beauty, and Grief: A Hike Through Wisconsin’s 50 State Parks Korbinyr’s debut book is part trail guide, part memoir, and part philosophical reflection on aging. It’s the first book to include all 50 parks and encourages readers to embrace aging with curiosity and courage. Published by Little Creek Press

Robbins, Dean Transcript Stu Levitan welcomes the very successful author, editor, and broadcast personality, Dean Robbins to discuss his latest book, Wisconsin Idols, 100 Heroes Who Have Changed the State, the World, and Me, (Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2025) . It's a collection of engaging short essays about 100 outstanding musicians, thinkers, actors, athletes, creators, and boundary-breakers who are either from Wisconsin, attended the UW, or did something special here, and who had an impact on Dean. People like the seven cover images -- Oprah Winfrey, basketball great and human rights activist Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (when he was still known as Lou Alcindor), comedian Chris Farley, astronaut Laurel Clark, musicians Richard Davis and Bon Iver, and Ho-Chunk memoirist Mountain Wolf Woman. For his part, Dean himself has had an impact, certainly on the state and on Stu. He started as a freelance writer in 1983, and became arts editor at Isthmus in 1991 (where Stu had the pleasure of being one of his free-lancers). He led the paper as editor-in-chief from 2008 to 2014, served as communications director for the UW Division of Continuing Studies for five years, and since 2019 has been editor of the alumni magazine On Wisconsin. And beyond this award-winning journalism career, Dean has since 2010 developed a separate and even more honored career writing 15 children's nonfiction books. That part of Dean's life and career which will be the subject of another BookBeat episode later this year. It is a pleasure to finally welcome to Madison BookBeat  Dean Robbins.

On July 7th, Madison BookBeat host Bill Tishler welcomed Steven Davis, professor of political science at Edgewood University, to WORT 89.9 FM to discuss Davis’s new book, The Other Public Lands: Preservation, Extraction, and Politics on the Fifty States’ Natural Resource Lands (Temple University Press, 2025). While national parks and federally managed lands often dominate the conversation, Davis’s research highlights an often-overlooked category—nearly 200 million acres owned and managed by individual states. Drawing on extensive comparative analysis across all 50 states, he provided valuable insights into how these lands are governed, protected, and sometimes exploited. Davis also reflected on Wisconsin’s deep conservation legacy, shaped by figures like John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and Gaylord Nelson, and expressed concern over how far the state has fallen from the leadership position it once held in environmental stewardship and support for public lands. The episode gave listeners a richer understanding of the vital role state-owned lands play in shaping environmental policy, public access, and political decision-making nationwide. Images courtesy of Bill Tishler and Temple University Press

On this edition of Madison BookBeat, host Sara Batkie talks with author Kristina Amelong about her debut memoir, What My Brother Knew (She Writes Press). As a boy, Jay Amelong predicted the accident that caused his death, down to the color of the car that hit him. "I will die young, while riding my bike," he told friends and family repeatedly. "It won't be much longer. I want you to be prepared." Baffling words to hear from the mouth of a content thirteen-year-old. When Kristina Amelong was only seventeen, her brother's tragic death unfolded exactly as he said it would, radically changing her life. Propelled down a self-destructive path of drug addiction and reckless sex, Kristina spent much of her young adult years wanting to die. Once or twice she came close. Always, Jay's bizarre story and his inexplicable acceptance of death lived in her body. More than thirty years later, Kristina embarks on a journey of discovery, seeking truth about herself, her brother, and the universe. The result of her investigation is a memoir that defies belief. Charting a life path from loss and abuse to healing and spiritual awakening, What My Brother Knew demonstrates the transformative power of facing the mystery of death head-on and the incredible human ability to do so. Kristina Amelong is the founder and owner of Optimal Health Network, a holistic health business. She is also the author of the self-published book Ten Days to Optimal Health: A Guide to Nutritional Therapy and Colon Cleansing, and a senior board member for the Center for World Philosophy and Religion, a nonprofit organization dedicated to a reweaving of the human story that will guide humanity through the current evolutionary crisis. She has a passion for photography, gardening, and pickleball. Kristina resides in Madison, Wisconsin, with her three dogs and a brood of chickens.

Stu Levitan welcomes the biographer of modern Madison, award-winning columnist Doug Moe, for a conversation about his latest book, Saving Hearts and Killing Rats: Karl  Paul Link and the Discovery of Warfarin. It’s the first detailed look at one of the most important and most honored biochemists of the 20th century — the brilliant, unconventional, and seemingly bipolar University of Wisconsin scientist whose discoveries led to two synthetic compounds: the rat-killing Warfarin and the heart-saving Coumadin. And all because at the depths of the Great Depression a St. Croix farmer turned to his state government to learn why his cows were dying of internal bleeding after eating sweet clover hay that had gone bad. It’s quite a story about quite a scientist, which Doug Moe tells quite well.

On this edition of Madison BookBeat, host Sara Batkie talks with author Denise S. Robbins about her debut novel The Unmapping.There is no flash of light, no crumbling, no quaking. Each person in New York wakes up on an unfamiliar block after the buildings all switch positions overnight. The power grid has snapped, thousands of residents are missing, and the Empire State Building is on Coney Island—for now. The next night, it happens again.Esme Green and Arjun Varma work for the city of New York’s emergency management team and are tasked with managing the disaster response for “The Unmapping.” As Esme tries to wade through the bureaucratic nightmare of an endlessly shuffling city, she’s distracted by the ongoing search for her missing fiancé. Meanwhile, Arjun focuses on the ground-level rescue of disoriented New Yorkers, hoping to become the hero the city needs. Denise S. Robbins is from Madison, Wisconsin, the city where she grew up and to which she returned after sixteen years of living and working in climate activism on the East Coast. In Madison, she lives with her husband in a yellow house circled by oaks and pines and two owls, and works as a consultant for several climate advocacy groups. She is a Pushcart Prize–nominated author whose stories have been published in literary journals including The Barcelona Review, Gulf Coast, and many more.

Stu Levitan interviews former U.S. Ambassador to Norway (1993-1997) Tom Loftus about his new book, Mission to Oslo, Dancing with the Queen, Dealmaking with the Russians, Shaping History (Mineral Point: Little Creek Press, 2024).Amb. Loftus served during a pivotal period in diplomatic and military history, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. It was a time of optimism, but it was fraught with uncertainty, a time of particular concern in neighboring Norway. Amb. Loftus’s success helping forge the agreement among the U.S., Norway and the new Russia to start the clean-up of the nuclear waste the former Soviet Union had dumped for decades into the Arctic Ocean (a toxic legacy of its submarine fleet just across the border in Murmansk) is largely why the King of Norway bestowed upon him the Grand Cross, the highest order of the Norwegian Order of Merit, for outstanding service in the interest of Norway. Amb. Loftus also did a major solid for the incoming president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, solving a looming trade crisis that saved his textile industry.Among the leading supporting players in this engaging and perceptive account are three powerful and impressive women:  First Lady Hilary Clinton, UW Chancellor Donna Shalala, and Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, whose later selection as director general of the World Health Organization Amb. Loftus helped secure. There’s also an inside account of his close relationship with Bill Clinton, whose presidential nomination he helped secure by leading his Wisconsin primary campaign in 1992.Grandson of Norwegian immigrants, Amb. Loftus writes and speaks with emotion and insight into the people and places of his ancestral homeland. He also gives a real sense of diplomatic nitty-gritty, from celebrating Syttende Mai with Their Majesties the King and Queen to posing for photos with Yassir Arafat.Amb. Loftus served in the Wisconsin State Assembly from 1977 to 1991, the final eight years as its speaker — the longest any Democrat has ever held that post. In 1990, he was the Democratic nominee for governor, finishing second behind Governor Tommy Thompson, who, 30 years later, as interim president of the University of Wisconsin system, would hire him as a senior policy advisor. By then, Amb. Loftus had already had a close relationship with the UW, graduating from the UW Whitewater, earning his master’s from the UW Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs, and serving on the Board of Regents from 2005 to 2011.

Jane Hirshfield—widely regarded as one of America’s greatest living poets—joins Madison Book Beat for a rich conversation about poetry, the natural world, and the human condition. The New York Times Magazine has called her work “some of the most important poetry in the world today,” and her latest collection, The Asking: New & Selected Poems, showcases the depth and range of a life devoted to lyrical inquiry.In this episode, host David Ahrens and guest co-host Heather Swan, a poet and faculty member at UW-Madison and the Nelson Institute, delve into the themes that define Hirshfield’s work: ecological awareness, tenderness amid grief, and poetry as a vehicle for transformation.In an intimate and expansive interview, Ahrens and Swan trace Hirshfield’s poetic origins through six life-shaping jobs (as recently profiled by Swan on Lit Hub) and revealing her belief in poetry’s ability to create moments of changed understanding—acts of witness, clarity, and care.Jane Hirshfield will give a public reading from The Asking tonight — Monday, May 12 — at 6 PM at the Madison Central Library, 3rd Floor. The event is sponsored by the Madison Book Festival and the Nelson Institute, with books available for purchase from Mystery to Me and a signing to follow.