March Events
Our fundraising drive for the new Republic of Letters Literature Fund (part of the Mineral Point Community Foundation) was a great success, and we now have a bunch of new subscribers (Hello!). We’ll be sending in the paperwork and initial donation to create the fund later this month, and I can’t wait to keep you update on how that money is used.
We had a fantastic release party for The Wisconsin Whey, thank you all to those who came out or bought a copy (or five!) of the book. The Wisconsin Whey is now available in the bookstore, or online at Little Creek Press (as well as a growing list of bookstores around the country).
We have two more Shake Rag Alley Winter Writers Readings coming up this month, including this Thursday:
Bob Wake is a writer and small press publisher in Cambridge, Wisconsin. He is the first-place winner of the 2024 Wisconsin People & Ideas Fiction Contest, which he also won in 2017. His short stories have appeared in Madison Magazine, The Madison Review, Rosebud Magazine, and in Wisconsin People & Ideas. He is a recipient of the Zona Gale Award for Short Fiction from the Council for Wisconsin Writers.
Beutner writes fiction and nonfiction and teaches creative writing and literature. An associate professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; previously, she taught at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa and the College of Wooster in Ohio. She edits the the online eco-writing literary journal The Dodge, which is based at Wooster.
Emma Binder is a writer from Wisconsin and a 2023 – 2025 Wallace Stegner Fellow in fiction at Stanford University. They earned their MFA in Fiction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and have received support and fellowships from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, the Vermont Studio Center, and Writing by Writers. They have received an O. Henry Prize, the Indiana Review Fiction Prize, the Gulf Coast Prize in Fiction, and the Tupelo Press Snowbound Chapbook Award. Their work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in The Best Short Stories 2024: The O. Henry Prize Winners, The Kenyon Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, Gulf Coast, Indiana Review, and elsewhere. Currently based in Oakland, they are working on a novel and a short story collection.
There are some great events happening at The Book Kitchen in March (like always!), but I wanted to highlight one that I am particularly excited about. This Sunday Halee and John Wepking are recreating many of the beloved brunch classics from the legendary New York restaurant Prune. If you don’t know John and Halee, they own Meadowlark Farm and Mill but they also happen to have met while they were both cooks at Prune. There are still a few spots left for this event ($45 per person), and you’re going to regret it if you don’t go.
Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
You probably don’t need me to tell you what this book is about. This follow-up to the hugely successful series comes out next week. If you’d like to reserve a copy, let us know as I expect to sell out pretty quick and there may be delays in getting it restocked.
The Brides of High Hill by Nghi Vo
My most recent read. This novella is the fifth in Vo’s Singing Hills Cycle, a fantasy series set in a mythological China. I certainly wouldn’t start the series here— it’s best to begin with the first book, The Empress of Salt and Fortune— but each book contains a compact, standalone story that sits somewhere between The Brothers Grimm and Ursula K Le Guin.
The perfect cookbook for the gardener looking for new ways to use the produce they grow, especially if what they grow is cabbage, beets, carrots and potatoes. I only wish it came with a Polish grandmother to cook for me.
The Bletchly Riddle by Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin
The younger shoppers in the store tell me this is the hot book of the season. It tells the story of a brother and sister who find themselves thrust into the midst of Britian’s codebreaking efforts during World War II. The consensus is: enigmatic, enthralling, and educational.
Funny Because It’s True by Christine Wenc
I already wrote about this oral history of the Onion for Arts Midwest.
Not a new book (it came out in 2017), but one we’ve been selling a lot of recently. A slim book, it’s the perfect companion to a pocket constitution.