The next month is jam packed with events, starting with a big one: Independent Bookstore Day this Saturday, April 26th. It also happens to be the store’s 2nd birthday!
Visiting for IBD is a great way to support the store, and we’ll have a bunch of cool giveaways going on:
Madison artist Stella Balsley created this beautiful artwork to celebrate IBD 2025. We’ll be giving away prints to everyone that visits the store (supplies are limited):
Every visitor can sign up to enter a raffle to win one of 22 gift cards to one of the participating Madison area stores.
There will be a Libro Golden Ticket hidden somewhere in the store—the first to find it wins a year’s supply of audiobooks.
We’ll also be giving away free advanced reader copies with any purchase above $25.
Simultaneously to the party at the bookstore, Republic of Letters will also be at Meadowlark Farm & Mill for Savor the River Valley’s Farm & Food Tour, talking about our book The Wisconsin Whey and handing out cheese samples.
Shelter and Storm: At Home in the Driftless with Tamara Dean | Sunday, May 4 at 2 PM
Tamara Dean is the author of Shelter and Storm: At Home in the Driftless (University of Minnesota Press, 2025), an essay collection reviewers call "insightful," "lyrical," "fascinating," "captivating," and "a revelatory study of person and place, entwined."
Her short stories and essays have appeared in The American Scholar, Creative Nonfiction, The Georgia Review, the Guardian, One Story, Orion, The Southern Review, STORY Magazine, and other publications. She is also the author of a book on sustainable living, The Human-Powered Home, and bestselling college textbooks on computer networking. Her essay "Safer Than Childbirth" received a 2024 Pushcart Prize Special Mention and "Slow Blues" was named a 2021 National Magazine Award finalist.
She earned an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She has been awarded fellowships at Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts, Mesa Refuge, The Tyrone Guthrie Centre, and elsewhere. She teaches writing workshops independently and through writing centers such as Hugo House, The Loft, and Writers.com.
Eco-poetry with Catherine Young | Thursday, May 15, 5PM
Catherine Young is a disabled poet and performing artist whose work is infused with a keen sense of place. She is author of the eco-poetry collection Geosmin (Midwest Book Award) and the environmental memoir Black Diamonds: A Childhood Colored by Coal (Torrey House Press). Her work appears internationally and nationally in literary journals and anthologies, including The Driftless Reader. Catherine is the 2025 recipient of the Write On Door County Dick Scuglik Residency and will present her poetry in response to plein air painting by artist Marc Anderson.
With artist Stephanie Motz, she created the freely distributed broadside “Invocation: Call It Home” to celebrate place and encourage ekphrasis. Her commissioned poetry includes the Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance, Wormfarm Institute, and the twelve-state Midway Atlas.
A Wisconsin Poet Laureate Finalist and nominee for the Pushcart Prize and Best American Essays, Catherine worked as a national park ranger, ecologist, farmer, and mother before completing her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. With a background in Environmental Science, Physical Geography, and Education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Catherine leads place and nature writing workshops. She is Producer of the weekly Landward podcast.
Rooted in farm life, Catherine lives with her family in Wisconsin’s Driftless Area where she is totally in love with meandering streams. She deeply believes in the use of story and art as tools for transforming the world.
Kao Kalia Yang Reading at Shake Rag Alley | Friday, May 16, 6 PM
*Important: This event will be at the Shake Rag Alley Lind Pavillion*
Kao Kalia Yang is a Hmong American teacher, speaker, and writer. Her work crosses audiences and genres. She is the award-winning author of the memoirs, The Latehomecomer, The Song Poet, Somewhere in the Unknown World, and Where Rivers Part. Yang co-edited the groundbreaking book, What God is Honored Here?: Writings on Miscarriage and Infant Loss By and For Native Women and Women of Color. She is a librettist for The Song Poet Opera (commissioned by Minnesota Opera). Her children’s books, A Map Into the World, The Most Beautiful Thing, The Shared Room, Yang Warriors, From the Tops of the Trees, The Rock in My Throat, and Caged center Hmong children and families who live in our world, who dream, hurt, and hope in it.
Yang’s work has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Chautauqua Prize, the PEN USA literary awards, the Dayton’s Literary Peace Prize, as Notable Books by the American Library Association, Kirkus Best Books of the Year, the Heartland Bookseller’s Award, and garnered four Minnesota Book Awards. She was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Carleton College. Yang is McKnight, Soros, and Guggenheim fellow.
Mining Your Stories Faculty Reading | Saturday, May 17, 7 PM
Readings from Shake Rag Alley’s Writing Retreat Faculty, including Sheree L. Greer, Rebecca Jamieson, Raki Kopernik, and C. Kubasta, plus an open mic.
(This is always one of my favorite events of the year.)
Whew, that’s a lot! As always, please forward this email to anyone you think might be interested, tell your friends about events, and please COME! Everything mentioned above is free and open to the public, and is made so much better by your presence.