2016 South Dakota Festival of Books by South Dakota Humanities Council

2016 SOUTH DAKOTA

Sept. 22 Sioux Falls Sept. 22-25 Brookings Sept. 27 Rapid City

sdbookfestival.com

South Dakota native Dee Clements created the bronze sculpture (above), inspired by Harvey Dunn’s The Prairie is My Garden. It’s near the entrance to the McCrory Gardens Education and Visitor Center in Brookings. Photo credit: South Dakota State University.

CONTENTS 4 6 7 8

Mayor’s Welcome

SD Humanities Council Welcome Event Locations, Transportation and Parking A Tribute to Children’s and Young Adult Literature

Sponsored by United Way of the Black Hills, First Bank and Trust and Children’s Museum of South Dakota

9 A Tribute to Fiction

Sponsored by AWC Family Foundation, Brookings Public Library and Friends of Brookings Public Library

10 A Tribute to Poetry

Sponsored by Brass Family Foundation

11 A Tribute to Non-Fiction

Sponsored by Brookings Register and South Dakota Public Broadcasting

12 A Tribute to Writers’ Support Sponsored by South Dakota Arts Council

13 A Tribute to History and Tribal Writing Sponsored by City of Brookings and Gerry Berger Law

14 Presenters 24 Schedule of Events 30 Exhibitors’ Hall For more information visit sdbookfestival.com or call (605) 688-6113. Times and presenters listed are subject to change. Changes will be announced on sdbookfestival.com, twitter.com/sdhumanities, facebook.com/sdhumanities and included in the Festival Survivor’s Guide, a handout available at the Exhibitors’ Hall information desk in the Children’s Museum. The South Dakota Festival of Books guide is a publication of

410 E. Third St. • Yankton, SD 57078 800-456-5117 • www.SouthDakotaMagazine.com 3

WELCOME...

Festival of Books goers!

S AN AVID READER and learner, I am honored to welcome you to Brookings, the host city for the 2016 Festival of Books. Home to South Dakota State University, education is a core pillar of our community and we strongly support the festival and the mission of the South Dakota Humanities Council to celebrate literature, promote civil conversation and tell stories that define our great state. The story of Brookings is one I hope you explore during your visit. Brookings is a progressive and growing community with art experiences, culinary gems and handson activities that connect us to our past and our future. Historic Downtown Brookings offers visitors a boutique shopping experience with urban art in the alleys and culinary delights like Nick’s Hamburger Shop on Main Street. The Children’s Museum of South Dakota was named a “must-see” attraction by the Travel Channel, and the SDSU Dairy Bar’s cow-to-cone tour shows visitors the process required for their signature cookies ‘n’ cream. And that’s just the beginning of what you’ll discover in Brookings. More information about our lodging, restaurants, attractions and shopping can be found at visitbrookingssd.com. Again, on behalf of myself, the Brookings City Council, the Brookings Convention & Visitors Bureau and the entire community — welcome to Brookings. We invite you to bring your dreams and read more books!

Tim S. Reed Mayor @MayorTimReed

ADVERTISING DIREC TORY Candlewick Press.................................... 19 The Carrot Seed Kitchen Co.................. 25 Center for Western Studies................... 14 Children’s Museum of SD....................... 31 Choco Latte Coffee................................ 27 Daktronics............................................... 17 Deadwood Chamber of Commerce.... 23 Hilton M. Briggs Library......................... 20 Kool Beans Coffee.................................. 18 Mariah Press.............................................. 3 Mount Rushmore Society...................... 30 Osher Lifelong Learning Institute......... 25 Prairie Pages Bookseller.......................... 6 4 • SOUTH DAKOTA FESTIVAL OF BOOKS

Salt Serenity............................................. 15 Sioux Falls Area Community Fndtn...... 15 SD Agricultural Heritage Museum........ 22 SD Art Museum......................................... 4 SD Community Foundation.................. 23 SD Historical Society Press...................... 2 SD Humanities Council.......................... 21 SD Public Broadcasting.......................... 17 SD State Library......................................... 6 SD State University................................... 5 TruCount CPA.......................................... 18 University of Nebraska Press................. 16 University of Sioux Falls.......................... 19

JOIN US! “

BOOKS AND BONDS

ROM DAY ONE, the bond between parent and child is special,” wrote Rosemary Wells in her book Hand in Hand. As a mom, I love that quote. This month it prompted me to think about the bonds between readers and writers. Reading is not a solitary experience. There’s a constant connection between the reader and the author we entrust to take us on a journey. The South Dakota Festival of Books allows us to explore that transformational relationship. Our goal is to strengthen those bonds (so many new books, so many wonderful authors!) and to make tangible those often-invisible connections. This year’s festival is an opportunity to meet poets and scientists writing about the relationship between humans and animals, the rising crisis with water and the importance of colonial insects. Have a conversation with a Mideast expert on Making Sense of the New Arab Wars. Enjoy a beer tasting with the author of The Beer Bible or a conversation with Max and Ruby creator Rosemary Wells. Experience a film screening and discussion on the preservation of the Lakota language. Converse with six Pulitzer Prize winners, in honor of the 100th anniversary of the prestigious award. The festival also encourages emerging writers with workshops on developing character, plotting a page-turner and writing what you don’t know. Volga dairy farmer Jerry Nelson wanted to make a book from his years of columns, and finally found his way to a publisher at the 2014 book festival. He brought his writings and pitched his idea to the Book Doctors. Jerry’s book, Dear County Agent Guy, was published May 2016 by Workman. If you need some tips, find Jerry at the festival. It’s not too early to start making plans for the 2017 festival in Deadwood and Rapid City September 21-24. In the meantime, Pulitzer events will be held this fall, along with other great SDHC events. Visit sdhumanities.org or download the SDHC program catalog for more information. We welcome all 70-plus authors in 2016 to strengthen bonds with one another as writers and with readers. At the 10th Anniversary One Book session, Leif Enger said, “I never view my book as complete, or finished, until it’s been read. And then it’s the reader’s book.” The festival is the place where writers, readers, illustrators, musicians, cultural organizations, publishers and booksellers can all connect. Together. And those bonds can’t occur anywhere but in real time.

Sherry DeBoer Executive Director South Dakota Humanities Council 6 • SOUTH DAKOTA FESTIVAL OF BOOKS

Festival of Books Event Locations BRUCE

FIFTH STREET GYM (606 5th St.)

FIRST BANK & TRUST (520 6th St.) - Board Room

ADEE HONEY FARMS (515 Jay St.)

BROOKINGS

MCCRORY GARDENS VISITOR CENTER (631 22nd Ave.)

BROOKINGS ACTIVITY CENTER (320 5th Ave.) - Senior Center

OLD MARKET (424 5th St.)

BROOKINGS ARTS COUNCIL (524 4th St.) - Community Cultural Center

OLD SANCTUARY (928 4th St.)

BROOKINGS CITY COUNTY BUILDING (520 3rd St.) - Community Room - Council Chambers

SD ART MUSEUM (1036 Medary Ave.) - Auditorium

BROOKINGS PUBLIC LIBRARY (515 3rd St.) - Cooper Room A & B THE CARROT SEED KITCHEN CO. (312 Main Ave.) CHILDREN’S MUSEUM OF SOUTH DAKOTA (521 4th St.) - Community Room - Party on One - Party on Two

SD AG HERITAGE MUSEUM ( 977 11th St.)

SDSU CAMPUS • CROTHERS ENGINEERING HALL (1151 8th St.) - Room 204 • HILTON M. BRIGGS LIBRARY (1300 N Campus Dr.) - Archives & Special Collections Reading Room • PERFORMING ARTS CENTER (1601 University Blvd.) - Fishback Studio Theatre

TRANSPORTATION

For visitor convenience, shuttle buses will run Saturday from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. between the downtown area and convenient locations for parking. Purchase tickets in advance at sdbookfestival.com (available by August 1). Tickets must be printed and brought to the bus in order to board. Shuttle Bus Parking Lots: FIRST BANK & TRUST EAST BRANCH PARKING LOT (Hwy 14/6th St. & 22nd Ave.) SD AGRICULTURAL HERITAGE MUSEUM PARKING LOT (Medary Ave. & 11th St.)

- Larson Memorial Concert Hall - Roberts Reception Hall • STUDENT UNION (1421 Student Union Ln.) - Hobo Day Gallery & Campanile Room - Volstorff Ballroom 101

RAPID CITY

RAPID CITY PUBLIC LIBRARY (610 Quincy St.)

SIOUX FALLS

SIOUXLAND PUBLIC LIBRARIES • RONNING BRANCH (3100 E. 49th St.) • DOWNTOWN BRANCH (200 N. Dakota Ave.) WASHINGTON PAVILION (301 S Main Ave.) - Belbas Theater - Jerstad Gallery - Mary W. Sommervold Hall - Schulte Black Box Theater - Science Stage - Tribal Art Gallery WHITTIER MIDDLE SCHOOL (930 E. 6th St.) - Auditorium

Free PARKING

If you choose to drive your own vehicle, free parking is available in these lots: 72-HOUR LOT (NW of 3rd Ave. & 4th St.)

BROOKINGS ACTIVITY CENTER/BROOKINGS PUBLIC LIBRARY LOT (SE of 5th Ave. & 4th St.) CENTRAL BUSINESS SUPPLY LOT (SW of 5th Ave. & 3rd St.) CITY/COUNTY GOVERNMENT LOT (SE of 5th Ave. & 3rd St.) NAPA AUTO PARTS LOT (NW of 5th Ave. & 3rd St.) PARK & REC LOT (between 3rd St. & Front St.) SOUTH END OF MORIARTY LOT (NW of Main Ave. & 6th St.)

Visit sdbookfestival.com for additional parking info and maps.

SDSU Parking

SPRINT/SWIFTEL LOT (NW of 5th Ave. & 4th St.)

Visitors may acquire a permit, for free parking in several designated lots, at the Parking Services Office (1351 Medary Ave.) or the University Police Department (1405 Jackrabbit Ave.). Visitors may also use the Hourly Pay Lot on the East side of the Student Union. Parking at the Performing Arts Center (for Friday evening events) is free.

Stay Connected

View changes to the schedule and other news at facebook.com/sdhumanities or at twitter.com/ sdhumanities and use #sdbookfest when commenting or to view others’ comments.

FESTIVAL GUIDELINES

Please abide by the following guidelines to make this event enjoyable for all: no soliciting or distributing flyers, literature, etc., of any kind at any festival venue without prior consent. No videotaping or tape recording. Turn cell phones and pagers off during presentations. The Festival of Books, its sponsors and venues are not responsible for lost or stolen items. 7

CHILDREN’S/Y.A. HAPPY ACCIDENTS Barry Louis Polisar began writing and singing for children in 1975, but many know him from his song, “All I Want is You.” It was used in the opening credits of the film Juno in 2007. The song’s inclusion on the soundtrack was serendipitous — Juno’s director was searching for another title on iTunes when a mistype led him to Polisar’s 1977 recording. “That was a great accident, and it’s brought me a whole new set of fans,” Polisar says. Polisar wrote his first story just for fun when he was 8 years old. “And you know what? Even though I make my living as a writer I still write for fun,” he says. He’s authored hundreds of songs, poems and children’s books, and though he loves doing so, Polisar never expected to make it his career. “I went to college to be a teacher, and while I was in college I was invited to a school to perform,” Polisar says. “I sang some songs I had written and the kids nearly fell out of their seats with laughter.” Polisar continues to sing in schools, libraries and art centers throughout the country. He has also performed at The White House, The Smithsonian and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. His visit to the festival will be part performance, part author visit as he shares singalongs, story songs, poems and books.

Teaching, Learning and Writing

NDY SHANE DIDN’T like school to begin with, but the class know-it-all, Dolores Starbuckle, made h is d ay even worse by tattling on him. Twice! Before lunch! Such was the beginning of their beautiful friendship. Andy Shane and Dolores Starbuckle: 4 Books in 1, by Jennifer Richard Jacobson, is the Young Readers One Book South Dako t a s ele c t io n fo r 2016. With the help of sponsors, the South Dakota Humanities Council distributed 5,0 0 0 copies of t he book across the state, and Jacobson will visit third graders in Brookings, Sioux Falls and Rapid City in September to discuss the perils of elementary school and the joys of writing. Jacobson is on familiar ground in the classroom. She began her career as an educator, and later, her students helped jump-start a second career as a writer. “When I was a first grade teacher, I wrote along with my students,” Jacobson says. “Together we explored the question of what makes fine writing and tried to use the techniques we discovered from other authors in our own work. I frequently read my work to the students (when it was my turn in the Author’s Chair) and they gave me advice.” Jacobson completed a children’s novel that year, and although it will never be published, “it kept me on the path, kept me writing,” she says. “When my daughter was born, I decided to try my hand at a writing career. I wrote articles, books for parents and teachers, teacher guides and

emergent readers for first grade reading programs — anything that would give me the time and space to continue trying to break into the children’s field.” After the birth of her second child, Jacobson took a job reviewing 400 picture books for a company creating reading anthologies — a task which put her on the fast track to the parenting hall of fame. “My children thought I was the greatest,” she says. “I stayed in my pajamas and read to them all day long.” More importantly, Jacobson’s survey taught her “to recognize the pattern of story, the power of voice, and the tone of modern literature. Learning from published authors is one of the very best ways to learn to write.” Once the job was completed, Jacobson put those insights to work and published her first book, A Net of Stars, about a girl who faces her fears and discovers the sky is truly the only limit. In addition to writing for young readers, Jacobson leveraged her background as an educator to produce No More ‘I’m Done!’ Fostering Independent Writers in the Primary Grades, which gives teachers the tools to encourage budding young authors. The first principle for them applies to all ages. “If you want to be a writer you must sit down and write,” Jacobson says. Lesson number two might be: don’t get discouraged. “I sent an article to Cosmo in my 20s, and received my first form rejection letter,” she says. Which worked out well for Andy and Dolores.

FIC TION NASHVILLE NOIR

Finding Luck in the Plains

HE TITLE CAME to Jane Perhaps that success is a ref lection Smiley in the fall of 2009. of the closeness Smiley forged with “The Last Hundred Years” the Midwest. She moved to Iowa City would follow a single family, in 1972 to attend graduate school at year by year, through a cen- the University of Iowa, and then taught tury of American history. English at Iowa State University in Six years later, Smiley had finished her Ames from 1981 to 1996. That backgrand trilogy of an Iowa farm family ground helped her place the Langdons. rooted in the Great Plains but scattered “If they were someplace like Los Anacross the generations to participate in geles they would never go anywhere,” the country’s most significant events. Smiley says. “Farm families have an The first installment, Some Luck, is interesting and long history. There’s the 2016 One Book South Dakota. Smi- always the question of who’s going to ley will reflect on the novel and head- inherit the land and how many people line the state’s Pulitzer Prize Centen- can stay on the farm. In a lot of cases, nial Campfires celebration. somebody stays and many people leave, Some Luck begins in 1920 and intro- so they go off to different places. I felt duces readers to Walter and Rosanna my job was more to set up the characLangdon, who farm near Denby, Iowa. ters as babies and watch them head out The book covers 33 years in which we into the world.” watch the fictional family grow and enWhile Walter and Rosanna toil on the counter the real-life challenges of the farm, eldest son Frank becomes a snip20th century, including the steady de- er in World War II. His brother, Joey, cline of family farms through the Great stays to farm and experiment with seed Depression, the fear of World War II hybrids and fertilization. The family and the uncertainty of the Red Scare. also encounters intriguing historical Smiley has shown great diversity as a characters like Billy Sunday, the 19th writer, but perhaps her greatest success century professional baseball player has come in writing about the Plains. who became one of the most influential Her novel A Thousand Acres won the evangelists of the 20th century. Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1992. It’s Some Luck ends in 1953 with a death a retelling of Shakespeare’s King Lear that shakes the entire family, but there’s involving an Iowa landowner and the no waiting to learn what happens next. strife caused when he tries to divide his The next two volumes, Early Warning property among his daughters. and Golden Age, both appeared in 2015.

Nashville is more than the Music City these days. It’s an up and coming force in the (fictional) murder business, as well. Clay Stafford, a Nashville native, helped launch the first “Killer Nashville” writers conference in 2006. “We wanted something that would connect writers with readers, but also writers with different writers, and writers with the latest information in the field,” he says. The last includes not only what’s new in the publishing business, but presentations by local and national law enforcement professionals on developments that might one day be the basis for a thriller’s plot twist. In celebration of its 10th anniversary, conference alumni collaborated on Killer Nashville Noir: Cold Blooded, an anthology published in 2015. Stafford contributed a story and edited what he hopes will become an annual offering. Stafford’s background is in filmmaking, television and writing. His fellow presenters are Anne Perry, “who is historical and mysterious,” according to Stafford, and Jeffery Deaver, “who is mysteriously twisted in sometimes the most paranoid of thriller ways. I think the panel together will look at our different writing styles, and how we approach the initial idea, but also the commonalities that are vital for all writers in all media.” 9

POETRY WRITING AND HEALING More than 1.5 million women in the U.S. are affected by infertility, which can lead to a whirlwind of emotions. Barbara Duffey explored her own frustration at the inability to conceive when writing the poems collected in Simple Machines. “I realized I had this metaphor in my mind that the body was like a machine. I didn’t understand why if I didn’t have a certain input, I wouldn’t get a certain output,” Duffey says. “Was it that this was a bad metaphor or was it that I was a broken machine?” Duffey began writing Simple Machines in 2010. She found comfort in the process of using machines as a metaphor for the body and to help write the poems. “I ended up coming to the conclusion that all of this is just about probabilities. That the probability that it will happen for me is the probability that it will happen to anyone suffering from infertility and getting the assisted technologies we were getting,” Duffey says. “Once it wasn’t personal any more and it was just this random chance, I was able to deal with it better.” Eventually Duffey did get pregnant. And while she doesn’t know how she would have felt had the treatments not worked, writing made her feel like she had more control over the process. “And it worked at the same time, so I was really lucky.” Duffey is an assistant professor of English at Dakota Wesleyan University. She lives in Mitchell with her husband and 4-year-old son. 10 • SOUTH DAKOTA FESTIVAL OF BOOKS

Poetry for All

E D KO O SE R W RO T E much of his poetry while he worked as a life insurance executive. “I knew very early in life that I would never be able to make a living as a poet, and that if I wanted to support myself and a family I would need to f ind a job that wouldn’t take every ounce of energy I had, so I’d be able to write in my spare time,” Kooser says. “I got up early every morning, sometimes at 5, s o me t i me s at 4:30, and did my wr iting before it was time to get dressed for work.” Because he worked with people who didn’t often read poetry, his poems have tried to reach others like them. He imagines a reader, their limitations — educational and literary — and chooses words and ideas that might fill their expectations. “For example, if I were to put King Lear in a poem, I could expect that a limited number of people would know who he was, and the rest of the readers would be excluded,” Kooser says. “But if within the bounds of the poem I not only mentioned him but explained, briefly, who King Lear was, I would then include more readers.” Kooser gained a broad audience through this method of imagination, publishing over 30 books and chapbooks. His most recent poetry collection, Splitting an Order, appeared in 2014. He’s written three children’s books as well. Kooser was U.S. Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006, received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2005 and ed-

its a weekly column called “American Life in Poetry.” It’s published in over 150 newspapers and has millions of readers online. Since the column is free to any newspaper, website or individual, it appears in many small papers that couldn’t normally afford it. “My mission is to show people that poetry can be fun to read and doesn’t necessarily have to be difficult and obscure,” he says. Ko os e r is now retired from insura n c e a n d w r it e s f rom a n a c r e age near Garland, Nebraska. He teaches half time at the University of Nebraska and believes students learn as much from the poems they don’t like as the ones they do. His own poetic ideas arise during the writing process. “As I write in my journal every morning, something may surface that feels as if it has potential, and I’ll follow it through,” Kooser says. “I have found that it isn’t productive to force a poem to fit around an idea, so I rarely have an idea as we usually think of them, such as, ‘Oh, I’m going to write a poem about the hazards of agricultural chemicals.’ But if I happen to be writing about something, perhaps describing a flower, my ideas about ag chemicals might show up.” He believes poetry isn’t of much importance to the daily lives of many people, but once introduced to its pleasures they’ll want more. “All of us carry lyrics from songs around in our heads, partly because they provide words we couldn’t come up with ourselves, and poetry can provide that same service,” he says.

NON-FIC TION Understanding Middle Eastern Tumult

REVOLUTION IN Tun isia i n December of 2010 is seen today as the beginning of the Arab Spring, a series of riots, revolts and protests that swept through the Arab world. Marc Lynch wrote about the upheaval in The Arab Uprising, which hit shelves in the spring of 2012, just as the wave of protests began to fade. Lynch described the revolutionary change and

the prospects for democracy, though he continued to harbor doubts about Syria. That book ended with the hope that the Arab Spring would bring long-term fundamental changes to the region, yet warned that many regimes would not easily relinquish power. The latter has proven true. Egypt’s revolution resulted in a military coup. Yemen is the setting of a proxy war and Syria has descended into a catastrophic civil war from which recovery could take at least a generation. Lynch’s latest book, The New Arab Wars: Anarchy and Uprising in the Middle East, seeks to explain why it all happened and where the world goes from here. Lynch is a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University. He is also the director of the Project on Middle East Political Science and a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for Inter-

national Peace. He first became interested in the Middle East during a summer college internship in the 1980s, in which he worked on U.S. policy towards the war in Afghanistan and the Iran-Contra affair. He started studying Arabic and traveled to Egypt in 1991. Working among politicians and policy makers in the nation’s capital has shown Lynch the profound disconnect between Washington insiders and the rest of America regarding what to do about strife in the Middle East. “I do think there is a profound skepticism about the Middle East across the country these days,” Lynch says. “The invasion and occupation of Iraq soured many Americans on the idea of intervention in the region, and the rise of ISIS and failures of the Arab u p r i si ng s h ave only compounded that skepticism. In Washington (outside of the Obama administration, at least) there’s much greater enthusiasm for intervention in Syria and a more aggressive policy across the Middle East than there is outside the Beltway.” For many Americans, keeping track of the players in a conf lict occurring halfway around the world may seem pointless. But Lynch argues that it’s important for everyone in the United States to cultivate a better understanding of what’s happening in the Middle East. “There’s no way to really insulate the United States or Americans from what happens there, whether it is jihadist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS or refugee flows or the price of oil,” he says. “It’s also important for a well-informed public to act as a check on the interventionist preferences of the foreign policy community.”

FULL CIRCLE At the 2014 Festival of Books, Brookings County writer Jerry Nelson attended Pitchapalooza, an idea generating session led by The Book Doctors, Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry. Nelson’s autobiographical pitch about a dairy farmer turned successful regional newspaper columnist didn’t win, but the Book Doctors were sufficiently intrigued. They put Nelson in touch with Workman Publishing in New York, which recently released Nelson’s first book, Dear County Agent Guy, a collection of Nelson’s best columns, which are written under the same title. Nelson’s writing career began in the wet summer of 1996, when he penned a tongue-in-cheek letter to the local Extension agent that addressed quandaries like eradicating cattails and jet skis from corn. His columns now appear in newspapers and magazines throughout the Midwest. That Nelson is even here to share his rural wisdom is miraculous. One day his father found him floating face-up in the underground manure pit, overcome by hydrogen sulfide. He went home after six weeks in the hospital, surprising his wife, doctors and nurses who didn’t expect him to survive. Lucky for us, he did. How else would we know that a calf puller isn’t a viable option during childbirth? 11

Writers’ Support EXPANDING BORDERS Most writers have heard the advice, “Write what you know.” Patrick Hicks disagrees. Hicks, a poet, author and professor of writing at Augustana University in Sioux Falls, will present a workshop called “Writing What You Don’t Know: Setting and Character Development.” The workshop explores what it means to bring people and places into writing that might not otherwise be there. “If good writing is empathetic — and I believe that it is — your understanding of the world increases when you move beyond the comfort zone of your usual ideas. Writing about what you don’t know almost always means writing about the world beyond you,” Hicks explains. And he should know. His first novel, The Commandant of Lubizec, explored the Holocaust and a fictional mass executioner. And his latest collection of short stories, The Collector of Names, examines topics like a present day terrorist bombing, a burn unit and an unpopular teenage girl. He carefully researched both books, but did not have first hand experience. “When I was starting off, most of my fiction was veiled autobiography, and it was only when I cut myself out as a character that I found the freedom to live inside other characters,” Hicks says. “Writing what I don’t know has introduced me to people and places that I might never have known otherwise. It’s certainly expanded the borders of my own life, and I believe it can be the same for others.” 12 • SOUTH DAKOTA FESTIVAL OF BOOKS

Living and Loving Books

ERHAPS NO ONE loves books more than Michael Dirda. He’s reviewed them for the Washington Post for almost 40 years and won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 1993. But he doesn’t consider himself a critic — he’s an enthusiast. “I hate any sort of reviewers who sound superior or condescending. I know I occasionally write about obscure sounding books, but I try to do so in a way to say these may not be books you’ve heard of, but you might like them if you try them,” Dirda says. “So, I’m a middle man. I’ve always thought it was an important function as someone who can introduce readers to all kinds of books that they otherwise might not know about.” As part of this bibliophilic mission, Dirda contributed a weekly essay to the online magazine The American Scholar over the course of a year. The editor gave no restrictions, so Dirda reflected on his career, daily life and the writers he loves. “[The essays] were kind of a treat to do because I wrote them fast and they were very personal,” Dirda says. “Normally my journalism isn’t personal in this way. It might have occasional touches of it, but these were very autobiographical and allowed me to kind of indulge myself a bit.” He compiled the essays into his latest book, Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting and Living with Books, released in 2015. Dirda writes about g rowing up in the working class steel t ow n of L or ai n , Ohio, where “Sunday best” wasn’t just a phrase. “Unless they were helping a relative

with some big, dirty project, come Sunday my father and mother always wore something ‘dressy,’ as did their sullen children, just in case relatives came calling in the afternoon,” he explains. Dirda’s father was a steelworker — tough, self-reliant and, to his childish eyes, almost heroic. His mother was a homemaker. “Nobody in my family read books. I think my father quit school at 16, but my mother taught me to read when I was little,” Dirda says. He found it to be an escape from the realities of a poor life, and read for adventure and excitement. He still believes that’s why we read. Dirda counts a wide range of interests, because he doesn’t like to be bored. Many are reflected in his enormous book collection. “I have a house full of books. I have a storage unit of books. I have too many books. Too many are in boxes,” he laments. He likes the book as an object — a physical artifact — and thinks reading on screens reduces everything to the same level. “If you read a hard boiled mystery novel in a cheap paperback with a leggy blonde on the cover, that gives you a slightly different experience. In the same way, you might want to read Henry James in a very stately, august New York edition appropriate for Henry James.” And Dirda thin ks books on shelves become a presence in your life. “You can look at them and see the person you’ve b e e n . Yo u can see the person you want to be.”

HISTORY/TRIBAL WRITING

Women Warriors

RITING AND teaching difficult to find. “There just aren’t that have been the lifework of many,” Sneve laments. “When EuVirginia Driving Hawk ropeans first contacted the tribes it Sneve. Her stories come was men that did it, so they focused from childhood experi- on the men of the tribe and the womences on the Rosebud en were in the background. They asReservation. Sneve attended BIA day sumed women didn’t have much of a schools a nd g r adurole.” More recent deated from St. Mary’s pictions of “women High School for Inwarriors” were easier dian Girls in Springto obtain — like Marfield. She then studied cella LeBeau, an army at South Dakota State nurse in World War II, University in Brookor writer and scholar ings, graduating in Elizabeth Cook Lynn. 1954 and ear ning a “She’s been really acmaster’s in education tive in the Rapid City i n 1969. W hen she com mu n it y t o pro ret i red f rom teachmote Native Ameriing and counseling in can affairs. It has ofRapid City in 1995, it ten led to controversy, created more time for but she goes right for writing. it,” Sneve says. Sneve has written more than 25 Lower prof ile women aren’t abbooks, numerous short stories, ar- sent from her story. “Women have ticles and poems meant to shine a always worked together in raising positive and accurate light on Native children and taking care of families Americans. “I think my experience ... And women adapted easier to resworking with both Native and non Na- ervation life because their role didn’t tive children gave me a little better in- change that much.” They often besight into how there are cultural dif- came their family’s steadying center ferences even now,” she says. — especially after the introduction of Her most recent book, Sioux Wom- alcohol, which Sneve says has been en: Traditionally Sacred, shows how disastrous for many. “I tell how Naimportant Native women are to their tive women have realized they are gotribes, communities and families. ing to have to take care of their own She begins with the story of the White kind. So we have organizations like Buffalo Calf Woman, a legendary fig- the White Buffalo Calf Woman Sociure who considered women sacred be- ety at Rosebud that watches over and cause they gave life to the tribe. Al- offers shelter to abused women and though they did not have an active children. They’re offering counselvoice in tribal council, women still ing, treatment and benefits that womhad influence. “Sioux men could have en wouldn’t be able to have unless they more than one wife, and often did,” did it for themselves,” she explains. Sneve says. “Women could persuade Sneve hopes that when young Nathe men how they would like things to tive girls read her book they’re inbe. It’s kind of a silent influence, but spired to tell their own stories. “We it’s always been there.” still need Native American writers, so Sioux Women includes photos of I’m always hopeful that what I do enearly Native women, though they were courages that.”

Gerry Berger Law

SEEKING HUGH GLASS Last winter’s blockbuster movie The Revenant brought renewed attention to the story of frontiersman Hugh Glass and his near-fatal encounter with a grizzly bear near present-day Lemmon in 1823. Scholars may argue the movie’s historical merits — and it did take liberties with the Glass story — but Jim McLaird says people have been taking liberties since the first time the tale was retold. McLaird, a retired professor of history at Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, is the author of Hugh Glass: Grizzly Survivor. He says that separating fact from fiction in order to reveal the true man and his harrowing ordeal is a daunting task. “There is no reliable eyewitness testimony,” McLaird says. “All information is secondand third-hand, and almost always embellished by a storyteller. Even the story purportedly told by Hugh Glass was recorded third-hand by a professional writer who compared it to the Robinson Crusoe tale. Numerous writers have retold the story with varying interpretations and details, a process that continues to this day.” When seen through the prism of nearly 200 years of embellishment, it’s easier to accept The Revenant more as a fictional depiction than a biopic. Still, moviegoers seeking more may find answers in McLaird’s book. “I am always glad when historical films are released, even though they rarely depict events accurately,” he says. “They can simply be enjoyed as dramatic productions, but they usually cause viewers to ask questions and attempt to learn a little more concerning what actually occurred.” 13

PRESENTERS KEN ALVINE promotes and produces cartoons for business and education and children’s safety books for the state of South Dakota. Alvine has also taught cartooning for the South Dakota Artists in Residence program. His most recent work is the historical coloring book Taming the Prairie. JEFF ALWORTH writes about beer, politics and religion. In 2015 he published The Beer Bible and Cider Made Simple. Alworth also writes about beer at his blog, Beervana.blogspot.com, and the online magazine All About Beer. He co-hosts the Beervana Podcast.

WILLIAM ANDERSON is the author of 25 books, including M is for Mount Rushmore and The Selected Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Anderson lives in Michigan but has roots in South Dakota, where his ancestors pioneered in 1880.

14 • SOUTH DAKOTA FESTIVAL OF BOOKS

ANN BAUSUM writes about history

CHRIS BROWNE is a born cartoonist.

for readers of all ages, focusing on undertold stories and issues of social justice. Her most recent title, Stonewall, is among the first nonfiction books to introduce teens to gay rights history.

His father, Dik Browne, created the comic strips Hi and Lois and Hägar the Horrible. Chris Browne contributed to Hägar from its beginning in 1972 and took it over upon his father’s death. His first children’s book, The Monster Who Ate the State, came out in 2014.

SANDRA BRANNAN has created a mystery thriller series around Liv Bergen, who embodies the spirit of South Dakota and who, like Brannan, works in the mining business. Her most recent book is Jacob’s Descent, the sixth in the series.

JOHN BRANT began working for Runners World in 1982. He is the author of Duel in the Sun: Alberto Salazar, Dick Beardsley, and America’s Greatest Marathon, as well as two new books: The Boy Who Runs and My Marathon: Reflections on a Gold Medal Life (with Frank Shorter). He lives in Portland, Oregon.

ROBERT OLEN BUTLER is the author of 16 novels, including A Small Hotel, Hell and the Christopher Marlowe Cobb series. He is also the author of six short story collections, including the Pulitzer Prizewinning A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain. Butler teaches creative writing at Florida State University. RON CAPPS is the founder and director of the Veterans Writing Project, a nonprofit that provides no-cost writing seminars for veterans and their families. He served 25 years in the U.S. Army and Army Reserve, and is also a retired Foreign Service officer for the Department of State.

His memoir, Seriously Not All Right: Five Wars in Ten Years, documents his service and details his struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder.

CHUCK CECIL worked 22 years at South Dakota State University, as Director of Development and Assistant to the President, before establishing a chain of 11 weekly newspapers. Cecil has written 21 books, most recently Prohibition in South Dakota, and writes a weekly column for the Brookings Register. MATTHEW CECIL is a widely-acclaimed expert on J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI, particularly its relationships with journalists, and has written Hoover’s FBI and the Fourth Estate. Cecil is dean of the College of Arts and Humanities at Minnesota State University, Mankato. SHIRLEY CHRISTIAN earned the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting in 1981 for her dispatches about civil wars in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala. She lived and worked throughout Latin America for nearly 20 years, as well as in New York and Washington, D.C. Christian has published two books, Before Lewis and Clark and Nicaragua: Revolution in the Family.

JEFFERY DEAVER is a former journalist, folksinger, attorney and author. His book A Maiden’s Grave became an HBO movie, and his novel The Bone Collector was a feature release from Universal Pictures. His most recent publication, The Steel Kiss, is the 12th Lincoln Rhyme thriller. Winner of the 1988 National Book Award for his novel Paris Trout, PETE DEXTER also wrote for newspapers, including the Philadelphia Daily News and the Sacramento Bee, and compiled many of his columns into the book Paper Trails. Dexter now splits his time between Washington state and a house in the desert.

LAWRENCE J. DIGGS has produced documentaries, written books and made presentations around the world. He founded The International Vinegar Muse-

um in South Dakota and created a national emergency medical system in Burkina Faso. Diggs teaches poetry in the state’s prisons, which led to the recent publication of Prose and Cons.

MICHAEL DIRDA, a Pulitzer Prize-winning book columnist for The Washington Post, is the author of Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books. He is a frequent contributor to several literary journals and periodicals, as well as an occasional lecturer and teacher. SUE DOEDEN hosts Good Food, Good Life 365 on Lakeland Public Television and is a certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach. The bees in her backyard hives provided all the honey needed to create the recipes in her cookbook, Homemade with Honey. Doeden lives in Bemidji, Minnesota. Born and raised on the Rosebud Reservation, VIRGINIA DRIVING HAWK SNEVE has Sioux and Ponca heritage. Her books include The Trickster and the Troll, Completing the Circle and, most recently, Sioux Women: Traditionally Sacred.

BARBARA DUFFEY is the author of the full-length poetry collections Simple Machines and I Might Be Mistaken. She teaches English at Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell. BRIAN FAGAN began his career at the National Museum of Zambia, then taught anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Fagan communicates archaeology and history through his work, including four books on ancient climate. His latest, The Intimate Bond, examines the relationship between humans and animals. TERI FINNEMAN is the author of Press Portrayals of Women Politicians, 1870s-2000s. A North Dakota native, Finneman teaches journalism at South Dakota State University. Her research focuses on news coverage of first ladies and women politicians. 15

PRESENTERS JAY FISHBACK and PAUL V. FISHBACK founded Northern Voyage Productions. Their documentary Our Own Words features the Oak Lake Tribal Writers Society, which has celebrated American Indian Cultures for over 20 years. Jay, a Sante Fe University graduate, uses dynamic photography and videography to tell stories with beauty and rawness. Paul, a University of Colorado graduate, believes film is the perfect medium to broaden perspectives.

ROB FLEDER was executive editor of Sports Illustrated and editor of Sports Illustrated Books. He worked with celebrated authors to produce Damn Yankees, a collection of original essays about the New York Yankees. MARTIN JOHN GARHART, author of Learning to Draw – Drawing to Learn, has been an artist for 40 years. His works reside in more than 40 institutions, including the British Museum, the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian. He splits his time between the Black Hills and Powell, Wyoming. DEBORAH GEWERTZ is a profes-

PATRICK HICKS is the author of 10 books of poetry and fiction, including The Collector of Names, Adoptable, This London and The Commandant of Lubizec. He is the Writer-in-Residence at Augustana University and a faculty member at the MFA program at Sierra Nevada College.

SAM HURST worked many years for NBC News. Upon retirement, he moved to the Black Hills, where he owned a buffalo ranch and produced independent documentaries. Rattlesnake Under His Hat, his biography of Reptile Gardens founder Earl Brockelsby, paints a vivid portrait of Brockelsby’s life and his influence on western tourism. PAUL ANDREW HUTTON, a distinguished professor at the University of New Mexico, is a cultural historian, author, documentary film writer and television personality. His most recent book is The Apache Wars.

sor of anthropology at Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts, and FREDERICK ERRINGTON is an emeritus anthropology professor at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. They have done research in Papua New Guinea, Indonesia’s West Sumatra and Montana, focusing on ethnohistory, sociocultural change, class formation, shifting foodways and global encounters. They have written seven books, most recently Cheap Meat and The Noodle Narratives.

the author of the 2016 Young Readers One Book South Dakota, Andy Shane and Dolores Starbuckle: 4 Books in 1, illustrated by Abby Carter. She has written several books for children and young adults. Jacobson lives in Maine.

KATHERINE HANNIGAN is the au-

MARILYN JOHNSON’s most recent

thor of Ida B…And Her Plans to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disaster and (Possibly) Save the World, as well as True (…Sort Of), a California Young Reader Award nominee. She has also written and illustrated Emmaline and the Bunny and 2016’s Dirt + Water = Mud. At age 12, APRIL HENRY sent a story about a 6-foot-tall frog who loved peanut butter to children’s author Roald Dahl, 16 • SOUTH DAKOTA FESTIVAL OF BOOKS

who had it published in a children’s magazine. As an adult, Henry has published 20 mysteries and thrillers for teens and adults, including 2016’s The Girl I Used to Be. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

JENNIFER RICHARD JACOBSON is

book is Lives in Ruins: Archaeologists and the Seductive Lure of Human Rubble. She also wrote The Dead Beat, about the world of obituary writers and readers, and This Book Is Overdue, about the challenges facing libraries in the digital age.

ALPHONSE KEASLEY found his path to authorship as a Fulbright Scholar working with the Africa Institute of South Africa in Pretoria. Initially, he wrote about his students’ encounters with the African philosophy of Ubuntu. Keasley has since co-

PRESENTERS edited Building Peace from Within and Peace Education for Violence Prevention in Fragile African Societies. A two-time United States Poet Laureate,

TED KOOSER is the author of 14 poetry

collections, including Delights and Shadows, which won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize. He writes plays, fiction, personal essays and literary criticism, and has published three children’s books.

WILLIAM KENT KRUEGER attended Stanford University until he was kicked out for radical activities. He logged timber, worked construction, tried journalism and researched child development before becoming an author. The 15th book in his Cork O’Connor mystery series, Manitou Canyon, comes out in September.

BRIAN LAIDLAW is a poet-troubadour from the Twin Cities. He has released the poetry collections Amoratorium and The Stuntman, each of which includes a companion album of original music. Laidlaw tours nationally and internationally as a folksinger, and recently joined the Creative Writing Ph.D. program at the University of Denver. DIRK LAMMERS chronicled the New York Mets’ 50-year quest for the team’s first no-hitter on his blog NoNoHitters. com. This year, he combined his research with dozens of interviews to create Baseball’s No-Hit Wonders: More Than a Century of Pitching’s Greatest Feats. Lammers has spent over two decades writing for the Associated Press and the Tampa Tribune. JANICE LAW founded the American Women Writers National Museum to showcase America’s top-tier women writers. Law is a retired Texas criminal court judge, a 14-year print journalist, a travel columnist and the author of six books, including 2015’s American Evita: Lurleen Wallace.

NANCY LOSACKER and NORMA WILSON began collaborating on mosaics and poems in 2008. Their new book, Rivers, Wings & Sky, brings together for 18 • SOUTH DAKOTA FESTIVAL OF BOOKS

the first time all 18 of their collaborations. Losacker’s studio and home are in Vermillion, while Wilson lives on a prairie bluff northwest of town.

MIKE LOWERY, creator of the Doodle Adventures series, is an illustrator whose work appears in greeting cards, children’s books and the Kids Awesome Activity Calendar. He is a Professor of Illustration at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta. CHARLES LUDEN began reading and printing poetry as a student at Augustana College. He moved to San Francisco, where he read at City Lights Poets Theater. Returning to Sioux Falls, he worked as a chemist at the EROS Data Center and continued writing and reading poetry. Luden’s most recent collection is 2015’s Blue Thirsty.

MARC LYNCH is professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University. He is the founder and director of the Project on Middle East Political Science and a contributing editor at the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog. His latest book is The New Arab Wars. FREYA MANFRED is the author of eight books of poetry, most recently Swimming With A Hundred Year Old Snapping Turtle and Speak, Mother. Her sons, visual artists Nicholas Bly Pope and Ethan Rowan Pope, are the subjects of her second memoir, Raising Twins: A True Life Adventure. JAMES MCLAIRD taught history at Dakota Wesleyan University for 37 years. His Calamity Jane: the Woman and the Legend was named Best Non-Fiction Book Published in 2005 by Westerners International. McLaird’s latest book is Hugh Glass: Grizzly Survivor.

JOHN E. MILLER is a writer and a historian of recent American history. He taught for almost three decades at South Dakota State University and has written

PRESENTERS seven books, including three volumes on Laura Ingalls Wilder. His most recent books are Small-Town Dreams and First We Imagine.

JERRY NELSON lives near Volga on the farm that his great-grandfather homesteaded in the 1880s. Daily life provided fodder for a weekly newspaper column, “Dear County Agent Guy,” which is now a book of the same name.

S.D. NELSON is the author and illustrator of numerous children’s books, including 2016’s Sitting Bull: Lakota Warrior and Defender of His People. A resident of Flagstaff, Arizona, Nelson uses acrylic paint to create a contemporary interpretation of traditional Lakota images. ELISE PARSLEY’s debut picture book, If You Ever Want to Bring an Alligator to School, DON’T! earned a spot on the New York Times bestseller list. She has since released a second book and has a third in the works. She lives in Beresford.

20 • SOUTH DAKOTA FESTIVAL OF BOOKS

ANNE PERRY is the author of more than 50 novels, with two acclaimed series set in Victorian England: the William Monk novels and the Thomas Pitt novels. A native of London, Perry lives in Scotland.

BARRY LOUIS POLISAR writes books for children, including Don’t Do That and Something Fishy. His songs have been featured on Sesame Street and in TV commercials. He sang his “All I Want is You” over the opening credits of the Academy Award-winning film Juno.

FRANK POMMERSHEIM writes about Indian law and serves on a number of tribal appellate courts. Those experiences led to his most recent book, Tribal Justice: 25 Years as a Tribal Appellate Justice. He teaches at the University of South Dakota School of Law. THOMAS POPE, a professor at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, worked for 30 years as a professional screenwriter. His book Good Scripts, Bad

Scripts analyzes 25 of the best and worst scripts in Hollywood.

DELPHINE RED SHIRT grew up on the Pine Ridge Reservation. She holds a master’s in creative writing from Wesleyan University in Middleton, Connecticut and a doctorate in American Indian studies from the University of Arizona. Her books include Bead on an Anthill and the forthcoming George Sword’s Warrior Narratives. South Dakota Poet Laureate LEE ANN RORIPAUGH is the author of four volumes of poetry: Dandarians, On the Cusp of a Dangerous Year, Year of the Snake and Beyond Heart Mountain. She is a Professor of English at the University of South Dakota, where she serves as director of creative writing and editor-in-chief of South Dakota Review.

MATTHEW WYNN SIVILS is a professor of English at Iowa State University, He is the author or editor of eight books,

PRESENTERS including an edition of Paul L. Errington’s Of Wilderness and Wolves and American Environmental Fiction, 1782–1847.

JANE SMILEY is the author of A Thousand Acres, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, and most recently, The Last Hundred Years trilogy; its opening book, Some Luck, is the 2016 One Book South Dakota. She also authored five works of nonfiction, a young adult series and the picture book Twenty Yawns. She lives in Northern California.

CLAY STAFFORD has sold more than 1.5 million books, most recently editing the anthology Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded. Stafford has taught at several universities and co-designed the Miami-Dade film program. CHRISTINE STEWART-NUÑEZ is fueled by painting and sculpture, international travel, medical science, world history and tensions in contemporary culture. She is the author of several poetry collections, most recently Untrussed.

T. J. STILES is the author of The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt, winner of the 2009 National Book Award in Nonfiction and the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Biography, and Custer’s Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America, winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in History. Stiles lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife and two children.

J. RYAN STRADAL is the author of Kitchens of the Great Midwest. A Minnesota native, Stradal lives in Los Angeles, where he is an editor at Unnamed Press and The Nervous Breakdown and co-producer and host of the literary/culinary series Hot Dish.

FAITH SULLIVAN is the author of seven award-winning novels, including Good Night, Mr. Wodehouse and Gardenias. She is a champion of literary culture and her fellow writers, and has visited hundreds of book clubs. Sullivan lives in Minneapolis with her husband, Dan. 22 • SOUTH DAKOTA FESTIVAL OF BOOKS

JESS WALTER has written six novels, one book of short stories and one nonfiction book. His most recent books include the short story collection We Live in Water and the novel Beautiful Ruins. Walter lives with his wife Anne and their three children in Spokane, Washington.

ROSEMARY WELLS is perhaps best known for the Max and Ruby books, which have been adapted for an animated children’s TV series. Wells has won numerous awards, including a Caldecott Honor for 2001’s Goodnight, Max. She lives in Greenwich, Connecticut. JERRY WILSON was born west of the Cimarron River in Oklahoma, near the homesteads two of his great-grandfathers claimed in the 1892 Run into Cheyenne Arapaho land, an event featured in his latest novel, Across the Cimarron. He and his wife live in a geo-solar house they built on a bluff near Vermillion. In Fire Season, MILES WILSON draws on his three seasons with the Dalton Hotshots, a U.S. Forest Service Interregional Fire Crew based in California. Wilson is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Texas State University.

STEVEN WINGATE’s books include the short story collection Wifeshopping and the prose poem collection Thirty One Octets: Incantations and Meditations. He teaches creative writing, film and digital media at South Dakota State University.

MARK L. WINSTON is recognized as the world’s leading expert on bees and pollination. A founding faculty member of the Banff Centre’s Science Communication program, he authored Bee Time: Lessons From the Hive. ROBERT E. WRIGHT is the author or co-author of 17 books and hundreds of shorter publications. His most recent book, Little Business on the Prairie, examines entrepreneurship in South Dakota. Wright is the Nef Family Chair of Political Economy at Augustana University in Sioux Falls.

YOUNG READERS FESTIVAL EVENTS

For general inquiries about the Young Readers Festival, call Jennifer Widman, Director of the South Dakota Center for the Book, (605) 688-5715. To schedule class visits, call the Washington Pavilion, (605) 367-6000 or the Children’s Museum of South Dakota, (605) 692-6700.

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 21 5:30-6:30 p.m. – Whittier Middle School Auditorium, Sioux Falls – Booking Up Our Kids – Rosemary Wells

THURSDAY, Sept. 22

Events in grid below take place in Sioux Falls.

Washington Pavilion Belbas Theater

Schulte Black Box Theater

Science Stage

10 – 10:45 am

I'm Not Kidding: Stories & Songs - Barry Louis Polisar

Stubby the War Dog & His Favorite Doughboy - Ann Bausum

Drawing Slimy Space Slugs and Other Creatures Mike Lowery

11 – 11:45 am

I'm Not Kidding: Stories & Songs - Barry Louis Polisar

Fascinating Facts: Researching and Writing Books William Anderson

Creating the Monster Who Ate the State - Chris Browne

12:30 – 1:15 pm

Labor Fights, Civil Rights and the Death of Martin Luther King - Ann Bausum

Drawing Slimy Space Slugs and Other Creatures Mike Lowery

1:30 – 2:15 pm

Fascinating Facts: Researching and Writing Books William Anderson

Creating the Monster Who Ate the State - Chris Browne

THURSDAY SPECIAL EVENTS 4:30-5:30 p.m. – Washington Pavilion Mary W. Sommervold Hall, Sioux Falls – Young Readers One Book Keynote – Jennifer Richard Jacobson and Ted Kooser 5:30-6:30 p.m. – Children’s Museum of South Dakota Community Room, Brookings – Booking Up Our Kids – Rosemary Wells

24 • SOUTH DAKOTA FESTIVAL OF BOOKS

Siouxland Public Libraries Jerstad Gallery

Tribal Art Gallery

Ronning Branch

How the Pioneers Tamed the Prairie Ken Alvine

Starry Skies: The Lakota Way of Seeing the Night - S.D. Nelson

How Process Leads to Picture Books - Katherine Hannigan

Making History Fun with Capitol Cat & Watch Dog Janice Law

I Am a Man: Standing Bear of the Ponca Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve

Magnolia Says DON'T Elise Parsley

Starry Skies: The Lakota Way of Seeing the Night - S.D. Nelson Writing + Drawing = Stories - Katherine Hannigan

Downtown Library

How the Pioneers Tamed the Prairie - Ken Alvine

I'm Not Kidding: Stories & Songs - Barry Louis Polisar

FRIDAY, Sept. 23

Events in grid below take place in Brookings.

Children’s Museum of South Dakota Party on Two

Community Room

Stubby the War Dog & 10 – 10:45 Fascinating Facts: Researching and WritHis Favorite Doughboy am ing Books - William Anderson

- Ann Bausum

11 – 11:45 I Am a Man: Standing Bear of the Ponca am Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve

Party on One Creating The Monster Who Ate the State Chris Browne

Magnolia Says DON'T - How the Pioneers Elise Parsley Tamed the Prairie Ken Alvine

12:30 – 1:15 pm

Fascinating Facts: Researching and Writing Books - William Anderson

I'm Not Kidding: Stories Creating The Monster & Songs - Barry Louis Who Ate the State Polisar Chris Browne

1:30 – 2:15 pm

Starry Skies: The Lakota Way of Seeing the Night - S.D. Nelson

How Process Leads to Pictures - Katherine Hannigan

How the Pioneers Tamed the Prairie Ken Alvine

Free parking is available across the street from the Children’s Museum entrance and along Fifth Ave. and Fifth St., north of the Museum.

FRIDAY SPECIAL EVENTS

4-5 p.m. – Children’s Museum of South Dakota Community Room, Brookings – Young Readers One Book Keynote – Jennifer Richard Jacobson

TUESDAY, Sept. 27 5:30 p.m. – Rapid City Public Library – Young Readers One Book Keynote – Jennifer Richard Jacobson

Young Readers One Book The South Dakota Humanities Council distributed 5,000 copies of Jennifer Richard Jacobson’s Andy Shane and Dolores Starbuckle four-in-one book series to this fall’s third-grade students across South Dakota in advance of the 2016 Young Readers South Dakota Festival of Books. Students from the following school districts received copies of the book: • Brookings • Canton • Deubrook Area • Milbank • Pipestone (MN)

• Rapid City • Sioux Falls • Vermillion • Watertown 25

FRIDAY, Sept. 23 KEY: CHILDREN’S/Y.A. | FICTION | HISTORY/TRIBAL WRITING NON-FICTION | POETRY | WRITERS’ SUPPORT

SDSU Student Union Hobo Day Gallery & Campanile Room

THURSDAY SPECIAL EVENTS 5-6:30 p.m. – South Dakota Art Museum, Brookings – “Women Working from Women” Reception and Poetry Reading – Christine Stewart-Nuñez 5:30-6:30 p.m. – Crothers Engineering Hall Room 204, SDSU Campus, Brookings – Making Sense of the New Arab Wars – Marc Lynch 7-9 p.m. – McCrory Gardens Visitor Center, Brookings – Festival Fundraiser and Author Reception – TICKET REQUIRED ($50)

FRIDAY SPECIAL EVENTS 8-11:30 a.m. – Adee Honey Farms Processing Plant, Bruce – Tours of Processing Plant, featuring author Sue Doeden and owner Richard Adee, will begin every 15 minutes at 8, 8:15 and 8:30 and again at 10 and 10:15. Each tour is limited to 10 people. Attendees may provide their own transportation to and from Bruce or go to sdbookfestival.com to purchase a roundtrip ticket for a shuttle bus. Tickets are $10 per person, and each bus requires a minimum of five passengers. Tickets must be printed and brought to the bus in order to board. 10-11:45 a.m. – First Bank and Trust Board Room, Brookings – Poetry Workshop – Free Verse Isn’t Free: Logics of the Line – Christine Stewart-Nuñez – TICKET REQUIRED ($20) 10-11:45 a.m. – Brookings City County Building Community Room – Workshop – Writing What You Don’t Know – Patrick Hicks – TICKET REQUIRED ($20) 10-11:45 a.m. – Brookings Public Library Cooper Room A – Workshop – Plotting a 26 • SOUTH DAKOTA FESTIVAL OF BOOKS

Volstorff Ballroom 101A

10 – 10:45 The West in Myth, History & Movies - Tom Pope am

Wicked Problems in Peace Education - Alphonse Keasley

11 – 11:45 Telling the Story of a Complicated Man: The Earl am

Readings by Winners of the Veterans Writing Award - Ron Capps

Brockelsby Biography - Sam Hurst

SDSU Briggs Library Archives & Special Collections Reading Room

12 – 12:45 The Role of the Humanities in Public Life - SDHC Board pm

Members Eric Abrahamson, Russell McKnight, Julie Moore & Tamara St. John

1 – 1:45 pm

Poetry and Autism: Helping Students Create - Brian Laidlaw

J. Edgar Hoover's PR Men - Matt Cecil

2 – 2:45 pm

Erasing Imaginary Lines: Using Books to Catalyze Social Change - Lawrence Diggs

Political Marriages: True Love or Mutual Accommodation? - Janice Law

3 – 4 pm

Stonewall Stories: Bringing the History of the Gay Rights Movement to Life - Ann Bausum

Good Reads: A Book Critic’s Perspective Michael Dirda

4 – 5 pm

5 – 6 pm

Page Turner – April Henry – TICKET REQUIRED ($20)

Stradal, Jennifer Richard Jacobson, Paul Hutton and Janice Law

10-11:45 a.m. – Brookings Public Library Cooper Room B – Workshop – Developing Character on a Dime – Faith Sullivan – TICKET REQUIRED ($20)

12-1 p.m. – Rotary West, The Country Club of Sioux Falls – Making Sense of the New Arab Wars – Marc Lynch

12-1 p.m. – Performing Arts Center, Brookings – SDPB Live Broadcast – Dakota Midday Book Club with Festival Authors J. Ryan

1-3 p.m., Brookings Public Library Cooper Room – Neither Wolf Nor Dog: The Journey Continues – Kent Nerburn will host a showing of the film made from his award-winning

Times and presenters subject to change. Check Festival Survivor’s Guide (available at Exhibitor’s Hall information booth or online at www.sdbookfestival.com) for updates. To purchase tickets for transportation, meals and workshops, please visit www.sdbookfestival.com.

Events in grid below take place in Brookings. SD Ag Heritage Museum

SD Art Museum

Old Sanctuary

Auditorium

Brookings Arts Council Community Cultural Center

(10:30-11:15) Conserving the Land, Writing the Land - Jerry Wilson with Carter Johnson

Have an idea for a book? Send a brief proposal (two pages maximum) to festival@sdhumanities.org by Sept. 1, and get detailed, practical and proven feedback in a personal meeting with Rob Fleder, longtime executive editor for Sports Illustrated and editor of several New York Times bestselling books. Meetings will be scheduled on the afternoon of Friday, Sept. 23.

Guided Tasting of British, Belgian & German Ales with The Beer Bible Author Jeff Alworth – TICKET REQUIRED ($20)

Film Screenings: Our Own Words with Filmakers Jay & Paul V. Fishback, Delphine Red Shirt & Other Oak Lake Tribal Writers & Rising Voices: Hótȟaŋiŋpi Revitalizing the Lakota Language with Filmakers & Participants from the Language Conservancy

Literary Lunch: The Science of Food and Drink – Enjoy Steak Salad & German Ale with Sue Doeden (Cooking Demonstration) & Jeff Alworth (Beer Facts). Catered by Children’s Museum of South Dakota. TICKET REQUIRED ($25)

(1:30-2:15) Water & Humanity: A Profound & Ever-Changing Relationship - Brian Fagan (2:30-3:15) Paul L. Errington: Pioneering Sustainability on the Plains - Frederick Errington, Deborah Gewertz & Matthew Wynn Sivils

book, and director Steven Simpson will join him for discussion after the screening. 5:30-6:30 p.m. – Performing Arts Center Larson Memorial Concert Hall, Brookings – Kitchens of the Great Midwest: The Inspiration Behind the Book – J. Ryan Stradal 6:30-7:30 p.m. – Performing Arts Center Roberts Reception Hall, Brookings – Mass Book Signing with Festival Authors

Cultivating Creativity: First We Imagine - John Miller The Sketch Book & the Journal - Martin Garhart

7:30-8:30 p.m. – Performing Arts Center Larson Memorial Concert Hall, Brookings – One Book South Dakota Keynote: Creating a Midwestern Trilogy, Beginning with Some Luck – Jane Smiley in conversation with SDPB’s Lori Walsh 8:40-10 p.m. – Performing Arts Center Fishback Studio Theatre, Brookings – Open Mic hosted by South Dakota State Poetry Society For transportation and parking information, please see p. 7.

SATURDAY, Sept. 24

Events on these pages take place in Brookings.

Old Sanctuary

Old Market

Children’s Museum of South Dakota

Brookings Arts Council

Community Room

Party on One

Community Cultural Center

Perspectives on Pioneer Girl - William Anderson, John Miller & Nancy Koupal (SD State Historical Society Press)

How the Pioneers Tamed the Prairie Ken Alvine

A Reading by Former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser

Haunted by Jamestown: The 10 – 10:45 am Archaeology of America's First

The Revenant vs. the Historical Hugh Glass - Freya Manfred, James McLaird & Tom Pope

Dirt + Water = Local Memory & Karma: A Mud, and Writing + Reading - Frank PommerDrawing = Stories - sheim Katherine Hannigan

Anthropological Writings about 11 – 11:45 am Food Systems: From Papua

Perfume River: Family Ties & the Legacy of War - Robert Olen Butler

Seeing Through an Author's Eyes - Jennifer Richard Jacobson

9 – 9:45 am

The Intimate Bond: An Archaeologist Looks at How Animals Changed History - Brian Fagan

English Settlement - Marilyn Johnson

New Guinea to South Dakota Frederick Errington & Deborah Gewertz

Restoring Civility in Democracy 12 – 12:45 pm - SDHC Board Members Dick Brown, Julie Johnson, Judith Meierhenry & Matthew Moen

Literary Lunch: The Paperboys: From Journalism to Fiction Writing - Pete Dexter & Jess Walter - TICKET REQUIRED ($20)

Help! I've Been Kidnapped! Research Is Fun When You're a Mystery Writer - April Henry

Simple Machines, Untrussed: A Dual Reading Barbara Duffey & Christine Stewart-Nuñez

Prose & Cons: Teaching Poetry in Prisons - Lawrence Diggs

1 – 1:45 pm

The Artistry of Bees - Mark Winston

The Ups and Downs of Writing Commercial Fiction - Jeffery Deaver

Growing Up Funny: My Life As a Cartoonist - Chris Browne

2 – 2:45 pm

Writing About Running, Writing About Life - John Brant

War, Words & Healing Drawing Your Way Ron Capps & Robert Olen to a Story - Mike Butler with SDPB's Lori Lowery Walsh

The Collaborative Process of Rivers, Wings & Sky Nancy Losacker & Norma Wilson

3 – 3:45 pm

Learning the Secrets of the World’s Master Brewers - Jeff Alworth

Going for a Beer and Other Sure-Fire Writing Strategies - Jess Walter

Blue Thirsty: A Reading Charles Luden

Stonewall Stories Ann Bausum

Multicultural Poetry & Poetics - South Dakota Poet Laureate Lee Ann Roripaugh

SATURDAY SPECIAL EVENTS 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. – EXHIBITORS’ HALL OPEN, Children’s Museum of South Dakota Second Floor 4 p.m. – Old Market – Happy Hour for Readers and Writers with Literary Loot 5:30 p.m. – Old Sanctuary – Killer Nashville Thrillers Come to South Dakota – Jeffery Deaver, Anne Perry and Clay Stafford 6:30 p.m. – Old Sanctuary – Mass Book Signing with Festival Authors

28 • SOUTH DAKOTA FESTIVAL OF BOOKS

7:30 p.m. – Old Sanctuary – Reflections on the Centennial of the Pulitzer Prizes – Robert Olen Butler, Shirley Christian, Ted Kooser and T.J. Stiles, moderated by Michael Dirda. This event will begin with the presentation of the 2016 Distinguished Achievement in the Humanities Awards. NOTE: On Saturday from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. there will be no parking available on the 300 block of 6th Ave. (between the courthouse and the library) due to the Farmer’s Market. For additional transportation and parking information, please see p. 7.

To purchase tickets for transportation, meals and workshops, please visit www.sdbookfestival. com. Times and presenters are subject to change. Please check the Festival Survivor’s Guide (available at the Exhibitor’s Hall information booth in the Children’s Museum or online at www.sdbookfestival.com) for updates.

Brookings Activity Center

Brookings Public Library

Brookings City County Building

Senior Center

Cooper Room

Addressing Chronic Violence through Peace Education Alphonse Keasley

A Wilderness of Books: Paul L. Errington’s Literary Education - Matthew Wynn Sivils

Prohibition in South Dakota: A History Chuck Cecil

Cross-Genre Migration: From Books to TV, Films, Video Games & Back Again - Clay Stafford

Dear County Agent Guy: The Story of an Accidental Author - Jerry Nelson

Across the Cimarron: Recreating History Through Fiction - Jerry Wilson

The Ballad of Ben and Stella Mae - Matt Cecil

Fire Season: Writing About Fires & Firefighters - Miles Wilson

Pioneer Entrepreneurs in South Dakota - Robert E. Wright

History & Mystery: A Winning Combination Anne Perry

When America Was Young: The French, the Indians & the Fur Trade - Shirley Christian

Building Readership Online & Stories & Songs: Off - Sandra Brannan, Dirk Lam- A Family Concert mers & Faith Sullivan Barry Louis Polisar

Press Portrayals of Women Politicians: 150 Years in Context - Teri Finneman

Starry Skies: The Lakota Way of Seeing the Night - S.D. Nelson

The Complexities & Contradictions of George Armstrong Custer - T.J. Stiles & Paul Hutton

Beyond the Book: Network Thinking, Databases & the Digitization of Literature - Steven Wingate

Female Politicians in the Media: Is There a Double Standard? - Janice Law

Choke Your Readers: Building Tension & Suspense - Sandra Brannan

Sioux Women in South Dakota: Traditionally Sacred - Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve

Creating through Collaboration: An Author & Editor Discuss Their Process - Sam Hurst & SDHC’s Eric Abrahamson

Baseball's No-Hit Wonders - Dirk Lammers

The Art of Procrastination: How NOT To Get That Book Written - Pete Dexter & Rob Fleder

Narrative Process in Lakota Oral Tradition Delphine Red Shirt

Writing Regional Biography Stories & Songs: James McLaird & SDHC’s David A Family Concert Wolff Barry Louis Polisar

Telling the Stories of the Apache Wars Paul Hutton

Sustainable Reading & Book Collecting: A Conversation - Michael Dirda & Marilyn Johnson

Tribal Justice: The Importance of Language in Law and Poetry Frank Pommersheim

Honesty & Humor in Memoir Writing - Freya Manfred

Council Chambers

Fifth Street Gym

Carrot Seed

Community Room

The Lyric vs. the Lyric: Writing Songs, Writing Poems Brian Laidlaw

Magnolia Says DON'T - Elise Parsley

Homemade with Honey Cooking Demonstration Sue Doeden

SUNDAY, Sept. 25 10 a.m. – Old Sanctuary – Book Lovers’ Brunch: Spirituality from Ordinary Grace to Manitou Canyon – William Kent Krueger – TICKET REQUIRED ($20) 1-3 p.m. – Hilton M. Briggs Library Room 130 – Workshop – Non-Fiction Writing: Communicating with Impact – Mark Winston 1-2 p.m. – Brookings Public Library Cooper Room – Writing with a Sense of Place – William Kent Krueger & Faith Sullivan

EXHIBITORS’ HALL AUTHORS Jan Berkhout, Vermillion, SD Carol Blackford, Hartford, SD

Peter Vodenka, Rapid City, SD, journeyforfreedom.com

George Brandsberg, Manhattan, KS, cedartip.com

Katy Webb, Watertown, SD, ktwebbauthor.com

Gregory Coffin — GDX, Rapid City, SD, gdx1776.com

Christine Mager Wevik, Beresford, SD, itsonlyhairbook.com

Linda Nelson Cundy, Madison, SD

Joyce Wheeler, Philip, SD, prairieflowerbooks.com

Kathryn Dahlstrom, Hector, MN, kathryndahlstrom.com Amy Daws, Sioux Falls, SD, amydawsauthor.com Ellen Jean Diederich, Fargo, ND, givinity.com Betsey DeLoache, Pierre, SD, redbirdstudiosd.com Brenda Donelan, Sioux Falls, SD, brendadonelan.com Irene Elliot, Sioux Falls, SD Timothy Fountain, Sioux Falls, SD, caregivingstinks.wordpress.com Cynthia Frank-Stupnik, Rice, MN, cynthiafrankstupnik.com Nathan D. Gjovik, Rapid City, SD, ndgjovik.tateauthor.com Travis Gulbrandson, Yankton, SD, travisgulbrandson.com Noreen Harrison, Belle Fourche, SD Mary A. Haug, Brookings, SD, maryalicehaug.com Paul Horsted, Custer, SD, paulhorsted.com Joe Krogman, Eagan, MN, joekrogman.com Kale Lawrence, EnchantFire, Sioux Falls, SD, kalelawrence.com Coleen Liebsch, Arlington, SD David Longworth, Watertown, SD Karen Pearson, Rapid City, SD Roger Quam, Sioux Falls, SD Charles Rogers, Sioux Falls, SD Bruce Roseland, Seneca, SD Ozgur K. Sahin, Minneapolis, MN, ozgurksahin.com Donovin Sprague, Rapid City, SD 30 • SOUTH DAKOTA FESTIVAL OF BOOKS

J.E. “Scotty” Terrall, Books by Terrall, Custer, SD

BOOKSELLERS & PUBLISHERS Center for Western Studies, Sioux Falls, SD, augie.edu/cws PS Publishing, Arlington, SD, publishps.com South Dakota Agricultural Heritage Museum Press, Brookings, SD, agmuseum.com South Dakota State Historical Society Press, Pierre, SD, sdshspress.com University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE, nebraskapress.unl.edu Usborne Books & More, Chancellor, SD, usborne.rocks

ORGANIZATIONS English Department & Oakwood Magazine, SDSU, Brookings, SD, sdstate.edu/engl Hilton M. Briggs Library, SDSU, Brookings, SD, sdstate.edu/library The Language Conservancy, languageconservancy.org New Rivers Press, Moorhead, MN, newriverspress.com Plains Press, Spoon River Poetry Press, Ellis Press, Granite Falls, MN, ellispress.com South Dakota Hall of Fame, Chamberlain, SD, sdexcellence.org South Dakota State Poetry Society, sdpoetry.org South Dakota Writes The Exhibitors’ Hall is located on the second floor of the Children’s Museum and is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday.

CELEBRATING 14 YEARS! September 22-25, 27, 2016 Sioux Falls, Brookings & Rapid City www .sdbookfestival. com 605-688-6113 CAMPFIRES INITIATIVE This program is part of the Pulitzer Prizes Centennial Campfires Initiative, a joint venture of the Pulitzer Prizes Board and the Federation of State Humanities Councils in celebration of the 2016 centennial of the Prizes. The initiative seeks to illuminate the impact of journalism and the humanities on American life today, to imagine their future and to inspire new generations to consider the values represented by the body of Pulitzer Prize-winning work.

$5,000+ TRIBUTE SPONSORS

Gerry Berger Law

For their generous $45,456 support of the Campfires Initiative, we thank the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ford Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Pulitzer Prizes Board and Columbia University.

$20,000+ PRESENTING PARTNERS

$500+ DONORS Eric Abrahamson* | Brian Bonde* | Tom & Mary Beth Fishback Joe & Jennifer Kirby Charitable Fund of the Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation* Jason & Tatum McEntee* | Matthew Moen* | Tom & Jean Nicholson* South Dakota World Affairs Council | Jack & Linda Stengel | Robert & Ann Weisgarber FY16 Nov 1, 2015 to Oct 31, 2016 (* indicates endowment support)

$5,000+ ENDOWMENT DONORS

Margaret Cash Wegner Gerry Berger Law

A special thanks to all of the donors and volunteers who support South Dakota Humanities Council programs.

SAVE THE DATE: 15TH ANNUAL SOUTH DAKOTA FESTIVAL OF BOOKS SEPTEMBER 21 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 24, 2017, RAPID CITY & DEADWOOD

Judith & Mark Meierhenry