In this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Lisa Malawski talks with Kathleen Paris about her book Gentle Comforts For Women Grieving the Loss of a Beloved Life Companion.

As an author, educator, and management consultant, Paris has assisted organizations over the past thirty years to plan for new realities and improve their systems and organizational climate. She currently holds the title of Distinguished Consultant Emeritus from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Paris has consulted in the United States and internationally in Canada, Cyprus, France,

Guam, Switzerland, Virgin Islands, and the UK Kathleen lost her beloved husband Matt Cullen, of twenty-five years in 2018. She has been reaching out ever since to other grieving women.

The dedication of her book reads “To my husband, Matt Cullen the best person I ever knew.”

One of the frequently asked questions of Kathleen, is why did you write Gentle Comforts?

Kathleen’s response is that she started journaling the day her husband died and from then on wrote to him every night. The journal was the foundation of Gentle Comforts. And as the months went on, it occurred to Kathleen that she could take the worst thing that ever happened to her and help others in the same situation.Gentle Comforts for Women Grieving the Loss of a Beloved Life Companion was published by ACTA Publications in 2024. The book is organized to follow a woman-in-mourning’s experiences over time. There is journaling space with short prompt questions for each reflection. There are easy healthy recipes for one person included for each of the 50 topics. The book is written in a gentle and encouraging voice of one who has been there. So many of us have lost someone in our lives, and the hope was that this show could touch you in some way, ease your burden, and for you to know that there are so many of us struggling with our losses. Here is the Irish quote from the front of Kathleen’s book: “Death leaves a heartache no one can heal. Love leaves a memory no one can steal.”

A note from Kathleen Paris:

Friday, August 30 is National Grief Awareness Day. Every year it is on August 30.

Aimed at educating people about grief, providing resources and helping people feel less alone.

In this edition of Madison BookBeat, host Sara Batkie speaks with Milwaukee-based author Katharine Beutner about her Edna Ferber Award-winning novel, Killingly, which is out now in paperback from Soho Crime.

Massachusetts, 1897: Bertha Mellish, “the most peculiar, quiet, reserved girl” at Mount Holyoke College, is missing. As a search team dredges the pond where Bertha might have drowned, her panicked father and sister arrive desperate to find some clue to her fate or state of mind. Bertha’s best friend, Agnes, a scholarly loner studying medicine, might know the truth, but she is being unhelpfully tightlipped, inciting the suspicions of Bertha’s family, her classmates, and the private investigator hired by the Mellish family doctor. As secrets from Agnes’s and Bertha’s lives come to light, so do the competing agendas driving each person who is searching for Bertha. Where did Bertha go? Who would want to hurt her? And could she still be alive?

Katharine Beutner takes a real-life unsolved mystery and crafts it into an unforgettable historical portrait of academia, family trauma, and the risks faced by women who dared to pursue unconventional paths at the end of the 19th century. Katharine is an associate professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; previously, she taught in Ohio and Hawai`i. She earned a BA in Classical Studies at Smith College and an MA in English (creative writing) and a PhD in English literature at the University of Texas at Austin. Her first novel, Alcestis, won the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award and was a finalist for other awards, including the Lambda Literary Association’s Lesbian Debut Fiction Award.

In this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Andrew Thomas speaks with Henry Wise on his debut novel, Holy City (2024, Grove Atlantic Press).

Holy City is a novel that grabs your attention by the opening sentence and propels you into a world of crime, guilt, unrealized desire, and vanquished hopes and dreams. The narrative shuttles between Richmond, Virginia–the eponymous Holy City–and the rural county of Euphoria. Anything but euphoric, it’s peopled by a cast of characters both burned out on the passage of time and not very optimistic about the present. We encounter people enduring the harsh realities of poverty, the legacies of racism, the personal and historical ghosts of the past, as well as the fickleness of the small town legal system. Everyone’s running from something, and everyone’s got something to hide. We encounter this world through the eyes of Deputy Sheriff Will Seems, a prodigal son of sorts who returns to Euphoria from Richmond after a decade away. While immediately embroiled in the investigation of a brutal homicide, our brooding protagonist must navigate a guilty past, a fraught relationship with family, and an increasingly suspect county Sheriff. Its fast pacing is complemented by a striking poetic lyricism that demands regularly slowing down and relishing in the talents of this poet-turned-novelist.

Henry Wise is a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute and the University of Mississippi MFA Program. His work has appeared in Shenandoah, Nixes Mate, Radar Poetry, Clackamas, and elsewhere. His nonfiction and photography have appeared in Southern Cultures. Holy City is his first novel.

In this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Lisa Malawski talks with Robin and Joan

Rolfs about their book Hearthstone: America’s Electrical National Treasure.

Joan and Rob have been enthralled with Hearthstone since the 1970’s when they

moved to the Fox Cities. Joan developed a successful Interior Design program at Fox

Valley Technical College in 1971.

In 1986, Joan was contacted by a member of The Friends of Hearthstone Board and

invited to become involved with the restoration of Hearthstone. Rob was also invited

because of his background in electronics and electricity. Realizing the Edison

connection and the historical importance of the house, the Rolfs accepted.

In 1990, they were given the task to develop the Hydro-Adventure Exhibit in the lower

level of Hearthstone. The exhibit increased public awareness of the role of electricity in

daily lives and the transformation which occurred in society as a result of Thomas A.

Edison’s inventions and Henry Roger’s vision for implementation.

Hearthstone contains all the original architecture and electrical light fixtures from when

the home was built in 1882. The Rolfs worked with the Edison National Historical Park

in Orange, NJ and one day during their visit met Chad Shapiro, a collector and historian

of early lighting. He shared his knowledge and provided the Rolfs with copies of original

Bergmann lighting catalogs from 1882-1884.

Approximately thirty years later, as the Rolfs researched the hanging light fixtures

(electroliers) and wall sconces, they concluded the majority of these light fixtures were

the original Sigmund Bergmann fixtures dating to 1882. The significance of these

fixtures is they are the earliest surviving examples of Bermann electroliers and sconces

in the world! This inspired the Rolfs to write Hearthstone: America’s Electrical National

Treasure.

In this episode, Lisa discusses the Rolfs passions for all things Thomas Edison, their

volunteerism at Hearthstone, antique phonographs, records, writing and their shared

love for research.

In her fourth collection, Driftless Area-based poet Nikki Wallschlaeger further proves herself as a singular poet of astonishing emotional depth and formal range. Hold Your Own is a steadfast search for peace, self-acceptance, and pleasure in a world that makes those basic rights an everyday challenge for Black women. It was published in May 2024 by Copper Canyon Press.

Nikki joins host Sara Batkie for a conversation about getting the right rhythm, the joys of working with books every day, and the natural beauty of her home state.

Nikki Wallschlaeger’s work has been featured in The Nation, Brick, American Poetry Review, Witness, Kenyon Review, Poetry, and others. She is the author of the full-length collections Waterbaby (Copper Canyon Press, 2021), Houses (Horseless Press 2015), and Crawlspace (Bloof 2017), as well as the graphic book I Hate Telling You How I Really Feel (2019) from Bloof Books. She is also the author of an artist book called “Operation USA” through the Baltimore-based book arts group Container, a project acquired by Woodland Pattern Book Center in Milwaukee.

In this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Lisa Malawski talks with Richard Sweitzer about his book ODE The Scion of Nerikan. Richard is award-winning author and longtime morning radio host. He received his Master’s of Arts degree in Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Richard is the author and publisher of ODE The Scion of Nerikan which was published in 2023. The book is about an immortal monster who is searching for a way to die, and the little girl who gives him reason to live...for a little longer.

Richard created an ODE Bingo card which he hands out at book signings and there is a tiny independent book store near his home that he places these cards in. Some of the boxes on the Bingo card ask the reader if they threw the book, hugged the book. laughed, cried and more.

Richard always wanted to publish his books traditionally, but after three false starts working with literary agents, he decided to publish his own book. The agents he had worked with offered some great advice, but he felt the story was drifting away from the adventure which he created. When Richard is not writing, he hosts a popular morning radio show in central Wisconsin. He has been with this show for more than thirty years.

In this episode, Richard reads from his book, discusses self-publishing, marketing, artificial intelligence, going to school at age thirty, being a radio host and his love of fantasy.

Lisa thanks Richard for his message to the audience: Try something new even if it’s scary. Take that course, make that change. Be afraid and do it anyway.

Richard Scott Larson's debut The Long Hallway (University of Wisconsin Press, April 2024) is a lyrical memoir that expresses a boy’s search for identity while navigating the darkness and isolation of a deeply private inner world.

Growing up queer, closeted, and afraid, Richard Scott Larson found expression for his interior life in horror films, especially John Carpenter’s 1978 classic, Halloween. He developed an intense childhood identification with Michael Myers, Carpenter’s inscrutable masked villain, as well as Michael’s potential victims. In The Long Hallway, Larson scrutinizes this identification, meditating on horror as a metaphor for the torments of the closet.

Richard joins host Sara Batkie for a conversation about the masks we wear, the horrors of suburbia, and finding the right home for your work.

Richard Scott Larson is a queer writer and critic. His debut memoir, The Long Hallway, was published by the University of Wisconsin Press. Born and raised in the suburbs of St. Louis, he studied literature and film criticism at Hunter College and earned his MFA from New York University.

He has received fellowships from MacDowell and the New York Foundation for the Arts, and his work has been supported by residencies from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Vermont Studio Center, Paragraph Workspace for Writers, La Porte Peinte, and the Willa Cather Foundation. He’s an active member of the National Book Critics Circle, and his writing has been recognized twice by The Best American Essays.

In this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Andrew Thomas speaks with Priti Srivastava about their novel The Nagini Anarchy, self-published in 2023.

Priti Srivastava lives in Madison, Wisconsin with their best friends working to create inclusive spaces so that one day everyone will feel as though they belong. When Priti isn’t working or doing chores, they enjoy playing video games, making their friends laugh, eating samosas, and sitting quietly. Priti loves to connect with readers - check out thechaihouse.org to learn more or to request a virtual visit with your book club.

The Nagini Anarchy is the fourth novel set in the world of The Chai House. As readers we follow three protagonists–Ana, Prem, and Jani–as they encounter the effects of a patriarchal society intent on environmental destruction for material gain. While each character’s narrative occurs in three distinct time periods, storylines begin to blur and intersect as the novel gains momentum. At the novel’s center is a stepwell. Designed as a place for weary travelers to find fresh water and rest, it also serves as an enduring nature preserve, particularly for snakes, against encroaching development. Tended to by the mercurial Manassa, the stepwell becomes both a place of mystery and supernatural transformation as the characters learn to shed their pasts just as a serpent sheds her skin.