CELEBRATING
10 YEARS!
12 0 2 0 3 D S 8 , 2 S L . L T SEP X FA U O I S sdbookfestival.com
Andrea Maibaum
CONTENTS 4 6 7 8
Mayor’s Welcome SD Humanities Council Welcome Events Map
A Tribute to Poetry Sponsored by Sioux Falls Convention & Visitors Bureau
9 A Tribute to Non-Fiction
Sponsored by South Dakota Public Broadcasting
10 A Tribute to Children’s/Y.A.
Sponsored by Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation
11 A Tribute to Fiction
Sponsored by AWC Family Foundation
12 A Tribute to Writer’s Support
Sponsored by South Dakota Arts Council
13 A Tribute to History/Tribal Writing
Sponsored by Avera McKennan Hospital & University Health Center
14 Presenters 26 Schedule of Events 30 Exhibitors at Exhibitors’ Hall For more information visit www.sdbookfestival.com or call us at (605) 688-6113. Times and presenters listed are subject to change. Changes will be announced on www.sdbookfestival.com, twitter.com/@sdbookfestival and facebook.com/sdbookfestival and included in the Festival Survivor’s Guide, a handout available at the Exhibitors’ Hall information desk in the Holiday Inn Falls Room. 3
WELCOME...
O
n behalf of the citizens of Sioux Falls, it is my pleasure to welcome you to the 10th annual South Dakota Festival of Books. Each year thousands of people attend the annual South Dakota Festival of Books and we promise that you will find our local venues to be top-notch for this family friendly event. During your stay, we invite you to discover the many exciting attractions that make Sioux Falls so enjoyable — the Great Plains Zoo & Delbridge Museum of Natural History; our namesake, the beautiful falls of the Big Sioux River; and the many parks that are so inviting any time of the year. We take great pride in our community and pledge our total cooperation to make your visit a pleasant and memorable occasion. A special thanks to the South Dakota Humanities Council’s Center for the Book, an affiliate of the Library of Congress, and to all of the stewards who played a role in organizing this event. I hope your visit to our community will be most enjoyable. Happy reading! Sincerely,
Mike T. Huether, Mayor
The South Dakota Festival of Books guide is a publication of
PO Box 175 • Yankton, SD 57078 800-456-5117 • www.SouthDakotaMagazine.com
EXPLORE WITH US! 4 • SOUTH DAKOTA FESTIVAL OF BOOKS
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JOIN US!
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his year’s South Dakota Festival of Books is extra special, for a number of reasons. We gather this weekend to celebrate not only the 10th anniversary of the Festival of Books, but also the 40th anniversary of the South Dakota Humanities Council. We celebrate our One Book South Dakota program with the return of our first two One Book authors, Leif Enger and Elizabeth Berg. The books from our 70-plus presenters represent a noteworthy range of topics, from world affairs to sports to music. As always, the 2012 Festival of Books will have something for everyone. The SDHC was founded in 1972 in response to an act of Congress. In 2003, the decision was made to begin a Festival of Books. Since that time, SDHC has inspired thousands of people every year with well-known authors, poets and other entertainers. A big thank you is offered to staff and board members, both current and former, for the vision and support that led to our designation as a Center for the Book by the Library of Congress and the annual festival. We are so appreciative of those who served on the initial festival board of advisors, as well as partners, funders and volunteers who have made every festival a special event. The festival would not be what it is today, in its 10th year, without your help. As a bridge between this year’s American Indian Cultures focus and next year’s Water theme, Dammed Indians Revisited: The Continuing History of the Pick-Sloan Plan and the Missouri River Sioux by Michael Lawson was selected as the 2012 One Book South Dakota. We are also hosting an unprecedented offsite festival kickoff event, as acclaimed tribal author Sherman Alexie will speak at South Dakota State University Sept. 26 at 7 p.m. His The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian is the Brookings Common Read, as well as the companion selection for One Book South Dakota young adult and fiction readers. One of the Council’s major goals during the festival is to showcase our cultural programming and our partnerships with other organizations. We are excited to announce the appearance of international expert, educator and author Marc Lynch through the Council on World Affairs. Another partner, South Dakota State Historical Society Press, published this year’s special edition of One Book South Dakota. We have also joined with the Smithsonian Institution to bring the “New Harmonies: Celebrating American Roots Music” exhibit to our state. As part of that program, we will conclude the festival with an appearance by the Lakota Music Project, a collaboration featuring a traditional Lakota drum group and the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra. Perhaps the most exciting aspect of our upcoming festival is the unveiling of our newest book. The Council will reveal the fifth edition of our “South Dakota Stories” series. What Makes a South Dakotan? is a book consisting of stories submitted by current and former residents who describe the true meaning of being a South Dakotan. It is our first-time book collaboration with the South Dakota Community Foundation. So enjoy what we have to offer this year, and mark your calendars for the 2013 festival, to be held Sept. 20-22 in Deadwood!
Sherry DeBoer Executive Director for the South Dakota Humanities Council 6 • SOUTH DAKOTA FESTIVAL OF BOOKS
Festival of Books Event Locations SIOUX FALLS
AUGUSTANA CAMPUS (2001 S. Summit Ave.) • Morrison Commons, Room 3-1
BARNES & NOBLE (3700 W. 41st. St.) 605-362-1500
HOLIDAY INN CITY CENTRE (100 W. 8th St.) 605-339-2000 • Cascade • Skyline • Palisades I • Palisades II • Palisades III • Falls Room • Starlite Room
ICON LOUNGE EVENT HALL (402 N. Main Ave.) 605-444-4266
ORPHEUM (315 N. Phillips Ave.) 605-367-4616 • Main Theater • Anne Zabel Studio Theater • Classroom
SIOUXLAND LIBRARY DOWNTOWN (200 N. Dakota Ave.) 605-367-8720 • Meeting Room A • Meeting Room B
VA HOSPITAL AUDITORIUM (2501 W. 22nd. St.) 605-336-3230
ZANDBROZ VARIETY (209 S. Phillips Ave.) 605-331-5137
BROOKINGS
SOUTH DAKOTA STATE UNIVERSITY
(11th St. & 16th Ave.) • Frost Arena
PIERRE
T.F. RIGGS HIGH SCHOOL (1010 E. Broadway) 605-773-7350
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 S.D. Festival of Books, its sponsors or venues, are not responsible for lost or stolen items. 7
POETRY VOICE OF HIS PEOPLE Adrian C. Louis, a Paiute from northern Nevada, does not shy away from the harsh realities of reservation life. The former Oglala Lakota College instructor, now an English professor at Minnesota State University in Marshall, is perhaps best known for his 1995 novel Skins, a tale of Lakota brothers — one a tribal policeman on the Pine Ridge Reservation, the other an alcoholic. Louis’ blunt and earthy poetry and fiction explores dark topics with humor and honesty. Still, Louis maintains compassion for his characters, and the reservation dwellers for whom he writes. “Hope resides in our very resilience,” Louis says. “We have survived. We will survive.” Louis has written more than a dozen books, and his poetry has appeared in Ploughshares, The Nation, Chicago Review, North Dakota Quarterly and The North American Review. In addition to his fiction, poetry and academic career, Louis was also editor of The Lakota Times and Indian Country Today and co-founder of the Native American Journalists Association. Watch for his latest collection of poetry, Savage Sunsets, in September. 8 • SOUTH DAKOTA FESTIVAL OF BOOKS
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Hypothetical Stories
odney Jones farmed and worked construction in rural Alabama before becoming a writer and English professor. His poetry reflects his Southern roots, but he doesn’t consider it nostalgic. “I will always be a Southerner, but there are things about Southern narrow-mindedness that I am compelled by conscience to disclaim,” Jones says, “and it often puts me in conflict with people that I love.” That conflict emerges in Imaginary Logic, a collection of 32 poems. “Eviction” tells of a pimping mother and drunken father evicted from property owned by Jones’ grandparents. And “North Alabama End” talks of fundamentalist neighbors who are certain global warming, famine and holy wars signify the end of days. The poems seek to shape a philosophical meditation focusing on the pervasiveness of fiction in our daily lives, an idea reflected in the collection’s title. “We tell ourselves a story and believe that it is the world,” Jones says. “Sometimes we believe it only for a minute, sometimes for centuries. Sometimes the story is even true.” Critics compliment Jones’ ease of
storytelling and sardonic humor. “In fact, I cannot separate humor from seriousness,” Jones says. In Imaginary Logic, his ninth book of poetry, Jones took new risks. “I’m old and not a little crazy,” he says. “I can do that.” For instance, he could never have started a poem, “The chief wonders of civilizations were lies,” written directly about self-pity, or compared his experience on a sewage corporation board to the presidency of George W. Bush. “Risk happens when you enter into a real subject and don’t know how the poem is going to turn out. That was true for all of the poems in this book.” Though the theme is imagined reality, the topics are authentic, and Jones hopes readers relate. “If they remember a Rodney Jones story, a conversation, or even a line that affirms their honest vision of the human experience, then that will be enough.” His favorite is titled “The Essence of Man.” It began as a poem about silly habits his wife hates and became serious and satiric. “My wife was, I think, deeply amused, though she may well have hated me for writing the poem. We’re barely speaking at the moment,” Jones says jokingly.
DON’T MISS THIS POETRY EVENT! 12 TO 1:30 PM — Selected Readings with Acclaimed Poet Sherwin Bitsui. Join SD State Poetry Society for this exciting event!
NON-FIC TION STORIES IN OUR DNA
Will Hermes
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An Era Ablaze
he name of a Talking Heads song, “Love Goes to Buildings on Fire,” inspired the title of Will Hermes’ inaugural book. “There was a poetry to that I liked because so much of the book was about people making art and putting energy and love out in an era that was incredibly snake bitten,” Hermes says. Love Goes to Buildings on Fire: Five Years in New York That Changed Music Forever chronicles the turbulent New York City music scene from 1973 to 1977. “Buildings were literally burning every night because people and businesses had fled the cities,” he says. “The owners realized they could make more money by torching them and collecting insurance.” Hermes is a senior critic for Rolling Stone and frequent contributor to NPR, Spin and the Village Voice. Love Goes to Buildings on Fire grew from an interview with Patti Smith and band mate Lenny Kaye on the 30th anniversary of the album Horses. “It struck me that for a group that was kind of credited for being the forebears of punk rock, they were incredibly steeped and connected to music of the ’60s,” says Hermes. “The middle ’70s were an incredibly
fertile period partly because people were coming off of the ’60s and really had the energy to invent something new.” Publications like the Village Voice, Soho Weekly News and Latin NY, an English language publication dedicated to the salsa scene, were essential in recreating shows that Hermes couldn’t see. But online research changed as the book neared completion. People uploaded content to YouTube and Facebook as bandwidth increased and computer capacities grew. “Suddenly there was all this incredible film footage so I could actually write about shows in a very vivid way.” He talked to key players to refine his research. “I did a number of interviews with musicians in the salsa scene and jazz scene because there’s not that much written about them,” says Hermes. Other interviews included Bruce Springsteen, The Ramones, Philip Glass and Steve Reich. Rashid Ali, an important figure in the loft jazz scene, died a few months after Hermes interviewed him. “There was a sense of wanting to speak to people to get whatever information I could for history because it felt like time was running out,” Hermes says.
Sam Kean explores the mysteries of human life solved through DNA research in The Violinist’s Thumb and Other Lost Tales of Love, War and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code. There are genes to explain cat enthusiasts, genes to explain John F. Kennedy’s yearround tan, and even genes to explain geniuses like Einstein. “This sort of genetics really surprised me when I first started hearing about it,” Kean says. “I thought for a long time that genetics was all about curing diseases, which is important, of course. But there’s so much more to genetics than that — it can get at so many stories about our past that we thought were lost forever.” Science can be daunting, but Kean enjoys making it accessible. “It sometimes seems like an indigestible mass of facts when you get all the material gathered, but to be able to shape it into a story is rewarding,” he says. Kean grew up in South Dakota and now resides in Washington, D.C. His work has appeared in Science Magazine, The New Scientist, Slate and Smithsonian Air & Space. Kean’s first book, The Disappearing Spoon, made the New York Times bestseller list by exposing the drama, greed and passion behind the use of the periodic table of the elements. 9
CHILDREN’S/Y.A. THE COMPASSIONATE BEAR FAMILY The first animated cartoon series ever presented entirely in a Native American language launched on regional public television stations in September of 2011. Matȟó Waúŋšila Thiwáhe, or “The Compassionate Bear Family,” is the Lakota language name for The Berenstain Bears, a familiar and popular presence on PBS and in storybooks for decades. Twenty episodes of the animated series were translated into Lakota and Dakota, and recorded at Makoché Studios in Bismarck, North Dakota during 2010-2011. Twelve native Lakota speakers, recruited from five different Lakota reservations in North and South Dakota, performed the characters. Coproducers of the series are the non-profit Lakota Language Consortium and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Berenstain Enterprises waived its considerable licensing fees in order to facilitate the production.
10 • SOUTH DAKOTA FESTIVAL OF BOOKS
Living is Serious Business
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herman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian is fiction yet autobiographical. “If I were to guess at the percentage, it would be about 78 percent true,” said S h e r m a n A l e xie when receiving the Boston Globe-Horn Book award. “And that’s one of t he a ma zi ng t h i ng s a b out the accept ance of the book, because in really large ways it feels like my story, my choices, have been validated by this huge group of people.” Alexie grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Wellpinit, Wash., like the protagonist in his young adult novel. “One day I was in school on the reservation, and I opened up my math book and my mom’s name was written in it. My mom’s maiden name,” Alexie says. “So I was looking at a 30-year-old math book.” Alexie picked up the book, threw it across the room and hit the wall. But in the fictional version, Arnold Spirit Jr. hits the math teacher in the face. “The fictional version is much more satisfying,” says Alexie, “but I knew I had to leave the rez school.” Alexie attended Reardan High School 20 miles off the reservation, feeling like an immigrant. “When I did it, I had no idea I would write about it, all these years later, and have people appreciate the story.” Alexie has visited a diverse set of communities and schools since the book was published in 2007, and the response is always similar. Almost every teen feels isolated, misunderstood, and pressure to be a certain something. “And the decision by my fictional character, Arnold Spirit Jr., to break that mold, to make a decision for himself at such a
young age, feels really revolutionary to a lot of teens,” Alexie says. Through a partnership between SDSU and SDHC, The Absolutely True Diary has been chosen as the Brookings and SDSU Common Read and as the young adult c o m p a n io n s e lection for One Book South Dakota. Alexie will kick off the Festival off-site by delivering the 2012 Griff ith Honors Forum Lecture at SDSU September 26 at 7 p.m. in Frost Arena. Also presenting in the Young Adult genre is Gary D. Schmidt, author of Okay for Now. Schmidt believes books written for young readers should speak to ever yone. “The def inition is not meant to be exclusive, but broadening,” Schmidt says. “C.S. Lewis and W.H. Auden — who are two heavy hitters — said that it is almost an axiom that a book written only for children is by definition a bad book.” Schmidt has become a heavy hitter himself, as a two-time Newbery Honor winner. And his most recent book, Okay for Now, was nominated for the 2011 National Book Award. He’s known for young adult novels with serious themes. Okay for Now, a comic tragedy set in 1968, is no different. The main character, 14-year-old Doug Swieteck, is a city kid uprooted to the Catskills by his father’s job loss. Doug endures an abusive father, a bullying brother and another brother scarred by the Vietnam War. “We all wish it could be brightness all the time. And maybe for some people it is,” Schmidt says. “But there is gloom for us all, too. And maybe books even for kids shouldn’t ignore that.”
FIC TION GRANTING A VOICE
Elizabeth Berg
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Exercising Creativity
riting exercises are a knows it does not come easily to evpar t of daily life for eryone. She thinks many people try Elizabeth Berg. “I think much harder than is required. She emthat’s true of most writ- phasizes that it is important to stay true ers,” she says. “I guess to yourself and write in your own voice. in some respects I’m al- “I care about the authenticity of feelways doing a kind of exercise. The guy ing,” says Berg, “about the laying out bags my groceries and I’m wondering of the human condition.” what his living room looks like. I overShe hopes her readers will feel like hear part of an argument and I make up the kid in the classroom who wildly the rest of the conversation.” Or, while waves his hand, dying to be called on. waiting at the airport, she speculates “I wanted the exercises to be fun, inabout who is going where and why. teresting, provocative, surprising, inBerg was a registered nurse for 10 triguing, and of course, inspiring,” says years before becoming an author. Tak- Berg. “I was always thinking, ‘What ing care of patients taught her about can I suggest to get people to loosen hope, fear, love, loss and relationships up, to reach that place of trust so that — themes she explores in her work. they can take a free fall into wonder She’s written 18 novels over the last 20 and creativity?’” years. Her non-fiction book, Escaping Reading inspires Berg. She recominto the Open: the Art of Writing True, mends reading everything — novels, offers the secrets to her productivity. It letters, poetry, essays, short stories, includes the story of her career and of- graphic novels and even science writfers writing exercises, information on ing. “If you read a lot, you’ll probably agents and editors, advice and recipes, find that some things serve as a literwhich she considers “food for (cre- ary aphrodisiac. They make you want ative) thought.” to write,” says Berg. “Use that.” Writing is a joy for Berg, but she
A Grown Up Kind of Pretty was nearly completed when a friend told Joshilyn Jackson to give her most interesting character a voice. Jackson’s Liza is a former meth addict left mute after a debilitating stroke. “My friend said, ‘You are so scared of the places she wanted to take you, that you gave her a stroke to shut her up,’” Jackson says. “I had to find a way to let someone who cannot speak tell her story. That is my favorite part of the book.” A Grown Up Kind of Pretty follows three generations of Southern women as they struggle through adversity. Her previous novels include gods in Alabama; Between, Georgia; The Girl Who Stopped Swimming; and Backseat Saints. Jackson resides in Alabama, and her Southern upbringing inspired her newest novel. “None of the characters are my relatives directly. None of them are me,” she says. “That being said, they are all mine. They come out of the region and how people are down here.” Jackson is working on Someone Else’s Love Story, due out in 2014.
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Writers’ Support INSPIRED BY HER CHARACTERS If Ann Weisgarber had followed the adage to “write what you know,” she never would have penned The Personal History of Rachel DuPree, her tale of African American homesteaders in South Dakota. But Weisgarber persevered, accepting a residency in the Badlands that allowed her to experience the beauty and isolation of the land. “I listened to the wind, watched a magnificent electrical storm and marveled at the Milky Way,” Weisgarber says. “I talked to people who lived there and admired their grit.” First-hand knowledge helped, but she required more research. At times, Weisgarber says, “I nearly lost my nerve.” But her characters brought inspiration. “If they could overcome lifethreatening hardships, then surely I could write their stories. The characters — ordinary South Dakotans — showed me the true meaning of courage.“ Weisgarber’s next novel, The Promise, relates the experiences of two women during the deadly 1900 hurricane in Galveston, Texas. 12 • SOUTH DAKOTA FESTIVAL OF BOOKS
Roy Blount, Jr.
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The Joy of Text
oy Blount, Jr.’s love of words started at an early age. “In lieu of breastfeeding, my mother taught me to read phonetically,” Blount jokes. “So I take words, and even the alphabet, personally and orally. And punctuation, too.” The writer, humorist and frequent panelist on NPR’s news quiz, Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!, will discuss his book Alphabetter Juice: or, the Joy of Text. It’s a follow-up to 2008’s Alphabet Juice. “I was pleasantly surprised that Alphabet Juice did well enough to warrant a sequel, because I loved writing those books,” Blount says. Both are finicky yet fun looks at the English language, with essays on the origins and uses of words and phrases. Blount coined the term sonicky to describe words whose pronunciation closely resembles their meaning, like gag or sleek. And he ponders why the word ew, a universal sign of disgust, appears in words like beautiful and cutie. Alphabetter Juice is a celebration of words, though Blount does have pet peeves. “For instance misuse of literally,” Blount says, “as in ‘I was literally blown away’ if you haven’t in fact died from an explosion, or at least
been caught up in a hurricane.” But he believes peeves are too narrow to be great. “I would rather dwell on the virtues of words – how excellent a word peeve is, for instance.” Blount hopes to honor those virtues. He’s making notes for Alphabest Juice, though that’s a working title. He is constantly researching, and keeps books handy for reference. His favorite authors include Charles Portis, Flannery O’Connor, Ian Frazier and Mark Twain. “I read widely and narrowly, and I look at signs with words on them,” Blount says. “I get impatient walking in the woods, because there’s so little to read there.” Blount has written over 23 books. He’s also a member of the Rock Bottom Remainders, a rock and roll band whose members include Dave Barry, Stephen King and Amy Tan. “I introduce the band and come in with ‘you move me’ and ‘I love you’ at points fairly close to appropriate on ‘Wild Thing,’” Blount jokes. This summer band members celebrated the 20th anniversary of their first performance, which they thought would be their only one. “If only the things I get paid for would run as long as that band.”
HISTORY/TRIBAL WRITING Fighting the Mighty Missouri
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ike Lawson grew up University of Oklahoma Press pubin an industrial com- lished the work as Dammed Indians munity in Michigan in 1982. with little connection “What I am most proud of is that to Native Americans. what began as a purely academic Books like Bury My pursuit had real-life application Heart at Wounded Knee and movies that benefitted the Sioux people,” like Little Big Man, A Man Called says Lawson. Congress relied upon Horse and Soldier Blue sparked his Dammed Indians when it estabinterest in Native history. “I was in- lished trust funds to provide comspired by how these pensation for flooded tribal land. works portrayed “The value of these Native Americans perpetual funds will as having a distinct eventually amount culture with many to billions of dollars,” positive attributes Lawson says. “Realthat the tribes were life applications of trying desperately academic historical to preserve and proworks don’t happen tect in the face of an very often.” unrelenting and ofLawson is also a ten militant invasion par tner at Morgan, of their homelands,” Angel & Associates Lawson says. in Washington, D.C. L aw s o n ’s b o o k , He joined the team of Dammed Indians public policy and hisRevisited: The Continuing History torical consultants in of the Pick-Sloan Plan and the 1996 and helped tribes win addiMissouri River Sioux, is this year’s tional compensation for their PickOne Book South Dakota. Lawson Sloan damages. Interviews he conspent over 35 years on the proj- ducted between 1996 and 2002 with ect. He wrote his master’s the- tribal members forced to leave their sis on the impact of Oahe Dam on homes during dam construction inthe Cheyenne River Sioux. He and spired Dammed Indians Revisited. his wife spent the summer of 1972 “I wanted to describe the successful camping along the Missouri from efforts of the tribes to gain further Vermillion to Bismarck, collecting compensation, measure the benedocuments and interviewing tribal fits they now receive from the dam leaders, reservation residents and projects and describe how they have government off icials. His doctor- finally come to be officially recogal dissertation studied the impact nized as stakeholders in the presof four of the Pick-Sloan dams on ent and future management of the seven reservations in North Dakota, Missouri River system.” South Dakota and Nebraska. The
POLITICS OF MUSIC John Troutman wonders why music, important in so many lives, seems trivial to others. “As a graduate student, I was perplexed by the fact that so few historians seemed to take music seriously,” says the author of Indian Blues: American Indians and the Politics of Music, 1879-1934. Troutman’s interest in American Indian history led him to focus on music as a means to resist governmental policies designed to break up Native communities. Troutman uncovered references in the National Archives illustrating the federal government’s suppression of Native music on reservations and in boarding schools. “The federal government withheld treatyguaranteed rations to dancers and incarcerated others,” Troutman says. “However, I was amazed to discover just how agile and adept the Lakotas were at sidestepping the government policies.” His book illustrates how dancing and music increased on reservations despite the federal government’s attempts to eradicate it.
To host a One Book South Dakota discussion, apply at www.sdhumanities.org/programs_book.htm
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PRESENTERS DAVID ABRAMS David Abrams grew up in Jackson, Wyo. He earned a B.A. in English from the University of Oregon and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks. His short stories have appeared in Esquire, Narrative, The Greensboro Review, The North Dakota Review and other literary quarterlies. Abrams retired in 2008 after a 20-year career as an Army journalist. He lives in Butte, Mont., with his wife.
SHERMAN ALEXIE
Chase Jarvis
Sherman Alexie is one of the most wellknown and beloved literary writers of his generation. A National Book Awardwinning author, poet and filmmaker, he has been named one of the Best Young American Novelists. Much of his writing draws upon his experiences as a Native American growing up on the Spokane Indian reservation. He lives in Seattle, Wash.
ELLEN BAKER Ellen Baker was born in Grand Rapids, Minn., and grew up in Wisconsin, Illinois and South Dakota. She has worked as a costumed living history interpreter, a curator of a World War II museum and a bookseller and event coordinator at an independent bookstore. She lives in Minnesota and Maine.
JEFF BARNES An Omaha native and fifth-generation Nebraskan, Jeff Barnes is an independent writer and historian. He is a past chairman of the Nebraska Hall of Fame Commission and marketing director for the Durham Museum, and is a speaker with the Nebraska Humanities Council.
ELIZABETH BERG Elizabeth Berg was born in St. Paul, Minn. She submitted her first poem to American Girl magazine when she was 9 years old. It was rejected, and it took 25 years before she submitted anything again. Then she won a writing contest and spent 10 years writing for maga14 • SOUTH DAKOTA FESTIVAL OF BOOKS
zines before transitioning to novels. She lives with her dog, Homer, and cat, Gracie, mostly in Chicago, but sometimes in Boston or Wisconsin.
SHERWIN BITSUI Sherwin Bitsui is originally from White Cone, Ariz., on the Navajo Reservation. He is Dine of the Todich’ii’nii (Bitter Water Clan), born for the Tl’izilani (Many Goats Clan). He holds a B.A. from the University of Arizona and an AFA in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts. He is the recipient of a Truman Capote Creative Writing Fellowship, an Individual Poet Grant from the Witter Bynner Foundation of Poetry and a Lannan Foundation Marfa Residency. He lives in Tucson, Ariz.
ROY BLOUNT JR. Roy Blount Jr. is the author of 22 books. He is a panelist on NPR’s Wait, Wait ... Don’t Tell Me, ex-president of the Authors Guild, a member of PEN and the Fellowship of Southern Authors, a New York Public Library Literary Lion, a Boston Public Library Literary Light, a usage consultant to the American Heritage Dictionary and an original member of the Rock Bottom Remainders. He comes from Decatur, Ga., and lives in western Massachusetts.
DEBORAH BLUM Deborah Blum seemed destined to become a science writer. Her father, an exuberant entomologist, liked to bring his research home. Her mother, a freelance writer, published a family newspaper and drafted her four daughters as reporters. Blum’s latest book, The Poisoner’s Handbook, appeared in paperback in 2011, promptly becoming a New York Times bestseller. Blum is married to writer Peter Haugen.
KEVIN BOEKHOFF Kevin Boekhoff resides in Sioux Falls with his wife, Katie, and their Yorkshire Terrier, T-Bone Dickens. Boekhoff graduated from Pacific Coast Baptist Bible
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PRESENTERS College. He served as pastor of a Baptist church in North Idaho for 10 years and currently serves Eastside Baptist Church. He also spends much of his time writing. He currently serves on the board of the Parkinson’s Association of South Dakota (PASD).
SEBASTIAN FELIX BRAUN Sebastian Braun is Associate Professor and Chair of the Indian Studies Department at the University of North Dakota. Before he moved to the Plains, he loved mountain biking in Switzerland, where he grew up and studied ethnology, history and philosophy at Universität Basel before earning a Ph.D. in anthropology from Indiana University. His work explores the intersections of culture, economy, ecology and politics. He is currently finishing a volume on the methods and theories of North American ethnohistory.
MORGAN CALLAN ROGERS Morgan Callan Rogers grew up in Bath, Maine, a historic shipbuilding city on the Kennebec River. She spent summers in a small cottage with her parents and three siblings, exploring the woods and fields with the family dogs, wandering the rocky shore of the New Meadows River, swimming, reading and writing stories. She has been a librarian, journalist, actress, editor and teacher. She splits time between Maine and western South Dakota.
BRUCE AND KIM CAMPBELL For many years they’ve enjoyed cooking and baking South Dakota’s wild game, experimenting with hundreds of flavors and finding great-tasting combinations. As with many novice cooks, they never wrote their recipes on paper. One day someone asked for their Rooster RollUps recipe, and they realized that almost every pheasant recipe they developed was not written anywhere, so they began their journey to write a cookbook. They wanted to leave a legacy of wonderful South Dakota pheasant recipes with a South Dakota twist.
ANN CHARLES Ann Charles writes mysteries full of 16 • SOUTH DAKOTA FESTIVAL OF BOOKS
mayhem, humor, and a splash of romance. Charles has a B.A. in English with an emphasis on creative writing from the University of Washington. A winner of the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/ Suspense, she is a member of Sisters in Crime and Romance Writers of America. Charles has written several contemporary novels and series, and she is currently toiling on her next book.
ELIZABETH COOK-LYNN Elizabeth Cook-Lynn did her undergraduate work at South Dakota State University in English and journalism, graduating in 1952. She received a master’s from the University of South Dakota in Education, Psychology and Counseling in 1971. She was in a doctoral program at the University of Nebraska in 197778 and was a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow at Stanford University in 1976. She spent most of her academic career as Professor of English and Native American Studies at Eastern Washington University in Cheney from 1971 until her retirement.
SARAH CRICHTON Sarah Crichton is publisher of Sarah Crichton Books, an imprint of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. From 1996 to 2001, Crichton was V.P./Publisher at Little, Brown, where she signed up Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones and Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point and published other authors, including David Sedaris, Anita Shreve and George Stephanopoulos. Before her career in book publishing, Crichton was a top editor at Newsweek. She graduated from Harvard University.
TOM DEMPSTER Tom Dempster’s camera has accompanied him to India, Syria, Lebanon, the Philippines, Europe, Taiwan, Colombia, Iceland, and, of course, South Dakota. He is a freelance writer and photographer, and has been published in the International Herald Tribune, Sailing Magazine and South Dakota Magazine. He
is a University of South Dakota graduate with a B.A. in economics. He works as a financial advisor and lives in Sioux Falls with his wife Patti. They have three daughters, Elizabeth, Jennifer, and Ann.
PETE DEXTER Pete Dexter began his working life with a U.S. Post Office in New Orleans. He wasn’t very good at mail and quit, then caught on in Florida as a newspaper reporter, which he was not very good at, then got married, and was not very good at that. In Philadelphia he became a newspaper columnist, which he was pretty good at, and got divorced, which you would have to say he was good at because it only cost $300. Dexter remarried, won the National Book Award and built a house in the desert so remote that there is no postal service. He’s there six months a year, pecking away at the typewriter, living proof of the adage, “What goes around comes around” — that is, you quit the post office, pal, and the post office quits you.
JOHN DUFRESNE John Dufresne’s novels include Louisiana Power & Light, Love Warps the Mind a Little and Requiem, Mass. He has recently produced a writing guide entitled The Lie That Tells a Truth: A Guide to Writing Fiction. His short story “The Timing of Unfelt Smiles” was included in Miami Noir and in Best American Mystery Stories 2007. He has written a full-length play, Trailerville, which was produced at the Blue Heron Theatre in New York in 2005. He teaches in the MFA program at Florida International University in Miami.
CLYDE EDGERTON Clyde Edgerton is the author of 10 novels, a memoir, and numerous short stories and essays. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, and five of his novels have been New York Times Notable Books. He is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers and teaches creative writing at UNC Wilmington. He lives in Wilmington, N.C., with his wife, Kristina, and their children.
LEIF ENGER Enger was raised in Osakis, Minn. Starting in his teens, he wanted to write fiction. He worked as a reporter and producer for Minnesota Public Radio from 1984 until the sale of Peace Like a River to publisher Grove/Atlantic allowed him to take time off to write. In the early 1990s, he and his older brother, Lin, writing under the pen name L.L. Enger, produced a series of mystery novels featuring a retired baseball player. He is married and lives with his wife and two sons.
HEID ERDRICH A member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwa, Heid Erdrich grew up in Wahpeton, N.D. She earned degrees from Dartmouth College and The Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars. A recipient of Minnesota State Arts Board fellowships, and awards from The Loft Literary Center, the Archibald Bush Foundation and elsewhere, Erdrich has four times been nominated for the Minnesota Book
Award, which she won in 2009 for National Monuments.
The National. He lives in suburban New York with his wife and three children.
DAVID ALLAN EVANS
ADAM FORTUNATE EAGLE
South Dakota’s Poet Laureate was born in Sioux City, Iowa in 1940. Evans went to college on a football scholarship, and by graduation he was writing poems and short stories. He was a professor of English and writer-in-residence at South Dakota State University from 1968 to 2006. Evans is the author of nine collections of poetry and the author/editor of seven other books. He was twice a Fulbright Scholar in China and was an SDSU faculty-exchange professor in Kunming, China for one semester.
Adam Fortunate Eagle was born on the Chippewa Reservation in Red Lake, Minn. He attended the Haskell Indian Institute in Kansas, where he met his wife, Bobbi. Eagle is the Spiritual Leader of the Keepers of the Sacred Tradition of Pipemakers, and was an organizer of the Indian occupation of Alcatraz Island. He lives with his wife on her ShoshonePaiute reservation near Fallon, Nev.
ROB FLEDER Rob Fleder joined Sports Illustrated as a senior editor in 1986, left in 1989, and returned in 1991 to become features editor. In 1995, he was promoted to assistant managing editor, and in 1996, to executive editor. Fleder earned a B.A. from Brown University and an M.S.J. in journalism from Columbia University. He has worked at numerous publications, including Esquire, Playboy and
JOSH GARRETT-DAVIS Josh Garrett-Davis grew up in Aberdeen, Hot Springs and Pierre. His book, Ghost Dances: Proving Up on the Great Plains was published in August 2012 by Little, Brown. His essays have been published in Dislocate, South Dakota History, the Rumpus, Lapham’s Quarterly online and the Iowa Review online. He received an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University and began a Ph.D. in Ameri-
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PRESENTERS can history at Princeton in 2011. He lives in Philadelphia with his sweetheart, Marina Libel.
FRASER HARRISON Fraser Harrison began writing full-time in 1975. He has written reviews and articles for The Guardian, The Independent, Country Living and BBC Wildlife, has been a regular contributor to Radio 4’s Kaleidoscope and has published many books. In 1993 he travelled to the Midwest to make a program for Radio 3 about the Black Hills and write a travel article for The Sunday Times. In 1995 he made a second radio feature in the U.S., this time tracing General Custer’s trail to the Little Bighorn. Fraser lives in Suffolk with his wife and two children.
PAUL HEDREN Paul Hedren of Omaha is retired from nearly 37 years with the National Park Service. Hedren has written extensively on the 19th century regular Army and the Indian wars of the Northern Plains. He is the author of 10 books, most recently Ho! For the Black Hills: Captain Jack Crawford Reports the Black Hills Gold Rush and Great Sioux War. His book After Custer: Loss and Transformation in Sioux Country received the 2012 Wrangler Non-fiction Book Award from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.
WILL HERMES Will Hermes is a senior critic for Rolling Stone and a longtime contributor to NPR’s “All Songs Considered.” His work appears in The New York Times; he has also written for Spin, the Village Voice, The Believer, GQ, Salon, and Entertainment Weekly. He co-edited SPIN: 20 Years of Alternative Music (Crown/Three Rivers, 2006) with Sia Michel, and his writing was included in Da Capo Best Music Writing 2006 and Da Capo Best Music Writing 2007.
PATRICK HICKS Patrick Hicks has penned five poetry collections, most recently This London (2010), and edited A Harvest of Words: Contemporary South Dakota 18 • SOUTH DAKOTA FESTIVAL OF BOOKS
Poetry (2010). His work has appeared in Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, Virginia Quarterly Review, Natural Bridge and New Ohio Review. His stories have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and he has received a grant to support work on his first novel, which is about Auschwitz. He lives in Sioux Falls, where he is the writer-in-residence at Augustana College.
JOSHILYN JACKSON New York Times Bestselling novelist Joshilyn Jackson’s books have won SIBA’s novel of the year award, twice been a No. 1 Book Sense Pick, and twice been shortlisted for the Townsend prize. A former actor, Jackson reads the audio versions of her novels, and has been nominated for the Audie Award, made AudioFile Magazine’s best of the year list and the 2012 Audible All-Star list for highest listener ranks/reviews, and garnered a Listen Up Award from Publisher’s Weekly. She lives in Decatur, Ga., with her husband and two children.
SANDY JERSTAD Sandy Jerstad graduated from St. Olaf College in 1965. She taught junior high geography and English before finding a career at Augustana College, coaching tennis and volleyball for six years and softball for 27 years. Jerstad is in the Augustana Hall of Fame, the South Dakota Sports Hall of Fame and the National Fastpitch Coaches Hall of Fame. She served in the South Dakota State Senate for four years and teaches part-time at Augustana.
MARILYN JOHNSON Marilyn Johnson is the author of two books: This Book Is Overdue!, about librarians and archivists in the digital age, and The Dead Beat, about the art of obituaries and obituary writers. She is a former editor and staff writer for Life and other magazines, and lives with her family in New York.
RODNEY JONES Rodney Jones writes narrative poems that are also philosophical meditations. His poetry celebrates the relationships and events of his Alabama hometown and preserves the vernacular. His debut, The Story They Told Us of Light (1980), was chosen by Elizabeth Bishop for the Associated Writing Programs Award series. Elegy for the Southern Drawl (1999) was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and Salvation Blues (2006) was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize. He has taught English at the University of Illinois-Carbondale since 1985.
BRUCE JUNEK & TASS THACKER Explorers, authors and photographers Bruce Junek and Tass Thacker have spent 34 years traveling through the world’s most exotic places. The Road of Dreams is the story of their two-year around-the-world bicycle trip. Andes to the Amazon chronicles adventures from seven different journeys in Mexico and Central and South America. The husband and wife team have bicycled through southern Africa and the eastern Mediterranean and, in 2011, through China.
SAM KEAN Sam Kean spent years collecting mercury from broken thermometers as a kid, and now he’s a writer in Washington, D.C. His stories have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Mental Floss, Slate, Smithsonian Air & Space and The New Scientist. He is currently a correspondent for Science magazine. He has worked on fellowships in the United States and Europe, and was runner-up in the National Association of Science Writers’ award for best young science writer.
JON LAUCK Jon K. Lauck grew up on a farm near Madison. Lauck graduated from South Dakota State University in 1993, received his Ph.D. in economic history from the University of Iowa in 1997, and earned his law degree from the University of Minnesota in 2000.
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PRESENTERS MICHAEL LAWSON
CHRIS MCDOUGALL
Michigan native Michael Lawson earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history at the University of NebraskaOmaha and a Ph.D. in American history at the University of New Mexico. Lawson’s Dammed Indians provided the basis for Congressional legislation establishing tribal recovery trust funds to compensate for reservation infrastructure lost to federal dam projects. He is a partner in Morgan, Angel & Associates, L.L.C., a historical and public policy consulting firm in Washington, D.C.
Christopher McDougall won the Clarion Award in 2002 and became fluent in Spanish and Portuguese as an overseas correspondent for the Associated Press, reporting on the massacres in Rwanda and frontline fighting in Angola. He is now a contributing editor for Men’s Health. A three-time National Magazine Award finalist, he has written for Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, Outside, Men’s Journal and New York. He lives in rural Pennsylvania.
ADRIAN C. LOUIS
A graduate of Yale University and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, Karl Marlantes served as a Marine in Vietnam, where he was awarded the Navy Cross, the Bronze Star, two Navy Commendation Medals for valor, two Purple Hearts, and 10 air medals. Matterhorn is his debut novel.
Adrian C. Louis was raised in northern Nevada and is an enrolled member of the Lovelock Paiute Tribe. He earned a master’s in Creative Writing at Brown University. Louis edited four Native newspapers, including The Lakota Times and Indian Country Today, and co-founded the Native American Journalists Association. From 1984 to 1997, Louis taught at Oglala Lakota College on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Today he teaches English at Minnesota State University in Marshall.
MARC LYNCH Marc Lynch is associate professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University, where he is the director of the Institute for Middle East Studies and the Project on Middle East Political Science. He is also a non-resident senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and edits the Middle East Channel for ForeignPolicy.com.
WENDY MCCLURE Wendy McClure’s essays have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, the Chicago Sun-Times and a number of anthologies. She has contributed to Writers Block Party on NPR station WBEZ in Chicago and has spoken at conferences for BlogHer and the American Society of Journalists and Authors and for literary events at the Chicago Tribune Printers Row Book Festival. She has an MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She lives in Chicago with her husband, Chris. 20 • SOUTH DAKOTA FESTIVAL OF BOOKS
KARL MARLANTES
MARK MEIERHENRY Mark Meierh enry was raised in Gre gory and received a bachelor’s degree and juris doctor from the Univ ers ity of South Dakota. He served as direc tor of South Dakota Legal Services and as an adjunct professor of Trial Practice and Indian Law before becoming South Dakota’s Attorney General in 1979. As Attorney Gen eral, Meierhenry argued before the United States Supreme Court on behalf of South Dakota six times. In 1987 he joined the Danforth Law Firm in Sioux Falls.
DON MEYER Don Meyer is a retired basketball coach who completed his career in 2010 as head coach of the men’s team at Northern State University. His total wins are the most of any coach whose career has included at least one position at an NCAA school. Meyer was awarded the Jimmy V (Jim Valvano) Award For Perseverance at ESPN’s 2009 ESPY Awards.
KENT MEYERS Kent Meyers is the author of The Witness of Combines, a memoir, and four books of fiction, including Light in the Crossing, The River Warren and The
Work of Wolves. His most recent novel, Twisted Tree, won both the High Plains Book Award for fiction and the Society of Midland Authors Award for fiction. Meyers teaches at Black Hills State University and in Pacific Lutheran University’s Rainier Writing Program.
JOHN MILLER John E. Miller is a writer and historian of recent American history. He taught for almost three decades at South Dakota State University. He is the author of seven books, including Looking for History on Highway 14 and three volumes on Laura Ingalls Wilder. He has also written many articles and chapters on the history of politics, small towns and Midwestern culture.
MARGARET MIMS Margaret Mims writes intriguing mystery and vivid history with hints of romance and inspiration. She earned an M.A. from Seton Hill University’s Writing Popular Fiction program. Winner of the prestigious 2012 Spur Award for Best First Novel from the Western Writers of America, Mims is a member of Sisters in Crime, Romance Writers of America, Western Writers of America and Western Fictioneers. She’s working on the sequel to Double Crossing and a Lighthouse Mystery series.
S.D. NELSON S.D. Nelson is a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. His books have received the Spur Award, from the Western Writers of America, the American Library Association’s Notable Book Award and the Bluebonnet Master List Award from the Texas Library Association. Nelson’s paintings, which appear on CD covers, on greeting cards, in children’s books and in numerous public and private collections, offer contemporary interpretations of traditional Lakota images. He lives in Flagstaff, Ariz.
TINA NICHOLS COURY Tina Nichols Coury is an author, multimedia artist, blogger, vlogger and producer of book trailers. As “The Rushmore Kid,” she visits schools to present her popular “Why I Love America” pro-
gram, which promotes an understanding and appreciation of the essential qualities that make America great. Coury grew up in Los Angeles. She lives in Oxnard, Calif., with her husband Al.
REBECCA NORRIS WEBB Hot Springs native Rebecca Norris Webb’s book of lyrical photographs and spare writings, My Dakota, is about South Dakota’s landscape and weather. It also serves as an elegy for a lost brother. An exhibit of Webb’s photographs and writings runs through October 13 at The Dahl in Rapid City.
FRANK POMMERSHEIM Frank Pommersheim was born in New York City but has lived in South Dakota for more than 35 years. He serves on a number of tribal appellate courts throughout Indian country and as Chief Justice for the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Court of Appeals and the Rosebud Sioux Supreme Court. Pommer-
sheim writes extensively on Indian law and is a poet.
SUSAN POWER Susan Power is a Standing Rock Sioux author from Chicago. She earned a bachelor’s degree and juris doctor from Harvard. After a short career in law, she became a writer, earning an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her 1995 novel, The Grass Dancer, received the PEN/Hemingway Award for Best First Fiction. Power has written several other books, and her short fiction has appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, Paris Review, Voice Literary Supplement and The Best American Short Stories of 1993. She teaches at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn.
DEE DEE RAAP Dee Dee Raap is an author, speaker and consultant known for her compassion, enthusiasm and interactive approach. Raap has a simple mission: help busy people identify and live the values of service, leadership and life that make the journey great. Her marketing career
in travel, banking and consulting has given her a unique insight: service is a marketing strategy that helps organizations grow by creating customer, member and employee loyalty. She lives in Sioux Falls.
JIM REESE Jim Reese is an associate professor of English and director of the Great Plains Writers’ Tour at Mount Marty College in Yankton and editor-in-chief of PADDLEFISH. Reese’s poetry and prose has appeared in New York Quarterly, Poetry East, Paterson Literary Review and Louisiana Literature Review. His book ghost on 3rd was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and was a finalist for the 2010 Milt Kessler Poetry Award. Reese is an artistin-residence with the National Endowment for the Arts interagency initiative with the Department of Justice’s Federal Bureau of Prisons.
STEVE RIEDEL Steve Riedel was raised on the farm his
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PRESENTERS family homesteaded in eastern South Dakota in 1879. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Northern State University in Aberdeen. Riedel is the associate director of a residential treatment center for teenagers and actively pursues the creative arts through writing and woodcarving. He loves the outdoors, his family and Christmas.
LISA RIVERO Lisa Rivero’s writing career began with a food and cooking column in the Outpost Exchange, a Milwaukee-area magazine, and grew to include newspaper, magazine and online articles, four books on education and parenting and children’s historical fiction. She writes about her passions as a way to understand them, and is thrilled when her journey intersects with others. She teaches writing, technical composition, creative thinking, and other humanities courses at the Milwaukee School of Engineering.
LEE ANN RORIPAUGH Lee Ann Roripaugh was raised in Laramie, Wyo. She holds an MM in music history, a BM in piano performance and an MFA in creative writing, all from Indiana University. Her first volume of poetry, Beyond Heart Mountain, was selected by Ishmael Reed for the National Poetry Series and was a finalist for the 2000 Asian American Literature Awards. She is an assistant professor of English at the University of South Dakota.
GARY SCHMIDT Gary Schmidt is the author of many books for young readers, including The Wednesday Wars, First Boy and Okay For Now. His novel Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy was a Newbery Honor Book and a Printz Honor Book, while Okay For Now was a 2011 nominee for the National Book Award. Schmidt teaches writing at Calvin College and lives with his wife, author Elizabeth Stickney, and their six children on a farm in Alto, Mich. 22 • SOUTH DAKOTA FESTIVAL OF BOOKS
DON SIMMONS Mississippi native Donald Simmons became the first full-time director of the McGovern Center and the founding chairman of Dakota Wesleyan University’s Department of Leadership and Public Service in 2006. He serves as the dean of the College of Leadership and Public Service and Graduate Studies. Simmons received a Ph.D. in history and international studies from the University of Denver. Most of his research has focused on the displacement of peoples, primarily as a result of wars and conflict.
CHRISTINE STEWART-NUNEZ Christine Stewart-Nuñez received her Ph.D. in English from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her writing reflects her interdisciplinary work in history, identity, gender and place. In her poetry manuscript Syllables Rising, she weaves poems of landscape and culture with lyrics that engage the speaker’s experiences living in Turkey. Her collection Postcards on Parchment won the 2007 ABZ Poetry Contest. She is an assistant professor of English and Women’s Studies Coordinator at South Dakota State University.
MARY SWANDER Mary Swander, Iowa’s Poet Laureate, co-founded Agarts, a national group designed to explore the intersection of the arts and agriculture. Swander has published poems, essays, short stories and articles in The Nation, National Gardening Magazine, The New Republic, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine and Poetry magazine. Swander received her MFA from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She is a professor of English and a Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University.
AIMÉE AND DAVID THURLO Aimée and David Thurlo have been married for 41 years. David was raised
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PRESENTERS on the Navajo Indian Reservation and attended the University of New Mexico. Aimée, born in Havana, Cuba, has lived in New Mexico for 41 years. Their popular Ella Clah mystery series, featuring a Navajo woman police officer, won a New Mexico Book Award. Their Lee Nez vampire novels are under option to Red Nation Films. They also write romantic suspense novels and have sold more than 1 million copies worldwide.
JOHN TROUTMAN John Troutman grew up in Dothan, Ala. He earned an anthropology degree at Emory University, a master’s degree in American Indian Studies at the University of Arizona, and a Ph.D. in history at the University of Texas-Austin. His research and teaching includes American Indian history, public history and studies of race, culture and music in the 20th century United States. As a young man, he toured the U.S. and Europe as a lead and pedal steel guitarist.
VINCE TWO EAGLES Vince Two Eagles is an enrolled member of the Yankton Sioux Tribe. His columns, known as “The Rez of the Story” were born from a desire to bridge the cultural and racial gap that exists between Indian and non-Indian people. He hopes to portray Indian people in a positive light with the dignity and respect all people deserve.
ABE AND PAT USERA Abe and Pat were born in New York City and met in junior high school in 1960. Abe is a retired law enforcement officer, while Pat retired from a medical field. They moved to South Dakota in 1968 with their two children. They have always been involved as volunteers in their community, and one of their goals in life was to write a book. They have now published three books.
DAVE VOLK David Volk was raised in Mitchell. In 1969, after graduating from college, he was drafted into the U.S. Army. He served two years, one of which was in Vietnam as a combat photographer with the 101st Airborne Division. In 1972, at age 25, he was elected State Treasurer of South Dakota, the young24 • SOUTH DAKOTA FESTIVAL OF BOOKS
est person in the state’s history elected to statewide office. He was re-elected four times.
JOHN WAUGH John Waugh is a journalist turned historical reporter. He’s contributed to periodicals, including Civil War History, American Heritage, Civil War Times Illustrated, The Washington Post Book World, T h e N e w Yo r k Ti m e s , The Los Angeles Times Magazine and The Boston Globe. His first book, The Class of 1846, won the New York Civil War Round Table’s Fletcher Pratt Literary Award for the year’s best non-fiction book. He was born in California and reared in Arizona, and now lives with his wife in North Texas.
ALEX WEBB Magnum photographer Alex Webb has nine books, including most recently, The Suffering of Light: Thirty Years of Photographs, with an afterword by Geoff Dyer. His work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, National Geographic and other magazines, and has been exhibited widely. Alex will present a slide talk and workshop with his wife, Rebecca Norris Webb, in conjunction with her photography exhibit the first weekend in October at The Dahl in Rapid City.
ANN WEISGARBER Ann Weisgarber was raised in Ohio, but has been fascinated by the spirit of pioneer homesteaders since her first trip to the West. She was a social worker in a psychiatric hospital before moving to Houston, Texas, with her husband, Rob. Inspired by a cook stove in a South Dakota sod dugout and a photograph of an unnamed woman, she wrote The Personal History of Rachel DuPree. Weisgarber splits her time between Sugar Land, Texas, and Galveston, Texas.
JERRY WILSON Jerry Wilson has been a professor, newspaper reporter and managing editor of South Dakota Magazine. He has written over 100 stories for South Dakota Magazine and three books. Blackjacks and Blue Devils recreates through fiction the irrepressible characters and gritty images of the western life he has known. Waiting for Coyote’s Call: An Eco-memoir from the Missouri River Bluff details a quarter century of living with nature. American Artery: A Pan American Journey tells the stories of people and places along his 5,000-mile trip from Canada to Panama.
STEVEN WINGATE Steven Wingate’s debut short story collection, Wifeshopping, won the Bakeless Prize in Fiction from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. His fiction, essays, poetry, cross-genre work and criticism have appeared in Witness, Gulf Coast, Slice, Mississippi Review, Colorado Review, The Pinch, Brand (UK) and Literaturen Vestnik (Bulgaria). He’s taught creative writing at the College of the Holy Cross and the University of Colorado-Boulder, and currently teaches at South Dakota State University.
LISA YEE Lisa Yee was raised near Los Angeles. As a kid, she loved reading, opening brand new boxes of cereal (to get the prize) and riding the teacups at Disneyland. Yee attended Brightwood Elementary School in Monterey Park, Calif., where she once won an award for best-decorated cake. She has been an inventor, and a hand model and worked for a creative think tank. At Walt Disney World she was a writer/producer, and one time, when she was the only short person around, she got to be Mickey Mouse. She lives with family and her dog in South Pasadena, Calif.
Visit www.sdbookfestival.com for updates and other information about the presenting authors.
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A BOOK WRITTEN ABOUT SOUTH DAKOTANS. BY SOUTH DAKOTANS.
HESE ARE JUST A FEW excerpts taken from stories included in the fifth edition of the South Dakota Humanities Council’s “South Dakota Stories” series. The book, created to celebrate our 40th anniversary, answers the question “What Makes a South Dakotan?”
Get Your Hands on a Copy Our newest book, What Makes A South Dakotan?, will be released at the 10th Annual South Dakota Festival of Books (Sept. 28-30, 2012) in Sioux Falls. Join us at the official release party with readings at the Holiday Inn City Centre Starlite Room on Saturday, Sept. 29, from 4-4:45 p.m. The new book is a first-time collaboration between the South Dakota Humanities Council and South Dakota Community Foundation.
“Ideally, this sense of being a South Dakotan isn’t tied to a street address or occupation. It stems from a succession of experiences that foster familiarity and make you feel right at home, regardless of where you started.” — From My Life: Time to sum up 20 years in S.D. by Stu Whitney (Sioux Falls Argus Leader) “In winter, South Dakota takes endurance. Some say it keeps out the riff-raff, but it might be what forges our social consciousness. The cold weather tests its inhabitants, and guides us to value and protect those within reach.” — From An Icy Welcome by Mary Flemmer Husman “In South Dakota, getting the guyshed is pretty much a prerequisite for getting your manc a r d p u n c h e d . I t ’s s o r t o f a shedmitzvah.” — From The Guyshed: a South Dakota Institution by Lee Schoenbeck
FESTIVAL SPECIAL!!!
Take advantage of a great book deal at our festival release party.
To celebrate the release of this book and the 10th anniversary of the festival, we are offering a great deal on our collection of “South Dakota Stories” series books. These books are normally $13-15 each. But at this special event, you can purchase all five, including the newest book, for $40. Or purchase a single book for $10. The South Dakota Stories series includes On the Homefront, Life on the Farm and Ranch, One-Room Country School, Country Congregations and our latest book, What Makes A South Dakotan?
South Dakota Humanities Council | 605-688-6113 | 1215 Trail Ridge Rd. Suite A, Brookings, SD 57006 25
SC HE DULE OF EV E NTS
WORKSHOPS & SPECIAL EVENTS WEDNESDAY, Sept. 26 – SATURDAY, Sept. 29 All Day ~ SPECIAL EVENT — “Plein Aire Paint Out” — S.D. Artists will be painting on the streets of Sioux Falls.
WEDNESDAY, Sept. 26 7 PM ~ SPECIAL EVENT — Frost Arena, SDSU Campus in Brookings — The Festival Kicks Off with Sherman Alexie. Free tickets available in September at www.sdstate.edu/honors. 7 PM ~ SPECIAL EVENT — T.F. Riggs High School in Pierre — Henry Rollins rolls into Pierre as part of his 50-state tour of state capitals.
THURSDAY, Sept. 27 7:30 – 9:30 PM ~ Special Event — Icon Lounge Event Hall — “Author Reception” — Meet and mingle with your favorite festival authors during our festival fundraiser! — Hosted by SDHC Current and Past Board Members. TICKET REQUIRED ($50)
FRIDAY, Sept. 28 10 AM – 12 PM ~ WORKSHOP – Holiday Inn, Palisades I — “On Writing” — Acclaimed author Elizabeth Berg will conduct a workshop about the art of writing. TICKET REQUIRED ($20) 10 AM – 12 PM ~ WORKSHOP — Holiday Inn, Palisades II — “Writing Between the Lines: The Art of Subtext” — Joshilyn Jackson. TICKET REQUIRED ($20) 10 AM – 12 PM ~ WORKSHOP — Holiday Inn, Palisades III — “Writing Poetry” — Heid Erdrich. TICKET REQUIRED ($20) 10 AM – 12 PM ~ WORKSHOP — Holiday Inn, Cascade — “Writing Your First Novel in Six Months” — John Dufresne. TICKET REQUIRED ($20)
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10 AM – 12 PM ~ WORKSHOP — Sioux Falls VA Hospital Auditorium
— “Literature and Medicine” — Karl Marlantes. TICKET REQUIRED ($20) 10 AM – 2 PM ~ SPECIAL EVENT — Sioux Falls Library B — “Writing Marathon” — Explore downtown Sioux Falls with fellow writers and practice your craft in a yearly event hosted by the Dakota Writing Project. TICKET REQUIRED ($15) 12 – 1 PM ~ SPECIAL EVENT — Barnes & Noble — SDPB broadcasts Dakota Midday with Festival authors live. 12 – 2 PM ~ SPECIAL EVENT — Orpheum, Anne Zabel Studio Theater — “Contrary Warrior: The Life & Times of Adam Fortunate Eagle” — Join Adam Fortunate Eagle for a screening and discussion of the critically acclaimed film. 12 – 2 PM ~ SPECIAL EVENT — Augustana College Morrison Commons, Room 3-1 — “The Arab Uprising: The Unfinished Revolutions of the New Middle East” — Foreign policy expert Marc Lynch will deliver remarks at a luncheon hosted by the SD World Affairs Council. TICKET REQUIRED ($15) 12 – 2 PM ~ SPECIAL EVENT — Holiday Inn, Starlite — “Book-Lovers’ Luncheon” — Elizabeth Berg hosts a luncheon where she’ll discuss a “menu” of exciting titles that are ripe for your book club! TICKET REQUIRED ($20) 3 – 4 PM ~ Mass Book Signing — Holiday Inn, Atrium — “Early Bird Book Signings.” 6 – 8:30 PM ~ SPECIAL EVENT — Holiday Inn, Starlite — “Literary Feast: A Celebration of 10 Years of One Book South Dakota and the SD Festival of Books” — Past One Book SD authors Elizabeth Berg, Leif Enger, and Kent Meyers join 2012 One Book author Michael Lawson for an exceptional night of literature and cuisine. TICKET REQUIRED ($45)
SATURDAY, Sept. 29 12 – 1:30 PM ~ SPECIAL EVENT — Holiday Inn, Starlite — “American Girl Tea Party” — Lisa Yee, author of the Kanani series, will host a tea party for kids and adults that includes beverages and desserts, with a Kanani American Girl doll to be raffled at the event! TICKET REQUIRED ($15) 3 – 3:45 PM ~ SPECIAL EVENT — Zandbroz Variety — “Broosters Dakota Cuisine Cookbook: Enjoy an Afternoon Snack!” — Bruce and Kim Campbell. 6 – 9 PM ~ SPECIAL EVENT — Orpheum, Lobby — “Plein Aire Paint Out wet sale with SD artists.” 7:30 – 9 PM ~ SPECIAL EVENT — Orpheum, Main Theater — “Triple Play: Major League Authors Discuss Damned Yankees” — For our keynote event, join a blockbuster trio of personalities that includes author and Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! contributor Roy Blount Jr., National Book AwardWinner Pete Dexter, and Sports Illustrated editor Rob Fleder as they discuss the world’s most loved (and hated) team. This event will begin with a special anniversary edition of the 2012 Distinguished Achievement in the Humanities Awards.
SUNDAY, Sept. 30 11 AM – 1 PM ~ SPECIAL EVENT — Holiday Inn, Starlite — “A Celebration of Music & the Humanities” — Prior to the SD Symphony performance, get your fill of music from authors who are uniquely suited to discuss it: Rolling Stone senior editor Will Hermes, professor/ professional musician John Troutman, and The Violinist’s Thumb author Sam Kean. Brunch included. TICKET REQUIRED ($15) 2 –3:30 PM ~ SPECIAL EVENT — Holiday Inn, Falls Room — “Lakota Music Project” — A collaborative ensemble featuring the South Dakota Symphony Chamber Orchestra and a traditional Lakota drum group will provide the capstone for the festival weekend. Times and presenters are subject to change. Visit www.sdbookfestival.com for updates and additional information about the schedule. (Saturday events continue on following page) 27
SATURDAY, Sept. 29 KEY: CHILDREN’S/Y.A. | FICTION | HISTORY/TRIBAL WRITING | NON-FICTION | POETRY | WRITERS’ SUPPORT
TIME
HOLIDAY STARLITE ROOM
HOLIDAY PALISADES I
9 TO 9:45 AM
After Custer: Loss & Transformation in Sioux Country (Paul Hedren)
East of the River: Poems Ancient & New (Frank Pommersheim)
Blackjacks & Blue Devils: Sharing Dakota Life Truth in a Pack of Lies Through Fiction (Steve (Jerry Wilson) Riedel)
Finding the Gifts of a Mom: The Values That Guide Your Life Forever (Dee Dee Raap)
You Go Girl!: Writing 10 TO 10:45 AM Strong Female
Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea (Morgan Callan Rogers)
Buffalo Inc.: American Indians & Economic Development (Sebastian Felix Braun)
Letters of Love: Sermons & Reflections (Sandy Jerstad)
Pipestone: My Life in An Indian Boarding School (Adam Fortunate Eagle)
Imaginary Logic 11 TO 11:45 AM (Rodney Jones)
Will Kill for Fiction: Murder & Mystery 101 (Ann Charles & Meg Mims)
A Separate Country: The Colonial Relationship between the US and Sioux Indians (Elizabeth Cook-Lynn)
The Art of Writing As a Team (Aimee & David Thurlo)
Landscape As Character: The Pressure of Place (Josh Garrett-Davis & Ann Weisgarber)
12 TO 12 TO 1:30 PM 12:45 PM American Girl Tea Party
Intuitive Writing: What How Lucky You Can Be Your Characters Can (Don Meyer) Teach You (Susan Power)
The Lie That Tells A Truth: A Guide to Writing Fiction (John Dufresne)
12 TO 1:30 PM
Characters (Ellen Baker & Joshilyn Jackson)
(Lisa Yee)
HOLIDAY PALISADES II
HOLIDAY PALISADES III
1 TO 2 PM
HOLIDAY SKYLINE ROOM
Selected Readings with Acclaimed Poet Sherwin Bitsui (Sponsored by the SD State Poetry Society)
SATURDAY AFTERNOON MASS BOOK SIGNINGS 2 TO 2:45 PM
The Personal History of Rachel DuPree (Ann Weisgarber)
Desire, Decadence, & Discipline: Poetry Practice & Themes (Christine Stewart-Nunez)
Plains Political Tradition: A Discussion of SD Political Culture (Jon Lauck, John Miller, & Don Simmons)
Cell Traffic: New & Selected Poetry (Heid Erdrich)
At Auschwitz: Doing Research at (and Writing About) a Nazi Concentration Camp (Patrick Hicks)
3 TO 3:45 PM
From Peace Like a River to So Brave, Young and Handsome: Writing from the Heartland (Leif Enger)
Fobbit: A Novel (David Abrams)
How Historians Work: Retelling the Past-from the Civil War to the Wider World (John C. Waugh)
Literature of the “New” West (Steven Wingate)
4 TO 4:45 PM
What Makes a South Dakotan? Book Launch Celebration with contributors and editors
Ghost Dances: Proving Up On the Great Plains (Josh Garrett-Davis)
Writing & Selling Your Genre Stories (Ann Charles)
Selections from ghost on Selected Poems with 3rd (Jim Reese) South Dakota’s Poet Laureate (David Allan Evans)
The Struggle of Life as True Love Prevails (Abe & Pat Usera)
Custer in Dakota (Jeff Barnes)
5 TO 5:45 PM
28 • SOUTH DAKOTA FESTIVAL OF BOOKS
Finding a Niche For Your Writing (Aimée & David Thurlo)
!
REGISTRATION IS FREE AND REQUIRED
Attendees must register in advance to attend the Festival of Books. Register online at www.sdbookfestival.com or in person. Times and presenters are subject to change. Please check the Festival Survivor’s Guide (available at the Exhibitors Hall information booth or online at www.sdbookfestival.com) for updates.
HOLIDAY CASCADE
ORPHEUM ANNE ZABEL
ORPHEUM CLASSROOM
ORPHEUM MAIN THEATER
SIOUXLAND PUBLIC LIBRARY MEETING ROOM A MEETING ROOM B
The Rez of the Story (Vince Two Eagles)
This London: Reading & Writing About a City That Changed the World (Patrick Hicks)
God’s Work: Reflections on Everyday Heroes (Abe Usera)
Farmscape: The Changing Rural Environment (Mary Swander)
Greet the Dawn: The Lakota Way (S.D. Nelson)
From Fact to Fiction: Writing Historical Fiction for Children (Lisa Rivero)
Indian Blues: American Indians and the Politics of Music (John Troutman)
Infinite West: An Englishman’s Take on South Dakota (Fraser Harrison)
I Forgot That I Remembered: Exploring Life with Parkinson’s Disease (Kevin Boekhoff)
Selected Readings (Adrian C. Louis)
Rainforests & Mayan Ruins (Bruce Junek & Tass Thacker)
Writing Marathon (Dakota Writing Project Begins Here)
Bamboo Rafting on the Li River: Writings on China (Hosted by Jan & David Allan Evans)
Here & There: Photographs of Alex Webb & Rebecca Norris Webb (Alex Webb & Rebecca Norris Webb)
Forts of Dakota Territory (Jeff Barnes)
Love Goes to Buildings on Fire: Writing About New York City Music in the 1970s (Will Hermes)
Writing for Young Readers: Why Is It So Important to Us All? (Gary Schmidt)
The Boy on Mount Rushmore: Crafting the Story of an American Monument (Tina Nichols Coury)
The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie (Wendy McClure)
The Poisoner’s Handbook (Deborah Blum)
On the Cusp of a Dangerous Year (Lee Ann Roripaugh)
Reinventing Running: Reviving Ancient Secrets of the World’s Most Popular Sport (Chris McDougall)
Lakota Storytelling with the Berenstain Bears
The Mystery of the Pheasants (Mark Meierhenry & Dave Volk)
IN THE HOLIDAY INN ATRIUM! The Work of Wolves: A One Book SD Retrospective (Kent Meyers)
The Violinist’s Thumb: And Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code (Sam Kean)
I Gave My Heart to Know This (Ellen Baker)
North of Twelfth Street: Ho! For the Black Hills The Changing Face of (Paul Hedren) Sioux Falls Neighborhoods (Tom Dempster)
Broken Landscape: Indians, Indian Tribes & the Constitution (Frank Pommersheim) Double Crossing: An Eastern Greenhorn Writes a Western (Meg Mims)
A Grownup Kind of Writing (Joshilyn Jackson)
Before and After: Impact of the Dams on White Swan and Other Communities (Michael Lawson)
Matterhorn (Karl Marlantes)
Lakota Berenstain Bears (SDPB Program Screenings)
Painted Horses and Symbols of the Lakota (S.D. Nelson)
The eBook Revolution: Warp Speed! (Lisa Yee) Exploring the New World of Writing & Technology (Marilyn Johnson & Sarah Crichton)
Land of the Dragon (Bruce Junek & Tass Thacker)
Waiting for Coyote’s Call: Seeking Sustainability on the Northern Plains (Jerry Wilson)
Alphabetter Juice: or, The Joy of Text (Roy Blount Jr)
The Mystery of the Maize (Mark Meierhenry & Dave Volk)
The Pigs & Friends (Abe Usera)
A Homestead Holiday (Steve Riedel)
Music and Stories from The Night Train and Papadaddy’s Book for New Fathers (Clyde Edgerton)
Planting Words with Oscar Micheaux: From Fact to Historical Fiction (Lisa Rivero)
Mount Rushmore: One Boy, One Amazing Story (Tina Nichols Coury)
(See page 26 for special events)
29
Rich Murphy
EXHIBITORS’ HALL AUTHORS
Books By Terrall, Custer, SD www.lulu.com/spotlight/Terrall M.J. Boyd, Sioux Falls, SD www.cemeteryplanet.me
BOOKSELLERS
Prairie Hearth Publishing, LLC, Yankton, SD www.prairiehearthpublishingllc.com
Old Dakota Trading Co, Sturgis, SD
Colleen Brezny, Piedmont, SD
Hamster Day Book, Sioux Falls, SD www.tatepublishing.com
Creative Comics, Sioux Falls, SD www.creativecomics.net
Barnes & Noble Book Sellers, Sioux Falls, SD www.bn.com
Linda Cundy, Madison, SD www.lindacundy.tateauthor.com
Stensland Books, Omaha, NE www.stenslandbooks.com
Cecelia Rensch Day, Ramona, SD
Zandbroz Variety, Sioux Falls, SD
Marcia Calhoun Forecki, Council Bluffs, IA www.goodreads.com/author/show/315820
MEDIA
Journey For Freedom, Forest Lake, MN www.journeyforfreedom.com Bill Markley, Pierre, SD www.billmarkley.com North Dakota Authors, ND Oak Lake Writers’ Society, Brookings, SD Charles Rogers, Sioux Falls, SD Olga Rudnitsky, Yonkers, NY www.themagicmask.com
South Dakota Public Broadcasting, Vermillion, SD, www.sdpb.org
MUSEUMS
Center for Western Studies, Sioux Falls, SD
South Dakota Art Museum, Brookings, SD www.southdakotaartmuseum.com
ORGANIZATIONS
Dakota Forensic Consulting, Sioux Falls, SD www.dakotaforensics.com Pasco Intellectual Properties, Sioux Falls, SD
Linda Seger, Hot Springs, SD
Christian Science Committee on Publication, Rapid City, SD
Jason Willis, Mapleton, MN www.jasonwillisnovels.com
Western Writers of America, Encampment, WY www.westernwriters.org
Mark Uden, Sioux City, IA www.theonlypath.tateauthor.com
Miller and Company, Duluth, MN Friends of the Oglala Lakota, Dublin, NH www.lakotafriends.org
The Exhibitors’ Hall is located in the Holiday Inn Falls Room. Open Friday from 3 –6 p.m. and again on Saturday from 9 a.m. – 6 p.m. 30 • SOUTH DAKOTA FESTIVAL OF BOOKS
CELEBRATING 10 YEARS! September 28-30, 2012 Sioux Falls, SD www .sdbookfestival. com 605-688-6113 PRESENTING PARTNERS
A SPECIAL THANKS TO ALL OF THE DONORS AND VOLUNTEERS WHO SUPPORT SOUTH DAKOTA HUMANITIES COUNCIL PROGRAMS. South Dakota Magazine, Holiday Inn City Centre Sioux Falls, Siouxland Libraries, Results Radio, Nicholson & Nicholson, Plastic Surgery Associates of South Dakota, Barnes and Noble, Zandbroz Variety, SD Festival of Books Planning Committee, Orpheum Theater, The Ament Group of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, Sioux Falls Chamber of Commerce, Augustana College, Sioux Falls V.A. Hospital, T.F. Riggs High School, Honors College and Office of Diversity, South Dakota State University, Brass Family Foundation, South Dakota Heritage Fund, Dakota West Books, Jerry & Gail Simmons, Jack & Linda Stengel, Tom & Sherry DeBoer, Dan & Arlene Kirby, Mark & Judith Meierhenry, South Dakota World Affairs Council, Augustana College, Becky Schenk, Jean Nicholson, Sheryl Baloun, Icon Lounge & Events, Friends of 10th Anniversary Festival & 40th Anniversary Legacy Endowment Fund, Tom Dempster, Bill Walsh, Ann McKay Thompson, Gerry Berger Law, Matt Moen, Anne Gormley, Scott Rausch
Save the Date: 11th Annual South Dakota Festival of Books September 20 – 22, 2013, Deadwood
TRIBUTE SPONSORS