Author David Rhodes (left) and poet Dr. Colleen J. McElroy (below) will be featured at this year’s Chippewa Valley Book Festival.

 The podium that stands between the authors who speak at this year’s Chippewa Valley Book Festival and the audience members who clutch their books will serve more like a permeable membrane than a barrier. With open-ended Q & A sessions following most readings and the prospect of literary dinner chats, words and thoughts will flow in both directions.

 “I’m always curious what readers are thinking about and what they’re exploring at certain times,” said David Rhodes, acclaimed author of Driftless, which was heralded by the Chicago Tribune in 2008 as one of the “best works of fiction to come out of the Midwest in many years.” He talks about the connective power of literature – how it creates an intersection point between circles of strangers, “making forms we can all participate in” and “allowing us to know someone in common.” Even if you’re not yet acquainted with the characters in Driftless, there’s a good chance you know Wisconsin. The setting – which Rhodes deems to be the utmost consideration in fiction writing because it dictates the who and what – forges an automatic relationship between writers and readers.

John Lehman, poetry editor of Wisconsin People & Ideas, says a poem blossoms when exposed to many different kinds of people. “The audience is as important to the experience as the poet themselves,” he said, while at the same time acknowledging that poetry, because it is often dense, can be difficult to “catch” at a reading. Once the lines are read, they seem to dissolve in the air. “But we make sure it’s clear and understood,” said Lehman, who makes up one-fourth of the Prairie Fire Poetry Quartet, a touring band of  Wisconsin poets. “You can tell from their body language that they’re paying attention.” How do they ease that leap of consciousness? The quartet, which also includes Robin Chapman, Richard Roe, and Shoshauna Shy, tweaks the traditional reading by grouping individual poems around a single theme, which they address in an introduction. They will also present a section called “Under the Influence,” in which they talk candidly about and read work by poets who have clearly shaped their craft.

But not all authors or poets share the notion that writing is a participatory venture. “It’s not an interactive art form,” said Dr. Colleen McElroy, a Seattle-based poet whose latest collection, Sleeping with the Moon received a 2009 PEN/Oakland National Literary Award. Yet sometimes, she said, audience members approach her years after readings to express the impact she has had. One such reader, who had absorbed her series of poems about lone shoes abandoned on the highway, found a pair strewn a mile apart that he picked up and was now wearing. The poem affected him so much, he wore it symbolically on his feet years later.

Rhodes and McElroy believe these events (there are more than 20 separate presentations at this year’s festival) can be valuable not only to avid readers but to those who are just getting the ink flowing. “It’s important for young people to see working artists,” said McElroy, who focused on dance and drama as a child, and was shocked to learn that not all poets were white, male, and deceased. Even though Rhodes personally did not attend many readings in his youth, he agrees that they are important. “I was too shy to go to any. … I did some sitting in the back, but I didn’t attend as many of these as I should have. … In your formative years, it is often very helpful to look at someone who is a writer and see how they do things,” he said.