CANCELLED: Chippewa Valley Book Festival: Making the Unseen, Seen: Giving Voice to Diverse Characters in Fiction and Beyond

This program will discuss the importance of turning peripheral characters into primary ones, both its challenges and delights. Gain a better understanding of the impact literature, television, and film have on shaping the identities of people from different walks of life.

UW-Stout Memorial Student Center Ballrooms 302 10th Ave, Menomonie

Cost: FREE

Chippewa Valley Book Festival: Mrs. Bond: The True Role of Female Spies During the First World War

Featuring the research done for her work of fiction, author Anna Lee Huber will explore the fact and fiction behind the female secret agents of WWI, the spy rings with which they worked behind enemy lines, and examine their lives after the guns fell silent.

Altoona Public Library 1303 Lynn Ave., Altoona

Cost: FREE

Chippewa Valley Book Festival

The Chippewa Valley Book Festival celebrates the written word through author readings and book signings, school visits, meals with authors, and includes workshops and programs for writers of all ages. The 2019 festival will feature more than twenty authors at area libraries, schools, and other community locations. The festival runs October 21-27, 2019, and features programs daily for seven days with Saturday and weekday evening programs in Eau Claire and around the Chippewa Valley.

Multiple Locations

From a Western Wisconsin Farm to the World Series: The Story of Burleigh Grimes and Andy Pafko

Joe Niese is an award-winning author and a library director. He has written three books: Burleigh Grimes: Baseball's Last Legal Spitballer, Handy Andy: The Andy Pafko Story, and Gus Dorais: Gridiron Innovator, All-American and Hall of Fame Coach. He lives in Chippewa Falls.

Chippewa Falls Public Library 105 W Central St., Chippewa Falls

Cost: FREE

Wild Dreams and The Publication Game

Have you wondered how a book/article gets published? What do agents look for? Do you need one? How has the publishing industry changed with the advent of electronic media? Maureen D. Mack will address these issues as she has published both fiction and non-fiction and has had an agent and a public relation team.

The Volume One Gallery (Inside The Local Store) 205 N. Dewey St., Eau Claire

Cost: FREE

Chippewa Valley Book Festival: Long Way Round: Through the Heartland by River

Inspired by a mythic Round River, John Hildebrand set off in a small boat to rediscover his home state of Wisconsin. The program will combine photographs, discussion, and short excerpts from the book as Hildebrand shares the sense of both wonder and belonging he discovered through his travels.

Pablo Center at the Confluence 120 Graham Avenue, Eau Claire

Cost: Tickets required (FREE)

Chippewa Valley Book Festival: A Font and the Search for One Man’s Fate

During the depths of World War II, Frenchman Marcel Heuzé mailed letters to his wife and three young daughters from a labor camp in Berlin. "Marcel's Letters" details author and type designer Carolyn Porter's quest to put together the pieces of Marcel's life after finding them in a bundle in an antique shop.

Fall Creek Public Library 122 E Lincoln Ave, Fall Creek

Cost: FREE

Open Mic Night at The Plus

See or join established and emerging artists. Each week, a different artist will host, and lead off the evening with 20 minutes of their work. Following the performance, open mic begins. Music, comedy, sketch, live readings, poetry, acting, improv welcomed. Half price apps from 10p-midnight.

The Plus 208 S. Barstow St, Eau Claire

Cost: FREE

Age: All Ages

Chippewa Valley Book Festival

The Chippewa Valley Book Festival celebrates the written word through author readings and book signings, school visits, meals with authors, and includes workshops and programs for writers of all ages. The 2019 festival will feature more than twenty authors at area libraries, schools, and other community locations. The festival runs October 21-27, 2019, and features programs daily for seven days with Saturday and weekday evening programs in Eau Claire and around the Chippewa Valley.

Multiple Locations

Chippewa Valley Book Festival: A Font and the Search for One Man’s Fate

During the depths of World War II, Frenchman Marcel Heuzé mailed letters to his wife and three young daughters from a labor camp in Berlin. "Marcel's Letters" details author and type designer Carolyn Porter's quest to put together the pieces of Marcel's life after finding them in a bundle in an antique shop.

Menomonie Public Library 600 Wolske Bay Rd, Menomonie

Cost: FREE

Chippewa Valley Book Festival: Revenge of the Asian Woman: A Reading with Dorothy Chan

Dorothy Chan, the newest Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at UWEC, reads from her newest collection of poetry. Continuing with the themes of food, sexuality, culture, and fetishes developed in her previous collections, the reading will showcase Chan’s latest work as well as her reverence for pop culture, kitsch, and excess.

L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library 400 Eau Claire St, Eau Claire

Cost: FREE

Night of the Living ZINE

Spooky tales from this world and beyond. Celebrate the release of the first-ever Odd Humyns Creepy Zine: "Shudder: A Zine Series for Sleepless Nights." Light refreshments. Open to all ages (but only if they're okay with getting spooked!)

Odd Humyns 209 N Barstow St, Eau Claire

Cost: FREE

Age: All Ages

Chippewa Valley Book Festival: The Optimist at Midnight

Storytelling is by nature a hopeful endeavor, never more than in times of division and anxiety. Using texts from novelists, poets, and screenwriters, Enger will discuss the Midwestern imagination, the magic of kite-flying, and the power of stories to inspire change.

The Heyde Center for the Arts 3 South High St., Chippewa Falls

Cost: FREE

Chippewa Valley Book Festival: Barstow & Grand: Issue #3 Release Reading

The release party for Issue #3 will feature readings from the journal, including fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, as well as commentary from the editors on the publication process and how the journal has grown in its third year.

Lazy Monk Brewing, LLC 97 West Madison Street, Eau Claire

Cost: FREE

Chippewa Valley Book Festival

The Chippewa Valley Book Festival celebrates the written word through author readings and book signings, school visits, meals with authors, and includes workshops and programs for writers of all ages. The 2019 festival will feature more than twenty authors at area libraries, schools, and other community locations. The festival runs October 21-27, 2019, and features programs daily for seven days with Saturday and weekday evening programs in Eau Claire and around the Chippewa Valley.

Multiple Locations

Stories from Behind the Iron Curtain: 30 Years After the Berlin Wall

This event recognizes the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Verona Chambers will share heart-wrenching and sometimes humorous stories from her life in a communist regime.

UWEC Centennial Hall, Room 2614 1698 Park Avenue, Eau Claire

Fall Music Open Microphone

Open mic night at the café has returned hosted by Blaine Howard. Bring your talents to the stage and become part of the local scene. Sign up 6-7pm, plug in to our equipment and perform in front of a live audience. Music, poetry, comedy and spoken word are all welcome.

Acoustic Cafe - Eau Claire 505 S. Barstow St., Eau Claire

Cost: FREE

Age: All Ages

Local Lit: Out Loud

Anyone who has published in Local Lit is invited to come read one or two pieces. We've read you, now we want to hear you.

The Volume One Gallery (Inside The Local Store) 205 N. Dewey St., Eau Claire

Cost: FREE

Chippewa Valley Book Festival: "Small Animals": Parenting in the Age of Fear

Building on her own harrowing experiences, Brooks will reveal how expectations of parents have changed over the course of a single generation, and how these expectations—fueled by fear rather than reality—pressure mothers to report one another.

Pablo Center at the Confluence 120 Graham Avenue, Eau Claire

Cost: FREE, ticket required

Chippewa Valley Book Festival

The Chippewa Valley Book Festival celebrates the written word through author readings and book signings, school visits, meals with authors, and includes workshops and programs for writers of all ages. The 2019 festival will feature more than twenty authors at area libraries, schools, and other community locations. The festival runs October 21-27, 2019, and features programs daily for seven days with Saturday and weekday evening programs in Eau Claire and around the Chippewa Valley.

Multiple Locations

Chippewa Valley Book Festival: Active Voices: Poetry and Social Justice

Two Wisconsin Poets Laureate, Kim Blaeser (2015–2016) and Margaret Rozga (2019–2020) will read from their recent work and engage in dialogue about their poetry, its sources, and the roles they see it enacting in the world. They will welcome questions and comments from the audience.

Unitarian Universalist Congregation 421 S. Farwell St., Eau Claire

Cost: FREE

Chippewa Valley Book Festival: An Evening With the Authors Featuring B.J. Hollars

Enjoy the opportunity to meet and mingle with some of the festival authors with delicious food ahead of B.J. Hollars’s presentation: Things that Go Bump When You Write: On Monsters, Martians and the Search for the Truth in the Strange.

Forage 930 Galloway St., Building 13, Suite 212, Eau Claire

Cost: $35 includes presentation and buffet

Chippewa Valley Book Festival

The Chippewa Valley Book Festival celebrates the written word through author readings and book signings, school visits, meals with authors, and includes workshops and programs for writers of all ages. The 2019 festival will feature more than twenty authors at area libraries, schools, and other community locations. The festival runs October 21-27, 2019, and features programs daily for seven days with Saturday and weekday evening programs in Eau Claire and around the Chippewa Valley.

Multiple Locations

Chippewa Valley Book Festival: Ballrooms and POW Camps

Loretta Ellsworth, author of several young adult novels, will share the true history behind her first adult historical novel, Stars Over Clear Lake, which takes place at both The Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, and the prisoner of war camp in Algona, Iowa.

L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library 400 Eau Claire St, Eau Claire

Cost: FREE

Chippewa Valley Book Festival: The Heart of Noir

Crime fiction readers, particularly readers of heartland noir, know that something lies beneath the typical “Midwestern nice” facade. Mindy Mejia will tell the tale of her journey into crime fiction, the inspiration for her books, and why she writes heartland noir.

L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library 400 Eau Claire St, Eau Claire

Cost: FREE

Legends and Folklore of Winter-Author Chad Lewis

Winter may seem like a quiet time, but it is actually filled with bizarre tales and stories of cannibalistic spirits, Krampus the anti-Santa Claus, stories of little people, werewolves, witches, being buried alive, and numerous other Holiday traditions for the darkest days of the year. Books will be available for sale

Menomonie Public Library 600 Wolske Bay Rd, Menomonie

Cost: FREE

Chippewa Valley Book Festival: Change and Resilience in the Heartland

Cullen, co-owner of The Storm Lake Times and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Storm Lake: A Chronicle of Change, Resilience, and Hope from a Heartland Newspaper, recognizes that rural communities are profoundly challenged and that climate change is already hampering food production now.

L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library 400 Eau Claire St, Eau Claire

Cost: FREE

Chippewa Valley Book Festival: A Verbal Feast of the Fest, served by ecWIT

The ecWIT gals are back by popular demand for a reader’s theater performance of adapted excerpts from a sampling of this year’s festival authors. Without costumes or elaborate props, the stripped-down performance is sure to add a whole new dimension to the characters and stories.

Pablo Center at the Confluence 120 Graham Avenue, Eau Claire

Cost: FREE, but ticket required

Chippewa Valley Book Festival: The Great Believers: Where Fiction Meets History

Rebecca Makkai’s novel The Great Believers (a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer in fiction and the 2018 National Book Award) deals in large part with the AIDS epidemic in 1980s Chicago. In this talk, she will read from the book and discuss its origins, stemming from her own experience growing up as a Chicagoan child during the epidemic.

Pablo Center at the Confluence 120 Graham Avenue, Eau Claire

Cost: $10

Chippewa Valley Book Festival

The Chippewa Valley Book Festival celebrates the written word through author readings and book signings, school visits, meals with authors, and includes workshops and programs for writers of all ages. The 2019 festival will feature more than twenty authors at area libraries, schools, and other community locations. The festival runs October 21-27, 2019, and features programs daily for seven days with Saturday and weekday evening programs in Eau Claire and around the Chippewa Valley.

Multiple Locations

Chippewa Valley Book Festival: Young Writers Showcase: A Creative Writing Competition for Young Writers

Students who have been chosen from the writing competition will read their winning entries from the stage of the Grand Theater. The celebration includes poetry and prose from students in grades 3-8, and each participant receives a gift certificate to buy a book of their choice from Dotters Bookstore.

The Grand Theatre 102 W. Grand Ave., Eau Claire

Cost: FREE

Chippewa Valley Book Festival: "Cooking My Way Home" with Beth Dooley, Literary + Food Event

In foraging for goodness we look to traditional foodways as well as innovative technology to create a regenerative landscape which nourishes and delights. Dooley will impart an understanding of and appreciation for the New Agricultural Land Ethic. Sample recipes from Dooley's writing, prepared by the chefs at Forage.

Forage 930 Galloway St., Building 13, Suite 212, Eau Claire

Cost: $20 includes presentation and food sampling

Sound and Stories: Toil & Trouble

It was a dark and stormy night...and one filled with songs and stories! Join local writers, storytellers, and musicians as they share tales of horror and hilarity. A Chippewa Valley Writers Guild production.

Pablo Center at the Confluence 120 Graham Avenue, Eau Claire

Cost: $5

Open Mic Night at The Plus

See or join established and emerging artists. Each week, a different artist will host, and lead off the evening with 20 minutes of their work. Following the performance, open mic begins. Music, comedy, sketch, live readings, poetry, acting, improv welcomed. Half price apps from 10p-midnight.

The Plus 208 S. Barstow St, Eau Claire

Cost: FREE

Age: All Ages

Visiting the Beyond with Curt Strutz

The crowd selects from a number of haunted properties that include asylums, battlefields, schools, private homes. Curt uses original photography, telling the haunted happenings in the buildings, and reveals the sometimes creepy history of each location.

Augusta Memorial Public Library 113 North Stone St, Augusta

Cost: FREE

Age: All Ages

Jan Carroll Reading and New Book Launch

Jan will be reading from her new book "With What's Left: Gardening, Earth-Tending, and Keeping On in the Midst of Climate Crisis." She will also share other new poems. Conversation after. Books will be available to purchase.

200 Main - Art and Wine 200 Main St., Eau Claire

Cost: FREE

Open Mic Night at The Plus

See or join established and emerging artists. Each week, a different artist will host, and lead off the evening with 20 minutes of their work. Following the performance, open mic begins. Music, comedy, sketch, live readings, poetry, acting, improv welcomed. Half price apps from 10p-midnight.

The Plus 208 S. Barstow St, Eau Claire

Cost: FREE

Age: All Ages

How the Stage Coach Grew the Great Northwest by Glen Patzwald

Glen Patzwald will be discussing his book, How the Stage Coach Grew the Great Northwest.

Chippewa Falls Public Library 105 W Central St., Chippewa Falls

Cost: FREE

Free Preview Screening of Michael Perry Special and Q&A

In the all-new Wisconsin Public Television special, Michael Perry: Where I Come From , the bestselling Wisconsin author, humorist and musician shares stories of growing up in rural Wisconsin, revealing how his family, friends and life experiences shaped the work he has pursued.

Pablo Center at the Confluence 120 Graham Avenue, Eau Claire

Cost: FREE, but tickets required

Born with a Tarnished Spoon - Book Launch

Book Launch for the new 1930's historical fiction novel set in Eau Claire, by Patricia A. Hawkenson. Reception with a short author reading and book signing opportunity. Artisan Forge Gallery and Skill Shot Coffee will be open during the event. Sample treats by Sweet Driver Chocolates and Skill Shot.

Artisan Forge Studios 1106 Mondovi Road, Eau Claire

Cost: FREE

Age: All Ages

Author and Photographer, Bruce Siebold

“Seasons on Eighty Acres” provides a compendium of Siebold’s favorite nature photos taken over these many years. This beautifully printed coffee-table style book includes original poetry, stories of the land and shares the author’s passion for celebrating and protecting the land for future generations.

Menomonie Public Library 600 Wolske Bay Rd, Menomonie

Cost: Free, Books will be available for purchase

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald: The Ship, the Storm, and the Song

Steve Ackerman, a professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, an expert in the area of satellite meteorology, a field largely invented at UW–Madison. He is well known as an accomplished researcher, teacher and communicator of the science of weather and climate.

Augusta Memorial Public Library 113 North Stone St, Augusta

Cost: FREE

Age: All Ages

Poems and Songs for Earth

Jan Carroll and Lee Mynett will present poems and songs on Earth and environmental issues.

Artisan Forge Studios 1106 Mondovi Road, Eau Claire

Cost: $5 donation at the door

Age: All Ages

Good and Bad Times: The Story of the Eau Claire Tire Plant

Jack Zais will be speaking about the Eau Claire Tire Plant, about which he has complied a multi-volume book set.

Chippewa Falls Public Library 105 W Central St., Chippewa Falls

Cost: FREE

Open Mic Night at The Plus

See or join established and emerging artists. Each week, a different artist will host, and lead off the evening with 20 minutes of their work. Following the performance, open mic begins. Music, comedy, sketch, live readings, poetry, acting, improv welcomed. Half price apps from 10p-midnight.

The Plus 208 S. Barstow St, Eau Claire

Cost: FREE

Age: All Ages

Things that Go Bump When You Write: On Monsters, Martians, and the Search for the Truth in the Strange

Hollars challenges readers to look beyond their presumptions and acknowledge that just because something is weird doesn’t mean it’s wrong. A little bit X-Files, a little bit Ghostbusters, and a whole lot Sherlock Holmes.

Menomonie Public Library 600 Wolske Bay Rd, Menomonie

Cost: FREEe, Books will be available for sale

Open Mic Night at The Plus

See or join established and emerging artists. Each week, a different artist will host, and lead off the evening with 20 minutes of their work. Following the performance, open mic begins. Music, comedy, sketch, live readings, poetry, acting, improv welcomed. Half price apps from 10p-midnight.

The Plus 208 S. Barstow St, Eau Claire

Cost: FREE

Age: All Ages

Open Mic Night at The Plus

See or join established and emerging artists. Each week, a different artist will host, and lead off the evening with 20 minutes of their work. Following the performance, open mic begins. Music, comedy, sketch, live readings, poetry, acting, improv welcomed. Half price apps from 10p-midnight.

The Plus 208 S. Barstow St, Eau Claire

Cost: FREE

Age: All Ages

Open Mic Night at The Plus

See or join established and emerging artists. Each week, a different artist will host, and lead off the evening with 20 minutes of their work. Following the performance, open mic begins. Music, comedy, sketch, live readings, poetry, acting, improv welcomed. Half price apps from 10p-midnight.

The Plus 208 S. Barstow St, Eau Claire

Cost: FREE

Age: All Ages

Open Mic Night at The Plus

See or join established and emerging artists. Each week, a different artist will host, and lead off the evening with 20 minutes of their work. Following the performance, open mic begins. Music, comedy, sketch, live readings, poetry, acting, improv welcomed. Half price apps from 10p-midnight.

The Plus 208 S. Barstow St, Eau Claire

Cost: FREE

Age: All Ages