Welcome to WFHR's Director's Playhouse for this June 2025 session 64. Your host and program
director here James J. Mailoff. We want to welcome the best listeners and radio to the WFHR
stage author, creative and Wisconsin's own Lori Schneider is with us. Lori, thanks for joining us.
Oh, thank you so much for having me. Lori, really appreciate the time and we're going to be
taking some time to talk with Lori about an event that she has coming up, a meet your author event
that'll be taking place with our good friends over at this Southwood County Historical Museum.
We'll talk about that and we're going to talk about her book in just a moment too, a very,
very important meaningful book that I look forward to diving into with you Lori. But if you don't mind
one of our favorite things we like to do around here is getting to know people. We like to hear
people's origin stories. Lori, can you tell us a little bit about where you're from and a little
bit about yourself? I was born at Riverview Hospital in Wisconsin, Rapid. I grew up in
Rapid. I graduated from Lincoln High School. I was involved in high school on the literary magazine,
of course. My mom grew up in, when Wisconsin Rapid, she was sort of a notable citizen who was
an activist and very active, both my parents and the Democratic Party. So I was raised in a
very socially conscious family, but I was a pretty shy kid.
Okay. Lori, that's not too surprising, especially we hear that from writers often,
but I have to say you took me a little off guard there a little. My brother and all three
of my kids were born in Riverview and I am also a proud Lincoln grad. So we got some things in
common here, and I think more as we go along, but that's wonderful to hear. And it's so great to hear
of a, you know, we talked to a lot of Wisconsin creatives and it's fun, but to be able to talk to
somebody with that such coast local ties to us here in Rapids and at WFHR and everything that
it means even more. And it's all the more reason why we want to support you and support your work.
Before we get into some of that though, Lori, when did you start first thinking about being a writer?
You know, I don't know if I thought so much about being a writer as I was just an avid reader.
My, I was read too as a child. I just loved books so much. So I'm super excited about this
event that's going to be at this historical museum because once upon a time that museum was my
childhood library. And it is really a magical, it was a magical place as a library. If you've
been in the museum, you know, it's this stately brick building on the river. It's just gorgeous.
There's a beautiful staircase with polished wood bannisters leading up to what had been the
children's room. So that place was really a second home for me. So I read just tons growing up.
And, you know, I had a great life within those books. And so it makes a lot of sense that,
you know, if I could create an experience like that, I would love to. So one of the things that
actually took place at Lincoln High School that was really important to me was my senior year of
high school we had a visiting poet in the school. His name was JD Whitney. He was a bit of a rebel.
This was in the mid-70s long-haired, Harley-driving poet. And he spent a lot of time with my English class
and we wrote poetry and had a reading event at the end. And strangely enough, years, years later,
I'm living in Oklahoma and go to a poetry reading in JD Whitney is there. Wow. And he now lives in
Norman, Oklahoma. And we're now buddies. Oh my God. That's awesome. That is really cool. That
is too cool. That is just how life works, isn't it? It is. It's pretty, life is pretty amazing,
honestly. Yeah, it's something. And this now, okay, so that happens. And that's pretty,
it leads me right into my next question. As far as influences go, it sounds like he was a bit of one.
Did you have other influences and even, you know, outside of writing, just influences in general?
It's a tough one. I'm thinking about this. I wrote a lot of poetry in college too. I wasn't a
creative writing major. I was an English major. But the community, I went to college at Oberlin
in Ohio. And there was a really big writing community there. But honestly, coming from where I came
from, you know, sort of small town, Wisconsin, I was a little bit intimidated until I actually
took a little bit of time off from college and came back. And then I felt like I could hold my own.
But probably the biggest influence on my writing is honestly just all the books I read. And I have
just a particular love for children's middle grade literature. So like Judy Bloom.
They were just a whole bunch of really formative, formative works from my childhood, things like
a wrinkle in time. Bridget Harbissia, just a lot of great classic sort of kids books. And I
continued to read children's books as an adult. So it makes sense that when I started to actually write
fiction, I don't know that I was necessarily trying to write middle grade fiction, but I think I
write a lot for my inner 12-year-olds. A lot of that makes sense and ties into not only your work,
but I think also. So one of the things we really like to do with this show, Laurie, is certainly
promote local artists and talk about you guys, but encourage other artists out there. We have a lot
of young artists, young writers, creatives out there listening to this stuff. And I think it's very,
I know that it's very helpful to them to hear somebody, you know, what they took and how they made
good, how they were able to get published in these things. It means something whenever we have a
guest on a write-or-on, but to have somebody like yourself literally from here and hearing your
story, it's not only inspirational, but it's encouraging to our young creatives out there. It's
hopefully helpful to them that, you know, there is no, especially in this day and age, no matter
how small a town you're from, or how big of a town you're from, you can make it, you can get
published, you can get to that break. And I appreciate you sharing that. Thank you for that.
Yeah, well, absolutely. I mean, today, now, I mean, there's great online support for writers.
I mean, I've had critique groups that were in-person, but I've had really great, great critique
groups that were virtual. And I made some really good college friends and met some great writers
that way, and that's always available. Mm-hmm. Well, I've been writing since I was about 12,
and a lot of the writing I did was at our old stomping grounds, at Lincoln and everything, and I've
written short stories, plays, all kinds of stuff. My oldest daughter has a multiple published author
already. She's been at this a lot. She's been at it shorter than I have, and she's already, like,
a double, a lot more published than I've ever been. And I'm very proud of that. I'm very happy
about that, but it also speaks to where it is nowadays. We're being able to get published in that.
It's a lot, I don't want to say easy. I don't like using that word, but it is a lot more accessible
to people than it's ever been. And now that kind of leads us into your book. Let's go ahead,
I want you to go ahead and talk about this. I was going to give a description. You can do a lot
better job than I can, but I look forward to diving into this with you. Tell us about the book, Lori.
Okay, my book is called Giddle. Like I said, I write for my inner 12-year-old, but my book itself,
I call all ages historical fiction, because a lot of my readers have been adults, and adults seem
to enjoy it just as much as middle-grader would. So I'd say it's four ages 11 and up.
There is a little bit of difficult material in it, sort of emotionally.
The book tells the story of 13-year-old Giddleg Warren's dean and her family. They've fled a
deadly pogrom in Kishenev to start over as farmers in a small town in Central Wisconsin. When I
initially pitched the book to an editor, and they got more interested in it, the editor called it
Fiddler on the Roof meets Little Town on the Prairie, which sounded kind of silly, but it's actually
a pretty apt description. That seems to work, yeah. So the story is set. It had in a fictional version
of Arpen, Wisconsin. So most of you are hopefully your listeners aware of the little town of Arpen.
Once upon a time in Arpen, starting in 1904, there was a Jewish agricultural settlement there,
which most people probably have never heard of. But my great-grandfather lived there for about five
years, and on a research trip years ago, I went to visit the site of the colony, and there's
absolutely nothing left of it. And in fact, really hardly anyone remembers it was there. And that
really, I know, I had a moment standing there realizing that this history had vanished.
And I can't say I just ran home and wrote a book about it, but it certainly percolated and
stewed for a very long time. And eventually I did sit down and decide to write a story set there.
Laurie, so just to let you and the audience know, there is an ulterior motive of why I wanted to
have you on today. This book is important, and it's important to tell these stories. And
the audience knows by now, if you don't want to, I'm Jewish. I come from a mixed family of Jewish
and Catholicism. And for my family who lost members in the Holocaust and lost members in the
plagues and lost members at every turn in history, that history gets lost. And these stories,
the only way they stick around is if we retell them. A huge part of Jewish culture is continuing to
tell stories and making sure that they stay alive for the next generation and so on and so on.
You doing this has, it's entertaining. It's a beautiful story. It's a wonderfully well-written
book. It's also important data and important to keep this kind of thing going and keeping these
stories moving. That's a big part of what you've done with this book. It is not a simple feat.
And it's something that is incredibly appreciated and unable to be put in the words as much as I
want to call myself a writer. I can't put in the words. How much it means to not just me but to
our community and to continue to tell these stories, especially in 2025 and in this day and age.
It's a great book. It's very entertaining. It's also meaningful and I appreciate it.
Oh, thank you so much. I can't tell you what it means for me to hear that.
I've gotten a lot of really positive response from the online Jewish community,
which has been incredible and honestly unanticipated. But honestly, when I set out to write
the book, it was central Wisconsin and the people in Wisconsin ramparts in that area that I was
thinking about. Because what happened there, it was tied to this place. It was why I grew up there
with my family was there. And in some ways, even though the book is set in 1911,
there's a bit of my experience growing up there that's sort of embedded, I think emotionally in
the story as well. I was curious about that. With your ties to the area, your family ties to the
area and some of that. And certainly the emotional part of that. A good author, they always tell
you the right what you know. And so incorporating parts of your childhood or parts of your own
feelings into the characters had to come a bit organically or was it more intentional?
It's just organic. And for me, it's almost not so much your right which you know,
although that is true, it's more like right which you feel. And I mean, I don't write for therapy.
But no matter the character, if I can't make an emotional connection with them,
I'm not going to be able to communicate to a reader either.
Great point. And you are such a good writer. That is such a better line. I've never heard
it put that way. You're right what you feel. That is really good. You know, to be honest,
writing what you know, never made 100% sense to me because I feel like most of the good writers,
I read a dual ton of research and do all this homework on these subjects they'd never heard
about before. So it makes a lot more sense what you said. I like that a lot more. That's good.
We're speaking with Laurie Schneider and talking about her book Giddle.
Did I say the right Giddle? Yeah. Yeah. Giddle. And Laurie, part of the other reason we have
you on is not only this book, which we will let everybody know where they can find it and get it
online and that before we wrap up today. It's also this great event that you are going to be doing
along with our friends at the South of County Historical Museum. You're going to be there's a
meteor author event coming up Wednesday, June 25th at five o'clock over at the museum at 543rd
Street South. What can people expect with this event? Well, honestly, one of the things I'm most
looking forward to is first of all being back in that building again. Yeah. Like you said earlier,
that was my library growing up. So I don't know, it'll be it's going to be kind of emotional for me,
I think. Yeah. But also I'm hoping that people who come have questions have questions. I mean,
questions about writing, questions about me, questions about my book, questions about the history,
questions about the art and colony, how it ended up in central Wisconsin and what became of it.
So those are pretty much the things I'm going to talk about. I'll talk about the book of what
it's about and how I came to write it and a little bit more about the history and the history of that
colony. I do want to also shout out our great friends at Milla Memorial Library who are a part of
this along with the Historical Museum that we greatly appreciate speaking of libraries. Just
so many of the things you're talking about with the Historical Museum, I had those same memories
with McMillan when my family first moved to this area and I was able to pick books for the first
time and read, you know, the stories that I was curious about and interested in. And so it's
cool to hear these ties. And, you know, another thing with this event, I encourage people to bring,
you know, their teens and midteens to this event and see if a spark doesn't get started like it did
for Lori or I. It's a great opportunity for that. You're also be able to purchase signed copies of
the book. Is it looks like Lori? Yeah. That's cool. So people will be able to do that as well. I
think that it's a great idea to learn more about this one, make some plans for it. You can do
that by reaching out to the Historical Museum if you'd like. You can find them on, they have a great
Facebook page for this, whether it's the, meet the author event itself or it is the museum itself
that you would like to reach out to. You can find them online. I just want to pull up their website
for you really quick. I'm going to pause this first. And that website is swhhs-museum.com. That's
swch-museum.com. Be sure to go there to find that out and make plans for this wonderful event of
meet the author, our good friend Lori Schneider, who is going to be there again coming up June 25th,
5 o'clock or at 543rd Streetsouth right here in Wisconsin Rapids. And Lori, if people would like
to purchase the book beforehand, they cannot wait to get their hands on a copy. I know my mother is
one of these people. And Lori, don't want to mess with a Jewish mother. You know this. So I know this.
So where else can they purchase the book? I recommend going to bookshop.org and picking your
favorite if you have an independent bookseller and ordering that way. Given that if you want to read
my book before the event, honestly, Amazon might be your best bet. And it's there available
like all of the other books on Amazon. I appreciate the note about local bookstores, though,
and everything. We love to shout them out and we have a chance. And Lori, I have just one final
question for you. We ask all of our guests here on the show this question. So it is our toughest
question, though, I will warn you. If you could have coffee with any historical figure, who and why?
Oh my gosh. Yeah, it's just not fair. It's not fair to wrap up a interview this week. It's
really not right. It's brutal. It's really. It's a tough one. It is a tough one. The fun part is
there's no wrong answer. I'm going to cap out a little bit. And this is probably an answer you've
heard before. The person I would most like to talk to is my great grandmother. Oh, no. That's a good
one. Her name was her name was Fanny Fremogarber. And she was the wife of Alvin Garber who was my great
grandfather who lived in Arpen. The thing about Fremog was she was quiet. And by the time I was born,
she was still alive, but she had a really thick accent. And I just we now is a little child. So
I was never really able to talk to her. And even my mom regretted not knowing more of her story.
Recently, I found in a 1921, I think, a copy of the Wisconsin Rapids Tribune in interview that had
been done with her shortly after she, shortly after she arrived from Ukraine. And in it, she talks
about the bookrooms she survived in in detail. And it was it's absolutely harrowing. Wow. Yeah.
I can only imagine. And I you know, I didn't even know that existed. And I wasn't really aware of
what she had gone through. And it took eight years for her to get to this country for my great
grandfather to be able to send for her. And during those eight years, she was alone without him
living through incredible violence and danger. And she was the sweetest lady. So I would love
to have tea with with my great grandmother. I would love to be a fly in the wall for that.
She sounds like she was an amazing human being. And my and my head marble really. Wow, there's
a whole other story that we we'd love to talk about some time. And that was an fantastic answer,
Lori. That's one of the better answers we've gotten for that. What's it nicely done? And
the only catch to all of this is you have done too good. It has been too much fun talking to you.
You have to come back sometime. We got to talk again real soon. Okay. I would love to. Thank you
for the time, Lori. We're looking forward to seeing you back here in the year old stomping grounds
here in Rapids. And we'll meet you at the event. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. And
thank you to the listeners out there. We appreciate you. We'll have another edition of
director's playhouse for you coming soon right here at WFHR locally grown radio.
