New Summer Books: Inside Information (Hour 2)

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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by Up North News.

Now, from our Lake Minnesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.

And good morning.

It is 7 0 6.

Nice to have you here up north on this Tuesday morning, May 27th.

Hope everybody had a really nice

Holiday weekend.

Greg Bach is in Radio Park.

Parker Olson is in Madison.

Meteorologist Brittany Merleau is here as well.

Coming up in just a bit, author Laura Bird will be joining us and we'll talk about summer reads.

What are going to be the hot new books this summer that you might want to consider picking up?

uh what's the best way to go about picking up those books and what's the best way to go about learning what's coming up next in the world of literature and book publishing so we'll look forward to talking to Laura coming up at about 7 30 for that uh very busy day on the comment section today and so i want to hit the

I'm going to go a bit out of order here because I want to hit some safety matters first.

Robin Tigerton says there were a lot of UTVs, ATVs, and Jeeps out and about, also a lot of campers.

And from Cassandra in talking about the last segment where there was jet ski fatalities, drownings, driving fatalities, Cassandra writes, yes, please wear your helmets.

Get off the phone while driving.

don't be crazy.

I've been getting help texts all week because we're so busy in the ICU, which again, we see that in summertime anyway, but you can do your part to reduce that and to be safe and to be careful out there, especially when the weather is as glorious as it was over the weekend here.

Not so much today and tomorrow, Brittany, but then a

It appears to be a really big warm up coming up later on, but we got to get through these first couple of not so great days first.

Yes, we sure do.

I think this weekend was absolutely perfect, crisp, beautiful.

I mean, we did have the 10th coolest Memorial Day weekend three day stretch that we've had.

So, I mean, it was crisp out there.

We usually see a lot of rain showers too, but it was nice to see those dry conditions.

And now we've got the system lifting from the south.

It's actually headed off to the northeast, but it is still going to swing some chances of showers our way.

So we've already got the cloud cover from it.

We're going to stay mostly cloudy today, even through tomorrow as well.

Some light sprinkles are possible this afternoon and then some spotty showers, especially far northwest this afternoon and evening.

And then those spotty shower chances continue through the day.

tomorrow too.

Very light on and off, maybe a quarter of an inch from lacrosse to Milwaukee and south.

Further up north, you have less chances of that, but high temperatures today in those upper sixties to scraping the low seventies.

That's today and tomorrow.

And then we're going to be hitting into the 80 degree temperatures as soon as Friday.

We kind of cool off for the weekend, but we go right back to those eighties for next week as well.

So summer weather is right around the corner.

We've just got two days to cool off still.

Okay, and so more precautions, this one from Alicia.

I burned half my face on Sunday, just hanging out with friends, just half the face.

So, you know, sometimes take your friend and reposition.

And Cassandra, I was very dumb.

I let myself get burned twice.

I'm very Irish, she says here.

So it was very pleasant weather, but yeah, the sunglasses, the sunscreen, all of that needs to be part of your.

To-do list for any given big sunny day from Rob.

Good morning from Tigerton.

It's cloudy and 49 degrees.

It was a very beautiful weekend I was mowing lawns watering plants and Hanging watering the plants that are hanging on the street light posts there That's what he meant to say I said yesterday he

Had a cookout with his sister Lori and her family in Caroline.

The food was good.

I was stuffed and then took pictures of the sunset near Marion.

I was down by the Tigerton ATV and UTV Park for a walk where he mentioned earlier the, I'll see all the ATVs out there.

He says about his colonoscopy a couple of weeks back.

No cancer issue whatsoever.

So thank you, Rob, for sharing that says.

I hope you all had a super weekend.

And I wish Dr. Kristen Lyrely would run for governor.

She brings passion and excitement.

I wish there was more like her.

We were talking in our last hour about the potential candidates for governor if Governor Evers decides not to run for a third term.

And then one more from Rob here on the highways.

Slow down.

I've seen people passing in the no passing zone along highway.

45, close to head on collisions.

Yeah, I've seen a lot of that really aggressive driving out there.

And there's just no reason for it.

I can't even blame Illinois.

You know, there's Wisconsin plates and Minnesota plates.

Everybody's got to take it down a notch.

out there on the roads, please.

Seriously, seriously.

Slow down, take a breath, right?

Oh, nothing's worth the rush.

No, and especially if we have, you know, like you said, a little bit of precipitations, like up the roads.

It's also construction season.

You may come upon an area that you weren't expecting, you know, that's started with some road work.

We've really made it sound like it's just wrap yourself in bubble wrap.

Don't even leave the house today, kids, you know?

I mean, look at Parker and Greg.

They can just sit here.

They got this great job.

They are not

you know, in, in harm's way at all.

Well, except

from, from the abuse from the host and, and all the people that are right in, but you know, Parker just nods at Parker.

It's radio.

You got to, you got to say amen to that brother or something like that.

That seems right.

I really want to hear Parker say amen to that brother.

Please say that.

There it is.

At least she says on a side note, I look like the Batman villain to face.

Go to

a doctor.

It is the worst sunburn to have when it's just on like one side of something, you know, when you sunburn

your ears.

Oh, too

sensitive.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Or the or the if you maybe this isn't for Brittany with her long hair, but the back of your neck.

If you do everything, but then you forget the back of your neck and, you know,

Suddenly that now you've got itchy shirt collars for the rest of the week or whatever.

So, all right.

All right.

Everybody stay safe out there.

Use your sunscreen.

Slow down on

the roads.

Happy summer.

Yep.

Welcome to Nanny State Radio.

I'm Pat Cridlow.

Thank you, Brittany.

Have a very good day.

We'll talk to you in our next hour.

And again, author Laura Bird is coming up in a bit and we'll talk about summer reads.

I wanted to share a couple of things here about

What a big day it's going to be on June 14th for a couple of different reasons.

However, there is, of course, it's flag day.

It's also the what is it the birthday of the U.S.

Army.

And well, it's also Donald Trump's birthday.

And so he wants a military parade.

and during the first term of Donald Trump the Pentagon opposed that said we do not want to we don't want to mix politics and the armed forces but as reported by the New York Times in Mr. Trump's second term that guardrail has vanished there will be a parade this year and right now the current plan calls for 28 Abrams tanks at 70 tons each

Make sure what happens what's going to happen to the roads in Washington DC 28 striker armored personnel carriers more than a hundred other vehicles a World War two era B 25 bomber 6,700 soldiers 50 helicopters 34 horses two mules and a dog Again from the New York Times the army estimates the cost to be up to 45 million dollars

but could be higher because the army has promised to fix any city streets that the parade damages, plus the cost of cleanup and police are not yet part of the estimate.

Again, $45 million as we're cutting things like, you know, school lunches and healthcare and things like that.

Well, so on June 14th, there will also be some protests among the protests that are being organized come upon a theme.

The theme is called No More Kings.

And it obviously is not that tongue in cheek anymore, given the way that Donald Trump talks and, you know, acts in terms of, you know, his dictatorial style.

Well, there will be these local protests all around the country.

And that's going to include here in Wisconsin at some communities.

and what caught my eye was an article in the Lakeland Times out of Banaqua that spelled out the recent happenings of an Eagle River City Council meeting and a rather contentious discussion involving the First Amendment.

The article in the Lakeland Times was written by Fred Williston and it was all about the organizers of a no-kings rally and

They weren't looking for a permit to protest.

They don't need that.

You know, the First Amendment's on their side.

But local organizer Catherine Crafty and others made a request of the city to use an amplifier so that they could use, you know, a microphone during the event.

And...

So the the rally craft he said is it's a protest linked with a national event under an organization named Indivisible and the no Kings rally protest would go from 11 a.m.

To 1 p.m.

And it will be a peaceful protest but then came time for for questions and Alderman Jerry Birkitt of Eagle Rivers immediately wanted to ask about

whether the protest needed to be where they're planning it to be, Rotary Square.

And he said, I have absolutely nothing against this event.

I have everything against the location.

Rotary Square was a lot of work with donations of time and money from a lot of people.

Rotary Square was designed for people to rest and relax while other members of the family are shopping our streets and buying goods.

It's got a public bathroom, nice picnic tables, well used by a lot of people.

The right to free speech is appreciated, fought for, but I called a spokesperson for the Chamber of Commerce who said, please no protests here.

If there's a protest there, there's a percentage of the people that are gonna leave downtown Eagle River.

I called the Eagle River Revitalization Program, another spokesperson who said, we absolutely understand the right to protest, but please not during June in Eagle River when the tourists are here.

The problem, Birket said, is that 50% of this nation is one way and 50% is the other way politically.

And he said he didn't think the city council should risk having 50% of the people in downtown Eagle River on that date leave town or be disgusted with Eagle River.

And that's where the discussion kicked off, of course, about, you know, protests and the right to protest.

and the location of the protest.

And it was awfully reminiscent of the Republican convention in Milwaukee last year when there was such a push to move the protest zone away from, you know, people, which seems to be the whole point of the protest.

And again, a respectful, peaceful one, not one that is going to disrupt business because as the local organizers noted,

their customers too.

And that frankly, they pointed out that during a past event of theirs, it brought traffic into downtown Eagle River and into their shops and things like that.

So is it really about the concerns of the business or is it about the concerns of what the people are saying?

Now we have no way of knowing, but if this were going to be a, you know, a pro mega event,

Would we be hearing the same concerns from the same people about the impact on businesses and traffic?

Or would it just be, well, there's a big military parade going on that day.

It's the president's birthday.

So let's all wave the flag and all take part in it.

I mean, I know which way I feel the discussion would go.

But again, as one of the organizers said, let me just say respectfully that the public park belongs to the public and not necessarily to the downtown businesses.

So how did this all end after this very long discussion about the First Amendment?

Was that the organizers said, look, if this is how you feel, we'll pull back on the request for an amplification device, but we're still showing up.

You know, some people won't hear because there won't be a loudspeaker there, but it's still going to happen.

So no city council action was needed up in Eagle River, but the entire discussion itself was a very

interesting reminder that the First Amendment is for everybody and that it is not the role of local government officials to push peaceful protest away simply because it's inconvenient.

From the heart of America's Up North, live from Lake Wissota, thanks for making this the place to spend part of your mornings.

I'm Pat Krightlow and this is the Civic Media Radio Network.

You're listening to Civic Media.

Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.

Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.

Coming up later across the civic media radio network on the Maggie Dawn show this afternoon Alice McManus from the Center of American Center for American Progress will be along to I'm sorry that was I got I got

behind.

Today's Tuesday.

See, not Monday.

Today is Tuesday.

Coming up on the Maggie Dawn Show today, Angela Lange will be the guest co-host.

We'll also be hearing from Jeff Mandel of Law Forward, along with John Frank, about something called Fusion Voting.

Let's see, Kira Saban will be guest on the Todd Alba Show.

And then Matt Nair on Air with Jane and Greg.

Well, we got Greg here.

So Greg will tell us what's coming up on Matt Nair on Air.

a little later today.

Today we have, at 9.35, we have Mr. Todd Alba of the conveniently named Todd Alba show.

He'll be coming on and talking about all the news from probably this weekend.

We'll talk about all the things happening with me and Jane.

Then at 10 o'clock, we had to reschedule this one.

I talked about it last week, but Kathy Giorgio is an author who is on the wall of fame.

at North High School Waukesha, who's requested that to be taken down as they'll put her face up, but they won't have her books in their library.

So she'll be on to talk about having her books banned.

And then Beth Heidorn from the Racine Zoo will be here as well.

I didn't know Racine had a zoo.

Racine has an amazing zoo.

It's a huh.

It's not like, you know, like people when people think zoo they're like San Diego the Brookfield zoo in Milwaukee County's got a great zoo too, but Racine zoo is so good.

It's nice.

It's compact.

It's got a great and they have a brand new a brand new family member who has black and white and Not red all over.

That's a newspaper.

But uh, yeah, they have a brand new zebra

a baby zebra Chippewa Falls is the same way a lot of folks who

would be surprised to hear that Chippewa Falls has a zoo at Irvine Park and it has been remodeled over the years.

It was it was rather, so we say old fashioned back in the day and now has some wonderful exhibits and if folks have never been to Irvine Park in Chippewa Falls to see the zoo and drive around the park, highly recommend that as well.

Let's continue zoo chat now with Parker Olson.

He's going to tell us his favorite zoos in Wisconsin or wherever.

Susan, Wisconsin, I think I've only been to one zoo.

It's the

I don't even remember what it's called.

I think it's Violas and Madison.

I think.

Oh, yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

And that's concluded zoo talk with Parker.

Yeah.

That's all I got for

you.

To be clear, we did not tell him there was going to be a pop quiz on this.

These things just kind of pop up.

Yeah.

as pop quizzes do.

That's how they got the name.

All right, turning towards some of the other stories that are happening around the state as I was perusing some of the newspapers that are out there and, you know, reflecting the times that we live in.

In poignette, they have cut the farm to table meal program because of Trump administration cuts.

And as a result, it means that, again, we've talked about this in Marathon County and elsewhere that

The district would get about $15,000 and work with other organizations to create a system to make local farm purchases feasible for public schools and food pantries in the area.

One person who is with the school district, I believe, I want to get the name right here.

Oh yeah, director of food services Paula Larrabee.

talked about, you know, the value of the program said, we have a co-op that has worked really hard to get the vendors and get everything set up.

We can do online ordering.

And just to kind of have the rug pulled out from underneath us is a little bit of a shock.

But that is exactly what school districts around the country are going through right now, that how

with Trump an office, the USDA has eliminated all of that funding, which was going to help schools and food banks purchase food from local farmers.

And so the school districts, they have to go back to, again, ordering more things that are processed from big producers out of town elsewhere, and local farmers have lost that much more of a market.

Again, just reflective of the part of the times that we live in.

Here's another one from up in Redcliffe where the Redcliffe band of Lake Superior Chippewa has declared a state of emergency over their child care shortage there in part because of threatened cuts by the Trump administration to the Head Start program.

It is a response to the potential elimination or reduction and that if so it would have adverse impacts on the Redcliffe Early Childhood Center's ability to provide care for

the areas children and families.

They talks about how Head Start, an early learning program, was founded in 1965.

For years, it's been one of the most popular government programs out there, providing free services for parents and children up to five years old, including health screenings, meals and snacks, and a curriculum on financial literacy.

Because we always hear the oh, we shouldn't be having handouts.

Let's teach people how to make money or save money It's in there.

It's in there and now it won't be because that's ending the director of the early childhood center Jamie Goodlett King said Head Start was created to work toward breaking the cycle of poverty

And without the Early Childhood Center, there are limited options for licensed and reputable care services for children newborn to five in a rural area.

Many parents will be forced to stop working so they can care for their children further impacting area businesses and services with a loss of reliable employees.

And so now they turn toward the state budget and hope that some of the federal shortfall would be made up there.

which is not likely because, again, while Governor Evers has proposed a major investment in keeping childcare affordable and accessible, Republicans took it out of the budget entirely.

And at this point, there is absolutely no indication that a single dollar is necessarily going to be restored.

You'll recall in the last budget, again, they took out direct assistance for childcare and added things like, you know,

uh, tax breaks.

If you were to, you know, uh, have, have this much level of taxes, get a break on it, which obviously most daycare centers don't have, or loosening the rules that keep our childcare centers safe when what they really need right now is a serious budget investment, but instead we still got to pay for tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.

The Brewers defeated the Boston Red Sox Memorial Day three to two.

They will do it again this evening.

Coverage begins at 6 0 5 on several civic media radio stations and then it starts again tomorrow with a day game.

We'll have author Laura Bird coming up next.

You're up north.

Welcome back.

Normally we will have Dan Schaefer on 830 on Tuesdays and Melissa Baldoff 830 on Wednesdays.

We switched them around because of vacations and other things and so Melissa Baldoff is kind enough to be here an hour from now.

We'll talk a little politics and climate and the environment and then Dan Schaeffer will join us tomorrow morning at 8 30 here across the Civic Media Radio Network.

But right now, coming up on 7 36, we're going to talk to author Laura Ann Bird because summer is coming.

So are a bunch of new releases.

Perfectly time for reading on the beach, kicking back in your porch swing with a with a cold one, whatever whatever beverage you read best with Laura and hello, how are you?

Hello, Pat.

Happy unofficial start to summer,

right?

I feel like Memorial

Day kind of kicks us off and here we are.

I know it does.

I have a newer hammock that I spent all of like 30 seconds in before I felt guilty about some other house chores, but at least I spent a little bit of time in there with a book.

I'll talk about that one a little bit later on.

But other people will spend more time in a hammock, more time on a porch swing, doing some reading and so.

for a lot of folks that are looking forward to some of the new releases that are coming out.

And we'll talk about those in just a minute, but I wanted to find out from your standpoint, how you find out about these things?

How do you know what's coming down?

How can you be the first on your block to read something and tell your book club all about it?

Right.

That's a great question, and I get asked that a lot.

Well, Laura, how do you know about what books are coming out?

And I have a few great tips and resources for your listeners, and they're all free, which is great.

So if you're a public library user, you go to your public library, and I think every single library carries a copy of BookPage Magazine, and I'm holding up the May...

Copy right now.

It comes out every month.

It's free.

It's usually by the reference desk, but ask your librarian where it is.

And it's all the new releases for that month.

And it's got great reviews and author interviews.

I read this religiously every month, book page.

If you don't live close to a library, you can go to their website, bookpage.com and access that same information.

Also at my library at Madison Public Library, they do a great job every quarter printing these flyers called Beyond Best Sellers and they do one for fiction, one for nonfiction.

It's just like this little thing and it's got like all the titles that they're going to be stocking on their shelves with like a one to two sentence description of each one.

So I love these.

I think each library might kind of have a different publication.

So ask your librarian what's available to you.

But if you are a bookstore person, as I know some people are, as always, I suggest going to your local independent shop.

Go there first.

All the independent bookshops will have every month a copy of Indie Next.

And it's this wonderful tri-fold publication.

Again, it's free, and it's got a list of all the hot titles as recommended by indie booksellers.

If you don't live close to your

If you don't have a bookstore close to you, you can go to IndieBound.org.

And again, you can access that very same information right there online.

But that's going to really keep you in the know about what books are coming out, what are the hot titles, what's the buzz, right?

Also, I suggest if you do have an independent bookshop that you love, subscribe to their e-newsletter.

I get a few e-newsletters every month depends on.

store, some come come out one week for me putting on their shelves.

So that's pretty exciting.

Okay.

So now that turns us to what exactly

either you'll be reading or other people will be reading and a lot of these I think you note are coming out in June so you just got a little quick synopsis on them but help people determine if these are things that they might want to add to their summer reading list.

Right, so I have seven recommendations across a bunch of different genres.

So based on whatever you love to read, I've got a recommendation for you.

And of course, I don't actually have the books in hand yet because they are not out, but I have great little photocopies of the front covers.

So we're gonna start with literary fiction.

That's my favorite genre, Pat.

So Among Friends is a new book by Hal Ebbett, and he's a debut novelist, and this book is getting so much buzz.

Early reviews are saying that he writes with hypnotic elegance and molten precision.

So this is going to be a good one.

This is about two families that have been incredibly close through the years.

The husbands, the wives, their teenage daughters, they've spent all this time together and they're gathered at a New York country house to celebrate the 52nd birthday of the host.

And something is off this weekend.

There's this curdling of envy and resentment, and it erupts into something terrible and really drives a wedge between these people that have loved each other so much.

But it's supposed to be getting great reviews.

So the next one I want to talk about, if you like speculative fiction, think sci-fi, The Unmapping by Denise S. Robbins.

And this is exciting because she's actually a Wisconsin author, but this book is getting great buzz.

It's an exploration of a city's descent into chaos and confusion.

So it starts at 4am in New York City and it's a silent disaster.

There's no flash of light.

There's no crumbling.

There's no earthquake.

But each person in New York wakes up on an unfamiliar block after the buildings have all switched locations overnight.

The power grid is snapped.

Thousands of people are missing.

And the Empire State Building is now on Coney Island.

And the next night, it happens all over again.

So this is all about scientists rushing to find a solution.

And can the New Yorkers cope?

Lots of unanswered questions here.

But Denise Robbins tackles themes of climate change and political unrest in her fantastic debut.

the unmapping.

I like that because even for some I'm not a natural science fiction reader but when you put it in something real like that in the premise of these are these are very tangible things but they're simply switching locations mysteriously.

I mean that intrigues me very much so I'm glad to hear about that one.

What do you have in the romance category next?

Romance.

This is the genre I read the least amount of.

So I don't know what that says about me as a person.

Perhaps I'm just cold-hearted.

I don't know.

But we have Finders Keepers by Sarah Adler.

And this book looks so cute.

So it's about a woman named Nina, who's a professor, and she's about to move into this fabulous new apartment with her fabulous boyfriend.

But then suddenly she's single, unemployed and living with her parents.

Guess who also is home?

Quentin, her childhood neighbor and childhood crush, he's back in town and he wants to resume the treasure hunt that ended their friendship almost two decades ago.

This treasure hunt, you're probably wondering about that.

There's a rumor that this wealthy businessman in town left behind riches.

And it's sort of like this game for people to track down these riches.

So now Nina and Quentin are older and wiser.

Can they find the treasure?

But more important, can they pick up where they left off?

and maybe create a future together.

Who

knows?

All right, let's attack some nonfiction.

Oh, I love nonfiction.

This one I'm so excited about.

It's called It's Only Drowning, a true story of learning to surf and the search for common ground.

And this is by David Litt.

So David Litt is a Yale educated

former speech writer for President Obama, which I think is fabulous, and his existential dread blossoms as the crises in America pile up.

But David notices that Matt, his brother-in-law, who's tattooed, he drives a truck, he loves Joe Rogan, his brother-in-law is super chill.

So does Matt's favorite hobby, surfing, have something to do with this zen vibe?

So David decides to take up surfing himself, and he moves to the Jersey Shore and starts taking surfing lessons

even though he's terrified of sharks, and he wipes out over and over again.

But he sets this goal of riding a big wave in Hawaii, and he and his brother-in-law Matt set out for this journey to the dangerous North Shore in Oahu.

So his book, It's Only Drowning, is a laugh out loud love letter to surfing.

and unlikely friendships and embarking on adventures at any age.

Wow, we are talking to Laura Ann Bird about some of the new releases coming out for the summer.

So we've covered those categories, what we got left here, we got thrillers, mysteries, let's do the thrillers next.

Yeah.

Yeah, for the people who love to like

Have their mind messed around when they read books?

These are hard for me because I get really messed up.

But Lisa Jewel is a New York Times bestselling author.

She's known for her thrillers.

Her new thrillers coming out in June, don't let him in.

And it's described by early reviews as a jaw-dropping page-turner.

So it's about a man named Nick who's got substance and good taste.

And he's just what Nina needs in her life after her husband has died unexpectedly.

But Tanina's adult daughter, Ash, Nick seems too slick, too polished, and too good to be true.

So without telling her mom, Ash begins to dig into Nick's past and what she finds is really unsettling.

So the characters here are on a collision course with a shocking truth that is darker than anyone could have imagined.

And the takeaway here is don't let him in.

OK.

Now we've moved on to mystery.

Mystery, Happy Wife by Meredith Lavender and Kendall Shores.

So this is about a 28 year old woman named Nora, who's barely making ends meet.

She's working at a country club in this super wealthy area of Florida.

And then she meets a man named Will, who's an attorney.

He's about 20 years older than her.

And they begin this whirlwind romance and they get married, raising a ton of eyebrows, as you can imagine.

but things get really crazy when Will vanishes the morning after a birthday party that Nora throws for him.

So, Happy Wife is a mystery that flips back and forth between Nora and Will's romance and the search for Will in the wake of his disappearance.

So, the authors here combine suspense and juicy social dynamics and a really unforgettable cast of characters.

All right.

And one more takes us to the category.

Psychological suspense.

Psychological suspense.

We go from a happy wife now to a happy marriage.

So A.J.

Torrey, I'm sorry, A.R.

Torrey, the author here, poses the question, what holds a strong and loving marriage together?

That's a great question.

So this centers on Los Angeles homicide detective Dina, and she's happily married to her psychiatrist husband Joe.

They seem compatible on the surface, but as it turns out, she's been keeping a secret from him and he's been keeping a secret from her.

So a missing woman tied to Dinah's latest case is admitted to Joe's hospital and the doctor patient confidentiality lands Joe and Dinah's marriage on really shaky ground.

So things get messy really fast here as all these carefully constructed lies on both sides begin to cave in.

with the potential to kill.

So that's all I will tell you.

Wow.

Okay.

We've got, that is a very ambitious list.

And whether you want to get one of them or all seven of them, you can get those requests in now at your, at your local library.

And thanks to you, some folks are going to get it sooner than they would have otherwise.

Because you'll be high up on the waiting list there.

The other thing you can do is you can head over to bookshop.org as well as Libro.fm I think I've got those two put up on screen as well here there we go bookshop.org and Libro.fm or your local independent bookseller and Would you you would suggest pre-ordering as being helpful as well right Laura?

Mm-hmm absolutely

Oh, we had a little signal drop there by Laura.

Tell you what, I'll tell you more about that and then we'll talk to Laura when she pops back on here in just a bit.

But again, bookshop.org is basically your Amazon alternative, if you will, to support independent bookstores and Libro FM, libro.fm is the equivalent of that for

audiobooks and you can go and support your local bookseller that way.

And that's what I did through the bookshop.org.

I don't know where my nearest local independent bookshop is.

I went there and found out that there's a store in Menominee that I could patronize and did that.

And I'll talk to Laura about my latest purchase when we communicate next.

Here on Mornings Across the Civic Media Radio Network, I'm Pat

Breitlohm.

All right, let's continue our conversation with author Laura Ann Bird.

We heard about some of the things that are going to be big on summer reading lists coming up throughout the next couple of months here as people, you know, check out their libraries or their local independent bookseller as well.

And Laura, I was saying just before the break that, you know, based on what you said, I went to bookshop.org to find out, you know, a local independent bookstore that I could support and made my first purchase to benefit a place in Menominee.

So

So far, so good.

I'm a new customer.

And the, I want to tell you that the first purchase I

made

is because I've been told for 20 plus years, you want to write something, you want to write, you know, something about your time in TV or your time in politics or whatever.

And I would try every so often and it just, it just does.

didn't seem to come together and I'd get impatient.

So my first purchase was a book about creative writing.

I'm so used to writing in a news style.

And so I've got this big thing is 640 pages.

It's called the making of a story.

It's called a Norton guide to creative writing.

And so I wondered if you had any other words of encouragement for people who think they might have a story in them.

But

have had trouble getting it onto the page?

Mm hmm.

That's a great question, Pat.

Um, I would say my number one book that I really suggest you read, anybody reads with any sort of creative ambitions is Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert.

And the subtitle is Creative Living

Beat.

Oh, I think.

We done lost her again.

Yep.

I think we got a signal issue there.

So Laura, if you pop back up, just pick up where you left off here.

But I was not expecting something quite this big, you know, when it came about creative writing.

And it is, it is a very, you know, real thing.

And I think Laura is calling in right now.

So Gregg will let me know when she's on on and ready to join us again to write in one style.

And then to look at Tony right away on YouTube.

So you're writing a book.

Are you sure you're not running for office?

Tony, I promise you, I am not running for office.

Laura, do we have you on the phone now?

I'm on the phone.

Oh, right.

Technical difficulties.

That's that's all right.

So anyway, I was I was asking for advice and I'm sure you've gotten this because you are a published author.

You you're working.

Did you say you're working on your third one?

I am.

I'm working on my third middle grade novel, so I write for kiddos ages 8 to 12.

And I have two books already out, and so I'm writing a third one.

And they're considered standalone companion stories, so they all kind of fit together.

They all take place in the same small town in northern Wisconsin, but they feature different main characters in each one.

So yes, I'm working on my third.

Just last week, I finished my second draft of that, which in some ways I think is the hardest draft to write.

So I'm hoping that I'm getting there, bit by bit, shipping away.

So when people do say, well, how do you get started?

And how do you make the time and everything else?

What do you tell folks?

Well, OK, you were asking kind of about craft books before.

And I think one thing I would point people to, if they have any sort of creative ambitions or any sort of like little desire in the back of their head to maybe write a book someday.

But it's not just about writing.

You know, if you're a painter or you want to start a business, you have any sort of ambition of creating something new.

I love the book Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert.

It's called Big Magic, Creative Living Beyond Fear.

And Pat, I can't recommend this enough.

She, Elizabeth Gilbert, is probably best known for her memoir, Eat, Pray, Love, which came out, gosh, probably 20, 25 years ago and it was made into a movie.

during Julia Roberts, if you remember that, but Elizabeth Gilbert wrote this book called Big Magic and she writes about the creative process, about how creative ideas are sort of sent down to us from the creative universe and they roll along to us and it's our job to scoop them up and to do something with them or they roll along to someone else.

And so if you have an idea for a book, if there's something you might want to write about someday,

The creative universe has sent you this idea, Pat, and it's your job to follow through.

It's going to roll along to someone else.

And Liz Gilbert writes so beautifully and so compelling about listening to that and honoring those creative impulses.

So it's more of creative inspiration, if you will, as opposed to like, it's not the nuts and bolts of actually sitting down to write a book, but I would definitely start there with big magic.

Sure.

Okay.

Well, no, that's another great recommendation.

And how does it work for you when you when you decide that it's time to sit and do some writing?

Are you one of those folks that you have to lock yourself in a room and nobody can interrupt you for, you know, 12 hours or are you one of those that just puts on some headphones in a coffee shop and taps some things out?

What's what's your own process?

Great question.

Well, my first book, which I wrote before the pandemic, I wrote

probably 95% of it at a coffee shop here in Madison.

I found that the white noise, you know, of kind of the, you know, espresso being, you know, foamed up and everything and the quiet talking in the background, that really helped me.

And it also helped to be out of my house, you know, where I wasn't surrounded by laundry and a dishwasher to unload.

But then the pandemic happened and I kind of stopped writing in coffee shops and I wrote my second book all at my house.

Same with my third book.

I've pretty much been here in my office at my home in Madison.

I don't like to be bothered, so I shut my door and it helps that my kids are all at school.

I don't have any kids at home anymore.

I like quiet music in the background.

I think the number one thing is putting your phone in a different room so that you are not tempted to pick up your phone.

And I think it helps if you, you know, close down like your email so that when you're writing, you don't see messages popping up on the screen and you don't feel that need.

you know, to toggle back and forth between your document and an email.

Okay, the distraction separate from my phone.

I will try.

I'll try.

Look, Lauren Bird, thank you so much as always for the recommendations and the advice and we'll talk to you again

soon.

Have a great day.

Coming up in our next hour, we'll talk to Melissa Baldoff.

We'll also have an update from meteorologist Brittany Merleau.

Greg Bach is back in one hour for Matt Nair on air, and I believe Greg, you again said Todd Alba is going to be joining you there.

Yes, sir.

So tune in for that.

And remember, you can follow my team over at UpNorthNewsWI.com.

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