Midwest Writers Room

Luella and Ken

Podcast from the Wisconsin Writers Association. We discuss all things writerly, with an emphasis on the unique flavor of works that originate in the Midwest.

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Episodes

Chapter Break with Sue Leamy Kies
6d ago
Chapter Break with Sue Leamy Kies
Today we’re launching our Chapter Break episode series. These are a short-form version of our normal show and will feature authors speaking on their latest book publication, with insight to the story origin and an excerpt reading. In this episode we’re talking with Sue Leamy Kies. Sue is a retired high school English teacher who lives in Platteville. After almost thirty years in the classroom at Platteville High School, Sue has focused her efforts on writing a memoir of her teaching experiences, intertwined with memories of her teen years at that same school. It is called “My Homecoming Dance: Reflections on Teaching in Wisconsin.”Sue’s writing has appeared in Wisconsin Woman Magazine, The Wisconsin State Journal, The Illinois English Bulletin, The Voice of the River Valley, and The Wisconsin Academy Review. In 2021 the Center for Applied Drama and Autism chose her play Back, about a disabled veteran, to be performed for their One-Act Play Festival. The Platteville Library Foundation published her children’s book called Saving Sadie in 2017, and Sassy’s Vacation, her second kid’s book, was published by the Platteville Community Arboretum in 2022.Besides reading and writing, Sue enjoys spending time outdoors and with family, including her husband Dave, border collie mix Jojo, and backyard chickens Cluck and Buck.Website: sueleamykies.comAuthor appearances:June 11, 4:30pm CST - Platteville Public LibraryJune 22 - Hedberg Public Library Book Fest
Season 2, Ep. 7 - Nicholas Gulig, April 2024
Mar 31 2024
Season 2, Ep. 7 - Nicholas Gulig, April 2024
Nicholas is a Thai-American poet from Wisconsin. Educated at the University of Montana (BA), the Iowa Writer’s Workshop (MFA), and the University of Denver (PhD), his work has been published over thirty times in various print and on-line journals. The author of two book-length poems, “North of Order” and “Book of Lake” his work has also received numerous national awards. The recipient of the Grist Pro-Forma Prize, the Black Warrior Review Poetry Prize, the Cutbank prize for Prose Poetry, The Red Hen Press Poetry Award, and the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters Poetry Prize, his most recent book, “ORIENT,” received the 2018 CSU Open Book Poetry Award. Since receiving a Fulbright Fellowship in 2010-2011, Gulig’s creative and critical work has focused primarily on binary (mis)constructions of “eastern” and “western” cultural ideals as they occur in both popular and academic mediums. Of his writing, the poet Graham Foust has written that Gulig’s poems are “a record of someone struggling to find the vital combinations for the words with which he’s both struck and stuck, an essaying that succeeds in creating for us—in lines and stanzas and sentences—something akin to a new vocabulary.Currently, he lives in Fort Atkinson, WI with his wife and two daughters and teaches creative writing and poetics at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.Links:WI Poet Laureate > https://wisconsinpoetlaureate.org/
Season 2, Ep. 5 - Tracey Sheffield, March 2024
Mar 4 2024
Season 2, Ep. 5 - Tracey Sheffield, March 2024
Today we are excited to host author Tracey Sheffield, writing under the name TK Sheffield. She writes mysteries and screenplays for readers and viewers who want to laugh and escape. She grew up in Madison, but as a horse-obsessed teen, she bolted to the country as fast as she could. She has degrees from UW-Madison and Mount Mary University, and in addition to writing comic cozy mysteries—whodunnits served with a brandy old-fashioned and a side of cheese curds—she pens romantic comedies and children’s horse stories. She and her semi-retired pilot husband reside in rural Wisconsin, where, ironically, her head is in the clouds, imagining characters and stories, and his feet are firmly planted on the ground.Her debut comic cozy mystery, Model Suspect, released in November ’23 and has received six awards:RWA Honorable Mention for Excellence in MysterySouthwest Writers Best First Chapter awardTop 100 Notable Indie, Shelf Unbound magazinePurple Dragonfly winnerChanticleer Book Awards semi-finalist (finals TBA)Reader Views Bronze Award for Holiday/Seasonal StoriesIts sequel, Model Wave, releases in June ’24.Links:Website - https://tksheffieldwriter.com/Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thebackyardmodel/Frankie's Book Nook Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/frankiesbooknook/Blackbird Writers substack - https://blackbirdwriters.substack.com/Vellum writing software - https://vellum.pub/Atticus writing software - https://www.atticus.io/