Madison BookBeat Stu Levitan, Andrew Thomas, David Ahrens, Cole Erickson, Lisa Malawski

In this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Andrew Thomas speaks with poet Daniel Khalastchi about hist new collection The Story of Your Obstinate Survival (2024, University of Wisconsin Press).The Story of Your Obstinate Survival is a propulsive collection. It’s very funny, uncannily mundane and starkly surreal. The poems are a collision of juxtapositions and images, each one brimming with a vigor and vitality that demands re-reading, reading aloud, and maybe even setting to music. The lyrical wordplay will stop you in your tracks, either with laughter or with an appreciation for the delightfully weird scenes unfolding before you. The poems speak to an obstinate persistence, to enduring beyond a routinely felt sense of an ending.Daniel Khalastchi is an Iraqi Jewish American. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a former fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, he is the author of four books of poetry—Manoleria (Tupelo Press), Tradition (McSweeney’s), American Parables (University of Wisconsin Press, winner of the Brittingham Prize in Poetry), and The Story of Your Obstinate Survival (University of Wisconsin Press). His work has appeared in numerous publications, including The American Poetry Review, The Believer Logger, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Electric Lit, Granta, The Iowa Review, Poetry Northwest, and Best American Experimental Writing. Daniel has taught advanced writing, literature, and publishing courses at Augustana College, Marquette University, and the University of Iowa, most recently as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He currently lives in Iowa City where he directs the University of Iowa’s Magid Center for Writing. He is the cofounder and managing editor of Rescue Press.Author photo courtesy of University of Wisconsin Press

In this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Lisa Malawski talks with Angela Trudell Vasquez, who until recently, was the City of Madison Poet Laureate.Trudell Vasquez is a poet, writer, performer, and activist. Her most recent chapbook, My People Redux (2022, Finishing Line Press) honors her heritage, contending with generational hardships immigrant families face in making a life in America. The chapbook won first place in the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets Chapbook Contest for 2022.Angie began writing seriously when she was seven years old. Her grandmother purchased a diary for her, and this is where she would write her first few lines. Angie tells us that she learned the power of words make her feel whole, well-fed, and warm.Lisa discusses Angie’s position as the former Madison Poet Laureate, poetry on the Madison Transit buses, Art Night Books, Angela’s day job as Director of Human Resources for End Domestic Abuse Wisconsin, and her work on her memoir.Additionally, Lisa jokes with Angie about some things she has learned about her, such as her love for Etta James and why she sometimes wears two different colored tights to a poetry reading.

Cynthia Marie Hoffman’s latest book of prose poetry, Exploding Head (Persea Books, February 2024) is described as an OCD memoir in prose poems.It chronicles her childhood onset and adult journey through obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), which manifests in fearful obsessions and counting compulsions that impact her relationship to motherhood, religion, and the larger world. It’s been called “Magnificently propulsive and evocative” by Rebecca Morgan Frank. Megan Wildhood said, “I want someone to make a haunted house of these poems.” She joins newest host, Sara Batkie, for a conversation about mental health, poetry as personal history, and what it’s like to be a working writer in Madison.In addition to Exploding Head, Cynthia Marie Hoffman is the author of three previous collections of poetry: Sightseer, Paper Doll Fetus, and Call Me When You Want to Talk about the Tombstones. She is the recipient of a Diane Middlebrook Fellowship in Poetry at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Wisconsin Arts Board, and a Director’s Guest fellowship at the Civitella Ranieri Center in Italy.Cynthia has taught creative writing and composition at George Mason University, the University of Wisconsin, and Edgewood College. She works at an electrical engineering firm in Madison, WI, where she lives with her husband and teenage child. You can find more about her at her website, cynthiamariehoffman.com (https://www.cynthiamariehoffman.com/) and follow her on Instagram @cynthiamariehoffman (https://www.instagram.com/cynthiamariehoffman/).

How do you make change at organizations that resemble hard granite, and aren’t designed to bend?Only by patiently and persistently nudging them forward day-by-day, one improvement at a time, according to the authors of Bending Granite: 30+ true stories of leading change (Acta Publications, 2022). It’s a compilation of stories from leaders, mostly in and around Madison, writing about the organizations they loved and sought to improve.It’s a book that promises “no big bang, no instant pudding, no quick fixes.” Nonetheless, it might lend insight for managers on effectively changing the status quo.On today’s show, host David Ahrens speaks with Tom Mosgaller and Michael Williamson, two of the volume’s co-editors.Mosgaller and Williamson join Ahrens in the studio to talk about the nature of leadership, the role of quality assurance, and the importance of paying attention to purpose, processes, and people.Michael Williamson has led many complex public organization, including stints as chief of staff for Madison Mayor Joe Sensenbrenner, assistant to UW-Madison chancellor Donna Shalala, and policy assistant to Wisconsin Governor Lee Dreyfus.Williamson is the former Executive Director of the State of Wisconsin Investment Board, which manages the Wisconsin Retirement System’s trust funds. Now retired, he continues to serve on a variety of nonprofit boards.Tom Mosgaller describes himself as a “change agent by nature, and leader by nurture.” For more than a dozen years, he served as the City of Madison’s Director of Organizational Development and Training. In his tenure, the city’s quality assurance work received worldwide recognition as a pioneering effort and was recognized by the American Society for Quality (ASQ).Mosgaller later worked as Director of Change Management for NIATx, a division of the UW Madison School of Engineering that works to improve the delivery of community-based health services.He is past President and Chairman of the Board of the American Society for Quality and has served as a Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award examiner and judge for the Wisconsin Forward Award. He now works as a consultant through his business, Gnarly Oaks.Find more about Bending Granite – including interviews and resources – at bendinggranite.org. 

In this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Lisa Malawski talks with local Madison author Ann Garvin.Ann Garvin became an author at age fifty. She has now written five books. Ann Garvin (https://anngarvin.com/) is a nurse, a professor, and USA Today Bestselling Author. She thinks everything is funny and a little bit sad. Ann writes stories about women with a good sense of humor who do too much in a world that asks too much from them. Ann is the founder of the multiple award-winning Tall Poppy Writers (https://anngarvin.com/tall-poppy-writers/) where she is committed to helping women writers succeed. She is a sought-after speaker on writing, leadership and health and has taught extensively in NY, San Francisco, LA, Boston, and at festivals across the country and in Europe.Some may say that a nurse engages more with the left-brain which is analytical, calculated and orderly verses the right-brain which is supposed to be intuitive and creative. With this, there is also the thought that the nurse must step to the right of their left brains in order to be both data-minded and people focused. Lisa talks with Ann about her book journey and engages in conversation about Ann’s nurse left brain moving to the right in order to be an author.There’s No Coming Back from This (https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/theres-no-coming-back-from-this-ann-garvin/1142433196) was published by Lake Union Publishing in 2023.Ann will return to the airwaves on 10/28 for her new book, Bummer Camp. (https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bummer-camp-ann-garvin/1144898696)

Hallie Linden yearns to write for the New York Times. At the moment, she’s stuck at a daily newspaper in tiny Green Meadow, Indiana, a town known for its amusement park and nothing else. It’s 1989, and juicy reporting jobs are hard to find. She resolves to work hard, win a few awards, and then welcome the job offers.In this edition of Madison Book Beat, host David Ahrens speaks with Cynthia Simmons. She’s author of a recent novel called Wrong Kind of Paper (https://www.sunburypress.com/collections/cynthia-simmons/products/wrong-kind-of-paper?variant=39351257170013), the story of a young reporter in a small town who resists the corporate journalist demand to avoid “controversy.”The novel unexpectedly turns into a two track thriller — one uncovering the deadly corruption and the other is the fight to get the story published.Before her career as a reporter, novelist and professor of media law, Cynthia Simmons was the News Director of WORT-FM. Since then, she’s held numerous prestigious reporting positions, and is now the Associate Teaching Professor at Penn State, where she teaches mass media law (https://www.bellisario.psu.edu/people/individual/cynthia-simmons).In this interview, she also shares with Ahrens the special contribution of listener-supported radio by providing the information necessary for a democracy to function.