Events this week: Nick Petrie with Bonnie North, Midhuri Vijay at Shorewood Library, Marie Kohler, Diane S. Forman

Here's what's going on this week.

Monday, January 14, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Nick Petrie, author of Tear It Down, in conversation with Bonnie North

Petrie, Milwaukee’s hometown hero, returns to Boswell for a special launch celebration of the latest edge-of-your-seat entry into the award-winning Peter Ash series, which he’ll discuss with WUWM Lake Effect’s incomparable Bonnie North.

Peter Ash is in Memphis to help Wanda, a war correspondent who’s been receiving peculiar threats. It seems someone has just driven a dump truck into Wanda’s living room. At the same time, a young street musician is roped into a heist that doesn’t go as planned. Now he’s holding a sack full of Rolexes and running for his life. When his getaway car breaks down, he steals a new one at gunpoint - Peter’s pickup truck. Peter likes the kid’s attitude but soon discovers the desperate musician is in worse trouble than he knows. And Wanda’s troubles are only beginning.

Bonnie North previewed the conversation on WUWM's Lake Effect: "The goal with every book is to move him farther down his timeline. And when I started all of this, I don't think I knew enough about Post-Traumatic Stress and what a big deal it is for many people. I felt I'd write one book about Post-Traumatic Stress and then he'll get better and it'll be about something else." Read more here.

Whitefish Bay-based Nick Petrie is author of three novels in the Peter Ash series. His debut, The Drifter, won the ITW Thriller award and the Barry Award for Best First Novel and was a finalist for the Edgar and the Hammett awards. His third novel, Light It Up, was just named Apple Thriller of the Year.

Tuesday, January 15, 6:30 pm, at Shorewood Public Library, 3920 N Murray Ave:
Madhuri Vijay, author of The Far Field

Lawrence University alum, Iowa Writer’s Workshop graduate, and Pushcart Prize-winner Vijay visits Shorewood Public Library to talk about her sweeping, elegant debut novel.

The Far Field follows a complicated flaneuse across the Indian subcontinent. In the wake of her mother’s death, a privileged, restless young woman from Bangalore sets out for a remote Himalayan village in the troubled northern region of Kashmir. Her journey brings her face to face with Kashmir’s politics and the tangled history. Village life turns volatile, old hatreds threaten to erupt into violence, and the wandering woman is forced to make a series of choices that could hold dangerous repercussions for the very people she has come to love.

With rare acumen and evocative prose, Vijay masterfully examines Indian politics, class prejudice, and sexuality through the lens of an outsider, offering a profound meditation on grief, guilt, and the limits of compassion.

Ron Charles raves about The Far Field in The Washington Post: "What seems at first like a quiet, ruminative story of one woman’s grief slowly begins to spark with the energy of religious conflicts and political battles. Vijay draws us into the bloody history of this contested region and the cruel conundrum of ordinary lives trapped between outside agitators and foreign conquerors."

Madhuri Vijay was born in Bangalore. She is a graduate of Lawrence University and the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. Her story “Lorry Raja” won the 2011 Narrative 30 Below Story Contest and was selected for The Pushcart Prize Series and The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2013.

Wednesday, January 16, 7:00 pm, at Boswell:
Marie Kohler, author of A Girl of the Limberlost

Director, actor, and award-winning playwright Marie Kohler appears at Boswell for a special presentation of her latest work, an adaptation of Gene Stratton-Porter’s beloved classic novel. The evening will feature scene readings and Kohler chatting about the play and the adaptation process. Cosponsored by Red Oak Writing.

A Girl of the Limberlost transports us to Indiana’s once-vast Limberlost Swamp. Meet Elnora, a 14-year-old girl with a passion for butterflies and moths. She loves the Limberlost but longs to attend high school in the city. Elnora works to find her footing at school and at home. Will she achieve her academic ambitions? Will she warm her mother's heart? Find out in this beautifully visual adaptation of an enduring story beloved by generations.

A Girl of the Limberlost is adapted from the classic 1909 novel of the same title by Gene Stratton-Porter. The JK Rowling of her era, Stratton-Porter’s novel once even out-sold Gone with the Wind.

Marie Kohler is Resident Playwright and a cofounder of Renaissance Theaterworks, where she served as CoArtistic Director from 1993 to 2012. She has been Playwright Respondent and Director Respondent at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival.

Thursday, January 17, 2:00 pm, at Boswell: Diane S Forman, author of The Diane Chronicles

Milwaukee memoirist Diane S. Forman shares her account of an unexpected life with The Diane Chronicles, which tells her tale with a strong narrative voice, quiet poems, and photos that illustrate the people, past and present, who have shaped her life.

Forman found herself caught in the social upheavals and technological changes of her generation, challenges that shook the foundation of her world and enriched it. Amid the roadblocks and detours, Forman's humor, determination, spirit, and grit make her personal journey into a story universal to all.

Diane S. Forman graduated from Duke University with a degree in English, taught school, and later taught and acquired the Wisconsin franchise for Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics. She is author of Common Threads: Nine Women's Journeys through Love, Loss, and Healing and The Storyteller.

More on Boswell's upcoming events page.