Monday, August 30, 2021

This week - Elly Fishman for Refugee High and William Kent Krueger for Lightning Strike

Tuesday, August 31, 7 pm
Elly Fishman, author of Refugee High: Coming of Age in America - ask for your signed copy
A conversation with Boswell's Daniel Goldin
Register for the in-person event here - masks required
Register for the virtual broadcast here

Milwaukee-based reporter Elly Fishman joins us for a conversation about her new book of journalism, winner of the Studs and Ida Terkel Award, which chronicles a school year at Chicago's Sullivan High School, where nearly half the student body was born in another country and 70% speak a second language.

This event is cohosted by HOME and Lynden Sculpture Garden. More about their programs here.  

Refugee High is a riveting chronicle of the 2017–8 school year at Sullivan High, a time when anti-immigrant rhetoric was at its height in the White House. As Fishman follows teachers and administrators grappling with the everyday challenges facing many urban schools, the reader witnesses the complicated circumstances and unique education needs of refugee and immigrant children. Equal parts heartbreaking and inspiring, 

Refugee High
raises vital questions about the priorities and values of a public school and offers an eye-opening and captivating window into the present-day American immigration and education systems. Alex Kotlowitz, author of There Are No Children Here and An American Summer, says “A wondrous tapestry of stories, of young people looking for a home. With deep, immersive reporting, Elly Fishman pulls off a triumph of empathy. Their tales and their school speak to the best of who we are as a nation - and their struggles, their joys, their journeys will stay with you.”

Elly Fishman worked as a senior editor and writer at Chicago magazine. Her features have won numerous awards, including a City Regional Magazine Award for her first report on the students and faculty of Sullivan High School. Fishman currently teaches in the Journalism Department at UWM.

Thursday, September 2, 7 pm
William Kent Krueger, author of Lightning Strike - ask for your signed bookplate
A virtual conversation with Lisa Baudoin
Register for this virtual event here

We’re pleased to welcome back William Kent Krueger, the Edgar Award-winning author of bestselling novels Ordinary Grace and This Tender Land as well as his beloved Cork O’Connor series, which he returns us to in his latest, Lightning Strike. Cohosted by our friends at Books & Company of Oconomowoc.

Lightning Strike
is a powerful prequel to the Cork O’Connor series. It’s a book about fathers and sons, long-simmering conflicts in a small Minnesota town, and the events that echo through youth and shape our lives forever. In the summer of 1963, Cork stumbles upon the body of a hanging from a tree in an abandoned logging camp. It is the first in a series of events that will cause him to question everything he took for granted about his hometown, his family, and himself.

Here’s high praise from Kristin Hannah, author of The Four Winds and The Nightingale: "William Kent Krueger is a master storyteller at the top of his game with Lightning Strike. A pitch perfect, richly imagined story that is both an edge-of-your-seat thriller and an evocative, emotionally-charged coming of age tale that explores the complex bonds between fathers and sons and the long simmering animosities of the past. This is a beautifully written novel that packs a powerful punch. I loved it."

Minnesotan William Kent Krueger is the New York Times bestselling author of This Tender Land and Ordinary Grace as well as eighteen acclaimed books in the Cork O’Connor mystery series, including Desolation Mountain and Sulfur Springs.

Photo credits
Elly Fishman by Alyssa Schukar
William Kent Krueger by Paul Dinndorf

More upcoming events at the Boswell website.

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