Emily Sullivan (virtual with Milwaukee Public Library), Elvia Wilk (virtual with Porchlight), and Carolyn J Eichner (at Boswell)

Tuesday, August 23, 6 pm

Emily Sullivan, author of The Hellion and the Hero
in conversation with Beth Gabriel and Rachel Copeland for a virtual event - click here to register! 

Join us for a virtual celebration of The Hellion & The Hero, the third book in Emily Sullivan’s critically-acclaimed League of Scoundrels series, hosted by Milwaukee Public Library and Boswell. Sullivan appears for a conversation with Beth Gabriel of Milwaukee Public Library and Rachel Copeland of Boswell.

Sullivan’s latest is a Persuasion-inspired second chance romance between a disillusioned naval hero and the dashing widow who once broke his heart. Lady Georgiana Arlington has always done what’s best for her family, even when it meant marrying a man she didn't love to save her father. Her husband’s death has left her stronger and bolder. When a mysterious enemy jeopardizes her livelihood, there’s only one person she can trust to help her uncover the threat: the same man she left heartbroken years ago. Captain Henry Harris, a decorated naval hero, will put both his body and his heart in danger for a second chance with the one woman he’s never been able to forget.

From the starred Booklist review: "Historical romance star Sullivan returns with another entrancing addition to her League of Scoundrels series that brilliantly showcases her mastery of deep characterization as well as her gift for crafting a wit-infused plot that effectively threads the needle between desire and danger without dropping a single stitch."

Emily Sullivan is an award-winning author of historical fiction set in the late Victorian period, including the novels of the League of Scoundrels series A Rogue to Remember and The Rebel and the Rake.

Wednesday, August 24, 6:00 pm

Elvia Wilk, author of Death by Landscape
in conversation with Sally Haldorson for a virtual event - click here to register. 

Boswell Book Company and Porchlight Book Company present a virtual event featuring Elvia Wilk, author of the novel Oval, for a conversation about her new work, Death by Landscape, a book of ‘fan nonfiction’ about living and writing in the age of extinction. In conversation with Sally Haldorson, Managing Director of Porchlight Book Company.

In Death by Landscape, Wilk questions what type of stories are being written to help us rethink our human-centric perspective and proposes a new, feminist genealogy for speculative fiction. In a constellation of essays, the book begins as an exploration of the role of fiction today and becomes a deep interrogation of the writing process and the self. Wilk examines creative works across time and genre in order to break down binaries between dystopia and utopia, real and imagined, self and world.

From the starred Publishers Weekly review: "Superb… Fiery…Elegant and powerful. This one packs a punch." And from Jonathan Lethem: "Perhaps 'essays' is too slight a description for Death by Landscape, which strikes me as the stealth memoir of a supertaster of the present moment - a citizen of our suffering species who has chosen storytelling as herarmor for survival. Whatever you call it, Wilk’s book strengthens me to go on with the essential work, and makes me awfully eager for her next."

Elvia Wilk is author of the novel Oval, and her work has appeared in publications like Artforum, Granta, and The Atlantic. She is a Contributing Editor at e-flux Journal and recipient of an Andy Warhol Arts Writers Grant and a fellowship at the Berggruen Institute.

Friday, August 26, 6:30 pm

Carolyn J Eichner, author of Feminism’s Empire and The Paris Commune
in-person at Boswell Book Company - click here to register!

Join us at Boswell for an evening of French Feminist history with Carolyn Eichner, author of Feminism's Empire and The Paris Commune, two books which reframe our understanding of France in the nineteenth century and how women shaped the country. Cohosted by UWM's Department of Women's and Gender Studies and Alliance Française de Milwaukee. Masks required at this event. We can provide a mask for you, but we'd love for you to bring yours from home. 

With Feminism's Empire, Eichner investigates the complex relationships between imperialisms and feminisms in the late nineteenth century and demonstrates the challenge of conceptualizing ‘pro’ and ‘anti’ imperialist as binary positions. Eichner explores how feminists opposed - yet employed - approaches to empire in writing, speaking, and publishing. In differing ways, they ultimately tied forms of imperialism to gender liberation. Margaret Cook Andersen, author of Regeneration through Empire, says: "Feminism's Empire expands concepts of imperialism beyond France's colonial holdings and brilliantly demonstrates how integral ideas of empire, race, and religion were in shaping articulations of French women's rights."

And in The Paris Commune, the first brief history of this event written in English in decades, Eichner considers a moment in history that began when Parisian women stepped between cannons and French soldiers, using their bodies to block the army from taking the artillery from their working-class neighborhood. Sarah Fishman, author of From Vichy to the Sexual Revolution, says: "This compelling account of the Paris Commune makes a complicated event understandable and vivid. Eichner’s rich portraits bring to life the freedom and empowerment the Communards experienced, juxtaposed with the bloody repression of its final days."

Carolyn J Eichner is also author of Surmounting the Barricades: Women in the Paris Commune. She is Professor of History and Women’s and Gender Studies at UWM.

Visit the Boswell upcoming events page for a look farther ahead.

Photo credits
Elvia Wilk by Calla Henkel and Max Pitegoff