Art and Nature Center, 1799 Main Road | 2017 Festival, Exploring Frontiers: Real and Imagined

Dan Egan's The Death and Life of the Great Lakes (2017) has been described as "a landmark work of science, history and reporting on the past, present and imperiled future of the Great Lakes." Meticulously researched and accessibly written, the book has received
wide recognition for its fair-minded investigation of an ecosystem under threat. Egan is a prize-winning reporter from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. As a specialist in water policy, he is a senior fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's School of Freshwater Sciences. A graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism, Egan lives in Milwaukee.

Trueblood Performing Arts Center, 870 Main Road | 2016 Festival, Mystique and Mystery of the Midwest

Kimberly Blaeser was appointed Wisconsin Poet Laureate for 2015-2016 and is a passionate spokesperson for literature, the arts, and social justice. She takes as her mission the insertion of poetry into everyday lives (at baseball games!) and the support of Wisconsin poets. Her books include Apprenticed to Justice and Absentee Indians and Other Poems, and she is the editor of several anthologies of poetry. She teaches creative writing and Native American literature at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and is an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa tribe. Her poetry has been praised as a celebration of nature, family, and Native American traditions.

Gathering Grounds, Airport Road | 2015 Festival, Spirit of Place: Literature of the Land and Sea

Writer, educator, and naturalist, Hildebrand has lived in Wisconsin since 1973 and is a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin Eau-Claire. His essays and books, including Mapping the Farm, focus on how people relate to the natural world.

John Hildebrand is the author of three nonfiction books, the most recent of which is A Northern Front (2005), a collection of essays that previously appeared in such magazines as Harper's, Audubon, Outside, Sports Illustrated, Manoa, and The Missouri Review. He also wrote Mapping the Farm: The Chronicles of a Family (1995) and Reading the River: A Voyage Down the Yukon (1998). His work has been anthologized in Barnstorm: Contemporary Wisconsin Fiction (2005), Best American Sports Writing 1999, American Nature Writing 1997, The Great Land: Reflections on Alaska (1994), and Nature's New Voices (1992). His work has been translated into German and Italian.

Hildebrand received a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Michigan in 1971 and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Alaska in 1974. In 1977 he joined the English Department at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire where he is a professor specializing in nonfiction writing and literature, the short story, and American literature. He received the Maxwell Schoenfeld Distinguished Professorship and the Excellence in Scholarship Award from UWEC. He has also been awarded a Bush Artist Fellowship, a Wisconsin Arts Board Fellowship, the BANTA Award from the Wisconsin Literary Association, and a Friends of American Writers Literary Award.

Fair Isle Books, 1885 Detroit Harbor Road | 2013 Festival, Writing Wisconsin: Facts and Fiction

Bruce Dethlefsen was been appointed as the Wisconsin Poet Laureate for 2011 and 2012. He has published two poetry chapbooks, A Decent Reed (Tamafyr Mountain Press,1999) and Something Near the Dance Floor (Marsh River Editions, 2003) for which he
won the Posner Book-length Poetry Award Honorable Mention from the Council for Wisconsin Writers. Breather (Fireweed Press, 2009), his full-length poetry book, received an Outstanding Achievement Award in Poetry from the Wisconsin Library Association. He was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2003 and 2009. His most recent poetry books are Unexpected Shiny Things (Cowfeather Press, 2011) and Small Talk (Little Eagle Press, 2014).

Dethlefsen grew up in Kansas City, Missouri and graduated from Paseo High School in 1966. He completed his undergrad degree in Secondary Education at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and got his master's degree in Curriculum and Instruction from the
University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.

Bruce credits two writers for his success in poetry, John Judson, an instructor at UW-La Crosse, and David Steingass, who was a visiting artist in schools. Bruce has worked delivering telegrams, as a night watchman in a cave, as a emergency medical technician, as a high school librarian, as a curriculum coordinator, and retired after being director of the Montello (WI) public library. He has taught over a thousand people to juggle.

More off than on, Bruce has been in several bands: The Organic Republic, The Mason-Dixon Line, annaRANaway, and most recently Obvious Dog (the name from Marilyn Taylor's term for a "poem beyond resuscitation"), performing original music with Bill Orth on Cathryn Cofell's spoken-word CD, Lip. Bruce sings, plays bass and percussion.

Bruce served as secretary of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets for six years, co-founded the WFOP Chapbook Prize, and started Poet Camp. For eight years he directed The Poet Tree, a monthly reading by Wisconsin poets at the Montello Public Library. 

Bruce has had many poems published in journals and anthologies. Two of his poems were featured on Garrison Keillor's The
Writer's Almanac on public radio and several poems featured on Your Daily Poem website.