Wisconsin Book Festival hosts virtual events with renowned authors, including Senator Elizabeth Warren

MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) - You can now engage with Wisconsin’s favorite literary talents at the click of the button. The Wisconsin Book Festival is taking place virtually all year long.

“At this point we’ve done a little over 75 virtual events since last April. Those have stood in largely for our stand alone events that we typically do throughout the year,” said Festival Director, Conor Moran.

In partnership with Madison Public Library Foundation, the annual fall celebration typically draws 15,000 people to listen to authors in-person. This year, events are recorded and streamed on Crowdcast and can be watched any time after their premiere.

“When you’re sitting in a chair at the central library someone is reading to you or talking to you about a book they wrote, you have the opportunity to ask a question, maybe get your specific take on the book and that can all happen online,” told Moran.

For one special upcoming event, if you are among the first to register and watch, you can get a free book. The festival is hosting Senator Elizabeth Warren on May 6th at 7:00 p.m. to speak about her new book Persist. The first 600 people to register for the event and then live stream it will get a free copy of Persist.

The announcement of Senator Warren’s appearance in the festival was just announced Monday. Moran is thrilled to have Senator Warren as a special guest in Madison, saying, “I think for about 6 years now I’ve been trying to get the senator to come to Madison and we became the Midwestern stop on the book tour for her newest book ‘Persist.’ Which is really quite a bit of a memoir and also kind of a blueprint for how she sees the future.”

Senator Warren has been selected as this year’s Cheryl Rosen Weston Memorial Lecturer. Weston died in 2018 and left the Madison Public Library a “sizeable gift” to help support the festival.

“I think we get great authors all the time, but I have been really excited about the level of authors who see the Wisconsin Book Festival as part of what makes a great nationwide tour,” said Moran.

The fall festival celebration is also scheduled for October 15-17, 2021. It is still yet to be determined if the fall event will be held in-person.

The annual event was started in 2001 by the Wisconsin Humanities Council and then taken over by the Madison Public Library in 2013.

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