Stu Levitan welcomes WORT’S own Frank Emspak about his new memoir Troublemaker: Saying No to Power.WORT listeners probably know Frank as a co-founder and producer of Madison Labor Radio, right here every Friday at 5:30 since January 1998. You may know him as a co-founder and executive producer of the syndicated Workers Independent News, which broadcast every weekday from 2002 to 2017. Or maybe you know him as Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin School for Workers, where he taught from 1991 to 2008.And those of you of a certain age, or who have read your history books, may recall his service in the sixties as chair of the UW Socialist Club then chair of the National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam, member of the steering committee and lead organizer of Madison Citizens for a Vote on Vietnam then a successful doctoral candidate in the history department.But in the 20 years or so between those two Madison eras of academics, activism and communications, a sojourn in Massachusetts wearing different colored collars as a hospital lab technician, skilled machinist and foundry worker.And in each professional iteration, he has taken after his father and been a class-conscious union leader, here as President of United Faculty and Academic Staff Local 223, and in Massachusetts as Executive Board member and steward of competing unions, first at the largest shoe machine manufacturer in the country, then at a GE plant.All in all, it has been quite a life, making Troublemaker quite a book. It's a great pleasure to welcome Dr. Frank Emspak to Madison BookBeat.

Stu Levitan welcomes Peter Fauerbach, the namesake and great-great-grandson of the founder of the brewing company that is synonymous with Madison, for a discussion of his award-winning, lavishly illustrated new book, Fauerbach Brewing Company Madison Wisconsin 1848-1967. The elder Peter Fauerbach was born in Bavaria in 1830, emigrated to the United State in 1850, working in and running breweries in upstate NY, and the young Wisconsin towns of Portage and New Lisbon. He made it to Madison in 1868 to lease the Sprecher Brewery at Blount and Williamson streets. By 1880 it was the Fauerbach Brewing Company, a mainstay of Madison life until it closed July 1, 1966. The brewery was torn down December 13, 1967, and the site was later developed by David and Leigh Mollenhoff as the Fauerbach Condominium.Among Peter’s descendants with an important role in the company’s history – his grandson Karl H., general manager from Prohibition until 1960, and Karl H’s son Karl P., master brewer from 1957 until the final keg nine years later. Although our Peter Fauerbach was only 14 when the brewery closed, he is uniquely qualified to tell the Fauerbach story. After all, Karl H was his grandfather, Karl P his father. And it was his great-uncle Dr. Louis who made and implemented the decision to close the brewery. No wonder that he has become the unofficial company historian.Peter Fauerbach has degrees in physics and math from St. Olaf College in Minnesota and a master’s in industrial engineering from the university of Wisconsin. Naturally, with that academic background, he spent his career as a health care consultant, with a particular focus on hospital relocations. He lives near Spring Harbor on Madison’s west side with his wife, Maggie Zoeller.

In this edition of Madison BookBeat, host Angie Trudell Vasquez speaks with local author Maggie Ginsberg. Her debut novel “Still True,” set in a fictional Wisconsin town, was just published by the University of Wisconsin Press.It’s a novel that explores the messiness of family, relationships and alcoholism in a small Wisconsin town. Ginsberg joins Bookbeat to read excerpts of the book, and share how the characters changed and came to life over the course of five years.Maggie Ginsberg is a senior editor at Madison Magazine, and her writing has appeared at a variety of city, regional and national publications. “Still True” is her debut work of fiction. You can find her online at maggieginsberg.com (maggieginsberg.com) and follow her on Twitter @maggieginsberg (https://twitter.com/maggieginsberg?).

In this episode of Madison BookBeat, host Jonas Gomez Tijerino speaks with local poet Shahayra Majumder (https://www.instagram.com/shahayramajumder/?hl=en), author of the new chapbook, The Unreliable Narrator Wakes Up. They discuss the process of publishing independently and the themes of loss of innocence and navigating adulthood.About the guest:Shahayra Majumder is a Madison transplant, hailing originally from West Palm Beach, Florida. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Applied Biomoleculor Sciences and a Minor in Mathematics from the University of Florida in Gainesville. In 2019, she moved to Madison for work.. Since then she has held roles as a Technical Solutions Engineer for Epic, Solution Engineer for Included Health, and, most recently, Sales Engineer for Myndshft. The Unreliable Narrator Wakes Up is Shahayra’s first published collection.

Stu Levitan welcomes Madison native Anne Winkler-Morey for a conversation about her book Allegiance to Winds and Waters: Bicycling the Political Divides of the United States, the narrative of the 12,000-mile bicycle trip she and her husband David took around the perimeter of the United States over 14 months in 2011-2012. It was quite an experience, and the book is as interesting as the endeavor.

Today, host Angie Trudell Vasquez speaks to Oscar Hokeah on his debut novel, Calling For A Blanket Dance (https://www.workman.com/products/calling-for-a-blanket-dance/hardback) (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2022). Angie and Oscar share stories about going to the Institute of American Indian Arts (https://iaia.edu/), how his book came to be, and examine the role families can play in healing.About the GuestOscar Hokeah is a citizen of Cherokee Nation and the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma from his mother’s side and has Mexican heritage through his father. He holds an MA in English with a concentration in Native American Literature from the University of Oklahoma, as well as a BFA in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA), with a minor in Indigenous Liberal Studies. He is a recipient of the Truman Capote Scholarship Award through IAIA and is also a winner of the Native Writer Award through the Taos Summer Writers Conference. His short stories have been published in South Dakota Review, American Short Fiction, Yellow Medicine Review, Surreal South, and Red Ink Magazine. You can find more about him on his website, oscarhokeah.com (https://oscarhokeah.com/).

Stu Levitan welcomes back to the show Rob Zaleski for another conversation about conversations – the 19 interviews he had with former Madison Police Chief David Couper, just published as David Couper Beyond the Badge: Reflections of an Ex-Cop.In a city which has had many interesting and controversial police chiefs, David Couper stands out. He took command Jan. 2 1973 and ushered in a series of policy and personnel reforms that many residents applauded but many officers resisted – all while was suffering a battery of personal trials and tribulations, which would continue for decades. Then in 1993 he did something no one expected – he retired from the police department to become an Episcopal priest.Getting beyond the Couper headlines and into Couper’s head is the business which occupies Rob Zaleski in Beyond the Badge. It’s business he is well-equipped to pursue, having interviewed thousands of people, including David Couper, in his 40 years in journalism, including 26 years with The Capital Times. Rob was born and raised in working-class neighborhood Bay View, on Milwaukee’s south side. He studied journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee but de-matriculated in his junior year to become assistant sports editor of the Waukesha Freeman. He worked at the Milwaukee Journal and several small dailies in the early 1970s before joining United Press International’s Madison bureau ion 1976, where he was a night editor and covered the Green Bay Packers and University of Wisconsin sports.He was named sports editor of The Capital Times in 1981, later took a job with the LA Times, but couldn’t take the traffic, and in 1985 returned to the Cap Times as a columnist, racking up more than a dozen writing awards over the next 23 years.Beyond the Badge is Rob’s second q and a book with an interesting and accomplished public man, following 2019’s Ed Garvey Unvarnished: Lessons from a Visionary Progressive. That book was the focus of his first appearance on Madison BookBeat, on May 4, 2020, and kinda had something to do with this book getting written. His first book was a novel in 2012, Searching for Sal” which featured a character clearly based on Couper.

Hello again friends and and welcome to Madison BookBeat, your listener-supported community radio home for Madison authors, topics, book events and publishers. I’m your fourth week host Stu Levitan, and I am very excited about today’s show, because our guest is not only a Madison author, he is, by the objective criteria of sales and critical acclaim, Madison’s greatest author, David Maraniss, whose brand new book is about America’s greatest athlete. It’s called Path Lit By Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe, published last week by our good friends at Simon and Schuster, and already number2 on the NYT best seller list. As you probably know, David is a two-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for his work with the Washington Post, where he remains an associate editor, and the author of 12 previous books, including biographies of Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Vince Lombardi, Roberto Clemente and a history that was in part about Madison and the UW in October 1967, They Marched into Sunlight. His Madison credentials are top notch. He wasn’t born here, but did grow up here as the son of Mary Maraniss, an editor with the UW Press, and my former boss at the Capital Times, Elliot Maraniss, who was the subject of his most recent book A Good American Family. And he and his wife Linda have a house on the near west side of Madison where they summer whenever they can. I usually spend a couple of minutes setting up the book, but you already know who Jim Thorpe was and  there is so much to talk about in these 626 pages of text and notes that I’ll just say I’ve had the pleasure of talking with David about his last seven books, and it is a real delight to welcome him now to MBB to talk about Path Lit By Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe

In this edition of Madison Bookbeat, host Angie Trudell Vasquez speaks with poet Matthew Gutierrez. He's the author of Notes I Wrote Along the Way (Ten16 Press, 2020), a collection of original poetry in English and Spanish.About the guest: Matthew James Gutierrez received his master's degree in educational psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. As an undergraduate, he studied creative writing, focusing on fiction writing and poetry. Other experiences include screenplay and television writing courses at UCLA. You can follow Matthew on Instagram: @matthewjames_g (https://www.instagram.com/matthewjames_g/?hl=en) and @notes2poetry (https://www.instagram.com/notes2poetry/?hl=en).

Wisconsin author Patricia Skalka is out this summer with Death Casts a Shadow (July 2022, UW Press). It's her seventh book in the Dave Cubiak mystery series, which pits a former Chicago cop against a roster of killers, all in beautiful Door County.In fact, the series was sparked by the beauty of Door County itself, says Skalka. She joins host David Ahrens to talk about the importance of place as a character in storytelling in this edition of Madison Bookbeat.About the guest: Patricia Skalka is the author of the award-winning Dave Cubiak Door County Mysteries. She turned to fiction after a career in nonfiction as a staff writer, freelancer, ghost writer, writing instructor, and book reviewer. She lives in Milwaukee and Door County. You can find more about her at patriciaskalka.com (http://www.patriciaskalka.com/).