I go to Milwaukee: Boswell Books and Resurrectionists!
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Last night I drove up to Milwaukee to speak about Dare to Know at Boswell Book Company. What a fantastic experience! Staff members Jenny, Jason, and Kay have been big supporters of the book from the beginning (you can read their reviews of Dare to Know, and buy it through Boswell, here). When they asked me to come speak at the bookstore, I leaped at the chance.
And people came! Like, people I don’t know! Every author has had the humiliating experience of showing up for a bookstore event and finding that no one has come. But we had a bunch of people show up, several of whom had already read Dare to Know and who had really smart, probing questions about it. They treat you right at Boswell! (By the way, Jenny of Boswell interviewed me for the bookstore’s blog. Check it out if you want to read about how programming my Atari 800XL, Blade Runner, and selling door-to-door as a kid inspired Dare to Know, plus my soft spot for “unlikeable” characters.)
I met wonderful people. Two of them were Gregory Sadler and Andi Sciacca, who are both faculty at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. Greg dug Dare to Know, and it was a delight to speak to both of them about philosophy and writing. Greg has a YouTube channel about philosophy that I’m looking forward to diving in to. There’s a possibility I might get to make an appearance on it, too! I’ll keep you posted.
Another great thing about coming to Milwaukee is catching up with my friend Joe Cannon, whom I met when I was eighteen in college. He’s always been an incredible musician (and we even collaborated on an abortive musical at one point), and his band Resurrectionists happened to be playing that very night! Here we are back in the 90s, and now:
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After Joe came to my thing at Boswell, I came to his show at a pretty great punk bar called Last Rites. I’ve followed all of Joe’s bands throughout the years. The last time I saw Resurrectionists, they were more rueful and melancholy. This time they tore everyone’s skulls off, and the last two songs of the set were some of the best I’ve heard Joe do, really soaring and anthemic. I’m really looking forward to when their album comes out.
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The vibe of the night was unpretentious and frankly a bit friendlier than shows I’m used to in Chicago. The other bands that night (Marc Alan, the Size 5’s, and El Escapado) were fantastic as well. I should come to Milwaukee more often!