Join us on Saturday, June 20 at 7 PM for a special reading with local creative nonfiction authors Aurora Shimshak, Kory Shrum, and Kate Vieira.
Award-winning local authors share works that confront their passages from grief, shock, or dislocation into a state of healing. The women in this reading offer not only their own experiences, but consolation, encouragement, and ways to care one’s way to healing.
Aurora Shimshak grew up in several rural communities and small cities in Wisconsin. Her work has appeared in Best New Poets 2023, Copper Nickel, and Poetry Northwest, among others. She currently resides in her home state’s capital where she studies rhetoric and composition, teaches writing, and appreciates badger statuary.
Kory M. Shrum is a keynote speaker, podcaster, and USA TODAY bestselling author of more than thirty books. She hosts two podcasts—Who Killed My Mother?, a true-crime podcast about her mother’s tragic death, and A Well Cared For Human, focused on practical strategies for wellbeing and personal transformation. She also publishes poetry under the name K.B. Marie. When not writing, speaking, or pursuing one of her 300 hobbies, she can usually be found under thick blankets with snacks. The kettle is almost always on. She lives in Michigan with her equally bookish wife, Kim, and their rescue dog, Max.
Kate Vieira is the Susan J. Cellmer distinguished professor of literacy at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, a former Peace Corps Volunteer (Latvia) and Fulbright scholar (Colombia), and a single mom, with literary essays in Guernica, The Sun, Tin House, Writing on the Edge, Nowhere: A Travel Magazine, and First-Person Singular. Her literary work has won the Wisconsin Writers Kay W. Levin short creative nonfiction award, the Sustainable Arts award, and the Donald Murray award for creative nonfiction. She is also the author of two award-winning scholarly monographs on language and migration, and her collaborative bilingual book on poetry and peace in communities impacted by armed conflict will be out soon. She is completing a memoir called Single in Five Languages that tells the story of her failed relationships via her obsession with and expertise in language and culture.
Arts + Literature Laboratory is located at 111 S. Livingston Street #100, Madison, Wisconsin, 53703.
Our galleries are open Tuesday through Friday 10am-5pm and Saturday noon to 5pm, and other programs take place throughout the week. Please check the events calendar and education section for details.