Jill Long Thompson discussing her new book

The Character of American Democracy:

Preserving Our Past, Protecting Our Future

with Richard Painter (invited) and Delmarie Cobb,moderator

Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2020; Panel discussion: 7- 8:15 pm

Free, open to the public. No registration needed. Just join the meeting via Zoom: https://uic.zoom.us/j/9987216609

Jill Long Thompson, a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, is a visiting scholar with the Ostrom Workshop at Indiana University Bloomington.  During the past five years she taught ethics at the IU Kelley School of Business and the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs

Richard Painter was chief ethics lawyer in George W. Bush’s White House and is now the S. Walter Richey Professor of Corporate Law at the University of Minnesota Law School. His latest book is American Nero: The History of the Destruction of the Rule of Law, and Why Trump Is the Worst Offender.

Delmarie Cobb, a veteran journalist and political consultant, owns and operates The Publicity Works, a Chicago-based public affairs, political consulting and media relations firm. She writes a column, Chicago Colors, and is often sought out by the media for her political analyses.

The Character of American Democracy,just published Sept. 15, 2020, shows a bipartisan way forward in these troubling times, when the public is losing trust in our government and confidence in our democratic system. Thompson makes the case that democracy is an ethical concept, and that the process by which we adopt policy is as important as the policies we adopt. One week after the election will be a perfect time to analyze where we stand. Join us!

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For more information, contact event chair Greg Borzo at (312) 636-8968 or [email protected].

Connie Goddard

Revisiting Industrial Education: Lessons from Three Distinctive Progressive Era Schools                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021;  7:00 – 8:15 p.m.

Free, open to the public              No need to register

 Zoom link:shorturl.at/xGHR3

Before there were vocational-education programs, there was manual training and industrial education, which emphasized the practical instruction of the hand and eye. Manual training improved perception, observation, dexterity and visual accuracy. It combined practical with academic education.

Goddard’s forthcoming book, Revisiting Industrial Education: Lessons from Three Distinctive Progressive Era Schools, examines influential schools in North Dakota, New Jersey and Chicago. Chicago’s innovative Manual Training School (CMTS), was created in 1884 and influenced dozens of similar schools before being incorporated into John Dewey’s department of education at the University of Chicago in 1901; once there, it lost its distinctive identity. Why Dewey ignored CMTS – as well as complementary ideas from Frank Lloyd Wright and W.E.B. Du Bois – are among the fascinating questions Goddard asks in her “rich contextualization of educational activities around the turn of the century,” as an early reviewer said of her book.

Goddard will also discuss: Getting published; Writing during Covid and Lessons from writers who guided her research.

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For more information, contact program chair Greg Borzo: (312) 636-8968; [email protected]

Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2020, 7-8:15 p.m.

Free, open to the public.  No registration required. This meeting will be conducted by Zoom. Enter this URL in your browser: https://uic.zoom.us/j/9987216609

Marlene Brill, moderator, Midland Authors Vice President and Awards Chair 

These six authors won the Midland Authors Annual Book Awards in 2019. Hear them discuss their work. 

Chelsea Wagenaar, The Spinning Place, a beautiful, intelligent, capacious book exploring a mother-child relationship.

Andrea Warren, Enemy Child: The Story of Norman Mineta, a Boy Imprisoned in a Japanese American Internment Camp During World War II, a vivid narrative withplentiful, telling photographs that convey a tragic story from a child’s point of view.

David Treuer, The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present, a searing, multilayered, memoir and investigation of one of the least understood massacres in the history of American and Native American relations.

Heather Shumaker, The Griffins of Castle Cary, a delightfully written ghost story filled with mystery and humor.

Iliana Regan, Burn the Place: A Memoir, an original voice, as author seeks her sobriety, identity, passion and life partner.

Tim Johnston,The Current: A Novel, an intricately woven tale of crimes that plagued a small Minnesota town.

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For  more information, contact event chair Greg Borzo at (312) 636-8968 or [email protected]

NewYorkTimes bestselling author and Chicago’s own Rick Perlstein discusses his new book

Reaganland: America’s Right Turn, 1976-1980

Free; open to the public. Join us via Zoom with this link: https://uic.zoom.us/j/9987216609 

Perlstein is the author of: The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan; Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America, picked as one of the best nonfiction books of 2007 by over a dozen publications; and Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, which won the 2001 Los Angeles Times Book Award for history.

He’s a contributing editor and board member of In These Times magazine.

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For more information, contact event chair Greg Borzo at (312) 636-8968 or [email protected]

eminent historian Ann Durkin Keating in conversation with Greg Borzo, Midland Authors Event Chair.

Tuesday, March 10, 2020  at the Cliff Dwellers

See the video here, recorded by CAN-TV

      Juliette Kinzie is one of Chicago’s forgotten founders. She arrived in Chicago in 1831 and not only witnessed the city’s transition from Indian country to industrial center, but was also instrumental in its development. The World of Juliette Kinzie offers a new perspective on Chicago’s early history and is a fitting tribute to a remarkable woman who was an astute observer of early Chicago, an influential contributor to the city, and even one of the first women historians in the United States. This book brings Kinzie to life.

Ann Durkin Keating, who teaches history at North Central College, is one of the foremost experts on 19^thcentury Chicago. She has volunteered extensively with the Chicago History Museum, Illinois State Historical Society and Naper Settlement. The World of Juliette Kinzie was published by the University of Chicago Press (2019), as were Keating’s previous books, including her very well reviewed  Rising Up from Indian Country:  The Battle of Fort Dearborn and the Birth of Chicago.

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MIDLAND AUTHORS presents:

Lori Rader-Day; Patricia Skalka; Tracy Clark; Sam Reaves

  The Mystery Behind Mystery Writing 

Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2020; Cocktail hour: 6-7 pm;  Panel discussion: 7-8 pm

Free, open to the public.    Free appetizers, cash bar.  at the Cliff Dwellers Club, 200 S. Michigan Ave. 

Lori Rader-Day:  The Lucky One

Lori Rader-Day has been leading a “life of crime” since age seven, when she wrote a piece of Beverly Cleary fan-fiction. Today she’s co-chair of the mystery readers’ conference Murder and Mayhem in Chicago and the national president of Sisters in Crime, a 4,000-member crime writers organization.

Patricia Skalka:  Death By the Bay

Patricia Skalka is the award-winning author of the Dave Cubiak Door County Mysteries, which pit a former troubled Chicago cop against a roster of clever killers in northern Wisconsin. She’s the immediate past president of the Chicagoland Chapter of Sisters in Crime.

Tracy Clark:  Borrowed Time

Tracy Clark, a native Chicagoan, is author of the critically acclaimed Chicago Mystery series, which features Cassandra Raines, a former Chicago homicide cop turned intrepid private investigator. She’s a member of the national board of Boucheron, the annual world mystery convention.

Sam Reaves, moderator:  Homicide 69

Sam Reaves has written crime novels including the Cooper MacLeish series, the Dooley series and the stand-alones Mean Town Bluesand Cold Black Earth, as well as a true crime memoir Mob Copwith Fred Pascente. He’s a polyglot who has traveled widely in Europe and the Middle East and has worked as a teacher and a translator. And Reaves is a board member of Midland Authors.

MIDLAND AUTHORS PRESENTS:
Margaret McMullan • Rich Lindberg • Donna Urbikas • David W. Berner

Tuesday, January 14, 2020, at the Harold Washington Library 

McMullan: Where the Angels Lived: One Family’s Story of Exile, Loss and Return

“McMullan has written a beautiful and heartrending account of her pilgrimage to Hungary in the hope of retrieving what she can of the story of a relative lost in the Holocaust. Written with her usual vividly realized, emotionally engaging prose, (this book) is a powerful testament of familial mourning as well as a vision of 20th century European history that is searing and uplifting.” — Joyce Carol Oates, Pursuit: A Novel of Suspense

Lindberg: Whiskey Breakfast: My Swedish Family, My American Life

“Lindberg does not spare himself or his ancestors in this poignant, powerful memoir of his family’s entry to
the United States. He evokes the haunted landscape of poverty and superstition from which his ancestors fled
to America…only to suffer different demons in that new land.” — Harry Mark Petrakis, Collected Stories

Urbikas: My Sister’s Mother: A Memoir of War, Exile and Stalin’s Siberia

“This stunning, heartfelt memoir looks unflinchingly at the scars borne by one Polish immigrant family as
their daughter tries to become a normal American Girl in Chicago. …a must-read for World War II history
buffs.” — Leonard Kniffel, author of A Polish Son in the Motherland

Moderator, Berner: The Consequence of Stars: A Memoir of Home

“Reflective, engaging…Berner’s authentic storytelling takes you with him on his travels through the chapters of his life where in the end, he reveals connections to finding a place to be, his home under the stars.” — Nancy Chadwick, author of Under the Birch Tree

CAN-TV recorded this panel discussion about memoirs. Watch it here:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAQ4MzsT8Dg