Friends of Libraries Host Children’s-Book Author

Author Nancy Willard, a lecturer in English at Vassar College, will give the keynote address for the Friends of the UW–Madison Libraries annual meeting on Wednesday, April 23.

Her public lecture will begin at 5:30 p.m. in the Madison Club, 5 East Wilson St. Willard is the author of more than 30 books of poetry and fiction for adults and children. Her most recent book is “Swimming Lessons: New and Selected Poems.”

In her lecture, titled “Books, Voices, and Poems,” Willard will focus on research done in Madison on the history of her family for a new book, Cracked Corn and Snow Ice Cream: A Family Almanac.”

Willard is the author of “A Visit to William Blake’s Inn” for which she was awarded the Newbery Medal. She writes poetry, novels, short stories and essays.

She says her overriding impulse is to celebrate the ordinary. One reviewer has said, “she creates pictures of daily life so precisely observed that afterimages often linger in the reader’s mind.” Willard’s work has been published in O. Henry Award and Pushcart Press anthologies.

A New York Times book review notes that “Swimming Lessons” “reveals a poet whose gifts have remained constant throughout her career. … Her imagery is both elemental and ethereal. … Her overriding impulse is to celebrate the ordinary: a puffball, her son’s wooden alphabet, even the hardware store.”

She is a winner of the Devins Memorial Award in poetry and has had NEA grants in both fiction and poetry. Her newest books for children are “The Good Night Blessing Book” and “The Magic Cornfield.” Willard grew up in Ann Arbor, Mich., and was educated at the University of Michigan and Stanford University.

For more information on the April 23 meeting and address, call Don Johnson at (608) 262-0076.