Wisconsin's most literary festival is looking for a few good bookworms. The Wisconsin Book Festival will be hosted in Madison October 15-19 and the event has issued a call for volunteers. According to the Fest:

Firecracker Studios has been on a sort of hiatus from the Madison art scene, but in the past couple of months Firecracker co-founder Sam Johnson has been making small appearances around town including a small show at the Project Lodge earlier this month. Tonight Firecracker will be hosting an ART PARTY at the Mercury Lounge at 117 East Mifflin Street. The party will feature new work from Colm McCarthy's "SIN" series. Also featured will be Highflier #13, Donald Topp, and more. The show starts at 9 p.m. Below are new posters from Firecracker for upcoming events around Madison including one for Capitol City Tattoo's 8th Anniversary Party at the High Noon Saloon tonight featuring Weedeater, Art of the Flesh, Dead End Rejects, and Halcyon.

Pop culture critic and author Chuck Klosterman visited the University of Wisconsin's Union Theater Monday night to dish about everything from Senator Hillary Clinton to Lost to the widening gap between "indie" and "hipster." Klosterman managed to take mundane audience questions and spin them into commentary that could be lifted right from one of his articles in Esquire, but much more meandering. Below are snippets from the Klosterman talk:

Hillary Clinton:
Klosterman didn't spend very much time discussing politics, but he did open with a short monologue concerning Presidential candidate Senator Hillary Clinton who was hosting a rally on the other side of town. He said it was too bad they had to compete because it would have been cool if "we somehow combined events." He suggested they could debate and conceded that she would probably be stronger on topics like heathcare and national defense, but when it came down to "Oasis b-sides or Lost conspiracy theories I would crush her."

Ryan Zeinert is proof that it’s hard to be a human being. In his debut book, 65 Poor Life Decisions, the chap of mishaps explores the humorous side of screwing up.

As the title suggests, the book is a compilation of 65 essays culled from Zeinert’s blog, theCDP.net. Since launching four years ago, theCDP has become one of Wisconsin’s best-read humor blogs, with nearly 13,000 hits per month.

The blog chronicles Zeinert’s daily blunders, past embarrassments and general ruminations, such as in an open letter to his noisy, sex-crazed neighbors. Self-deprecating without being boastful, Zeinert charms with his retrospective of awkward moments.

This is a new feature on Dane101 we are calling "comment rescue." Some of our articles pile on a sizable number of comments, but as the stories get pushed down the page those comments may not be read by the greater dane101 reading audience. One of our missions is to foster a community dialog so every couple of weeks we will look back through our archives and yank up what was written and put them in a proper post. Today we revisit Katie Krueger's post from October 20 "The future of the book: Libraries as museums?" Notable reader comments are below:

"Cool to work there" comment and libraries as museums by CarolG:

Today is October 31. While for most people that means Halloween, for many others it means something else - NaNoEve. At midnight tonight thousands of individuals across the globe will sit down and start writing a 50,000 word novel in only 30 days. Why? Because we are insane.

This will be my fifth year taking part in National Novel Writing Month. Honestly, I've only met my goal of finishing all 50,000 words on my first attempt. Over the following four years I have finished the month farther and farther from the goal. So it goes. This isn't a bad thing as the main reason why I can't hit the 50,000 word mark is because I am so damn busy. That first year I was new to Madison, had only a handful of friends, and a great deal of free time. Slowly over the past four years I've watched as my plate became fuller and fuller even though my stomach pretty much remained the same size.

As an 8-year old girl, most of my life unfolded in five square city blocks in Wauwatosa, WI. The world between my house on 81st Street and Lincoln Elementary School on 76th did not satisfy my wanderlust and thus began my life of literary escapism. My favorite destination was in the branches of an old elm tree in the backyard. With a new copy of Harriet the Spy tucked into the elastic waistband of my pants, I climbed up to where the trunk split in two. I perched awkwardly in the small elbow made by the branches and settled in to read. By the time I noticed that my butt had gone numb, I was halfway through the fifth chapter. Only fifty feet from my bedroom, but light years away with my imagination.

Two days until November. That means two days until I join a handful of other Madisonians as we throw our mental stability into a blender for 30 days. November is *shiver* National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). This will be my fourth year taking part in the adventure. After clocking more than 50,000 words in 2003 - essentially "winning" - I failed to achieve that goal in 2004 and 2005 - roughly 15,000 words short each time. Why would anyone do such a thing when they dread it so much? Essentially it is a flaw in my programming. But this time I have a plan - you're coming along with me. Each week I will share up dates on my progress and sanity - as well as the progress of others. That way if I start slacking all of Madison will know it.

Madison's annual Zine Fest (MZF for short) will be coming to town on October 21, 2006 in conjunction with the Wisconsin Book Festival. Over the weeks leading up to the event we will be profiling some of the zinesters who will be offering up their wares and also contributing to panel discussions. This is our fifth of six profiles (click "print" above to find the rest).

Name of Zine (or zines):
Antithezine is our compilation comic zine with art and stories from several people. We also have several zines that are single (or double) stories which are part of longer series: Build Your Own Boyfriend, Of 2 Minds, Tabloid Roulette/Merylion Factor

Madison's annual Zine Fest (MZF for short) will be coming to town on October 21, 2006 in conjunction with the Wisconsin Book Festival. Over the weeks leading up to the event we will be profiling some of the zinesters who will be offering up their wares and also contributing to panel discussions. This is our fifth of six profiles (click "print" above to find the rest).

Name of Zine:
the area code

How long have you been publishing this zine?
I am currently working on the premier issue, but the area code is a part of a larger project that began about three months ago.

Madison's annual Zine Fest (MZF for short) will be coming to town on October 21, 2006 in conjunction with the Wisconsin Book Festival. Over the weeks leading up to the event we will be profiling some of the zinesters who will be offering up their wares and also contributing to panel discussions. This is our fourth of six profiles (click "print" above to find the rest).

Name of Zine: Ideas In Pictures

How long have you been publishing this zine?
5 years.

How often to you release issues?
When I finish them, so far five in five years. They are becoming less frequent as time passes.

Starting at noon on Saturday a group of comic cartoonists from the Madison area will be gathering at Escape Coffeehouse. The goal? To create a 24-page comic in 24-hours. According to the 24 Hour Comics website that means "story, finished art, lettering, colors (if you want 'em), paste-up, everything! Once pen hits paper, the clock starts ticking. 24 hours later, the pen lifts off the paper, never to descend again. Even proofreading has to occur in the 24 hour period." No preparation can occur beforehand.

24-hour comic day is the brainchild of Scott McCloud who is considered the leading theoretician in the field of comics. McCloud has published three important texts on the topic including Understanding Comics, Reinventing Comics, and Making Comics. 24-hour comic day is both a homage to the creation of comics and a challenge to help bolster creativity.

Madison's annual Zine Fest (MZF for short) will be coming to town on October 21, 2006 in conjunction with the Wisconsin Book Festival. Over the weeks leading up to the event we will be profiling some of the zinesters who will be offering up their wares and also contributing to panel discussions. This is our third profile (click "print" above to find the rest).

Name of Zines:
How to Fold a Paper Crane, Scatter, Whistling Dixie

How long have you been publishing this zine?
HTFAPC was originally created in 2000 and has been in print since 2001. It, as is the case with most of my books, is a One-Offs or stand alone title. THe exception being the Whistling Dixie series, which has been around since 2004. Scatter, I believe, was first published in 2002.

Madison's annual Zine Fest (MZF for short) will be coming to town on October 21, 2006 in conjunction with the Wisconsin Book Festival. Over the weeks leading up to the event we will be profiling some of the zinesters who will be offering up their wares and also contributing to panel discussions. This is our second profile.

Name of Zine:
Concentric is the minicomic that's released in issues, consisting of compiled comics and illustrations. There are also other minicomics I produce which are "one-shots", i.e. they stand alone, such as My Pet Growth and the upcoming Li'l Lupus: Babysitting Blues.

The Willy Street neighborhood has a very distinct character. Those of you who live there, or visited the Willy Street Fair this weekend, know what I mean. Those of you who don't, check out the DaneTube videos, and you will quickly understand. Starbooks reflects that character and the moment you walk in, you can feel what makes the eastside neighborhood pulse.

In bookstores, the central tables are reserved for what is selling: in Big-Box-Bookstores, these tables usually mirror the NY Times Best Sellers list. In Starbooks, the books on these tables mirror the interests of the neighborhood. The current events section, placed upfront, full of titles like “The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time,” “Downsize This! Random Threats from an Unarmed American,” “Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election & Why They'll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them),” and “Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations.” I think its safe to assume that Ann Coulter readers, who ducked here to take shelter from Sunday’s parade, ended up leaving disappointed.