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Wisconsin Writer's Wall of Fame

John Ridley Jr. / Orson Welles

John Ridley Jr.
Born in Milwaukee 1965-
John Ridley is a novelist, screenwriter, moving picture managing director and showrunner. Known for 12 Years a Slave for which he won an Academy Award for All-time Adjusted Screenplay. He is as well the creator and showrunner of the critically acclaimed anthology series American Criminal offense. A prolific writer, his various works include noir thrillers, action-adventure films, and one-act. Ridley'south novel Devious Dogs was published in 1997, a bleak tale of betrayal and agony that won comparisons to such master criminal offense and suspense writers equally Dashiell Hammett, Elmore Leonard, and Raymond Chandler. Ridley released a 2d novel in the noir genre the following year, Love Is a Noise, which over again gained critical praise. Ridley produced and directed his first original film, Cold Around the Heart, some other noir thriller. Ridley has besides written social criticism and political journalism and has appeared as a commentator on radio and telly. Ridley's articles on politics, race issues and the media industry appeared in a number of publications including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and the Boston Earth.

Orson Welles
Born in Kenosha, 1915-1985
Orson Welles was a Broadway and Hollywood actor, radio histrion, and moving-picture show director. Citizen Kane (1941), is his well-nigh famous moving-picture show and was awarded accolades and acclaimed every bit one of the best movies of all time. Welles is credited with producing, directing, co-scripting the unabridged film and playing the leading office. Years later Welles alleged "I began at the superlative and have been making my way downward always since. Among his other films are The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), The Lady From Shanghai (1946), Othello (1952), Touch on of Evil (1958), The Trial (1962), and F Is for Fake (1973). Welles appeared in more than 45 films too his own. Welles played The Shadow on radio and supervised "Mercury Theatre on the Air." The near famous episode was an adaptation of H. M. Wells' State of war of the Worlds, which resulted in panic as many listeners, believed the Martians were invading New Jersey. Welles shared an University Award for the script of Citizen Kane and in 1975 was honored by the American Movie Constitute with a Life Accomplishment Award.

Increase A. Lapham

Increase A. Lapham

Resident of Milwaukee 1836 – 1875
Increase Lapham wrote and published on a broad diversity of scientific and popular topics throughout the mid-19th century.  His subjects reflect his broad range of interests in the world around him.  Lapham is credited for being the author of the get-go book written and published in Milwaukee, A Geographical and Topographical Description of Wisconsin; with cursory sketches of its history, geology, mineralogy, natural history, population, soil, productions, regime, antiquities, &c, &c published past P. C. Hale in 1844. Lapham's most enduring work is his The Antiquities of Wisconsin, as surveyed and described which was published in 1855 as a part of the Smithsonian Establishment'due south Contributions to Knowledge series.  In addition to his own writing, Lapham was instrumental in the development of libraries in Milwaukee.  He served as a member of the city's schoolhouse board, personally contacting publishers and ordering books for school libraries.

Kevin Henkes

Kevin Henkes (1960- )

Born in Racine, Henkes often visited the local art museum - The Charles A. Wustum Museum of Fine Arts. He was profoundly inspired by these visits and by reading his favorite books. Henkes is best known for the books featuring an adorable assortment of marvelous mice - Chester, Chrysanthemum, Lilly, Owen, Penny, Wendell and Wemberly - to name a few. Only he has written more than forty books including novels, picture books, and his pop "mouse books."Kitten'due south First Full Moon was the winner of the Caldecott Medal and Henke's novelOlive'south Ocean won a Newbery Award. The Association of Library Service to Children, a partition of the American Library Association, selected him to evangelize the prestigious May Hill Arbuthnot Lecture in 2007.

Richard Schickel (1933-2017)
Born in Milwaukee
Film historian, filmmaker, and flick critic, Schickel is the author of more than than thirty books and the director-writer-producer of dozens of moving-picture show and boob tube documentaries. Among his best-known books are Elia Kazan: A Biography; D.Westward. Griffith: An American Life; Clint Eastwood: A Biography; The Disney Version; Brando: A Life in Our Times; and his memoir, Good Morning, Mr. Zip Zip Nada. His about contempo titles are Clint: A Retrospective and Conversations with Scorsese. A pic critic for Life magazine and Fourth dimension magazine for 43 years, Schickel reviews at Truthdig.com. He has held a Guggenheim Fellowship and was awarded an honorary degree past the American Film Found.

A. Manette Ansay / Margot Peters

A. Manette Ansay (1964- )

Raised in Port Washington, studied at the Academy of Wisconsin.

Ansay'south experiences in Midwestern farm life are incorporated into her fiction. Novels like the Oprah selection Vinegar Hill and Midnight Champagne are infused with the rhythm of rural Wisconsin. In her memoir Limbo, Ansay relates her struggle with the debilitating affliction that redirected her musical career towards that of the written word. She has received the Nelson Algren Prize for the title story of Read This and Tell Me What Information technology Says, the Pushcart Prize, the Friends of American Writers Prize, and the Great Lakes Book Award.

Margot Peters (1933- )
Resides in Lake Mills.
Born in Wausau and educated at the University of Wisconsin, Peters is the author of celebrated biographies including Design for Living, a biography of Lunt and Fontanne, two books on Charlotte Bronte: Style in the Novel and the biography Unquiet Soul, also as books on Mrs. Patrick Campbell, the Barrymores, and May Sarton. She received the George Thousand. Freedly, Banta, and Council of Wisconsin Writers awards all for Bernard Shaw and the Actresses.

Jane Hamilton / David Maraniss

Jane Hamilton (1957-)
Resides in Rochester
After graduating Carleton College in Minnesota, Hamilton moved to Wisconsin where she began her literary career by putting her experiences with rural, small-town living into critically acclaimed novels. Her books, including The Book of Ruth (for which she won the PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award) and A Map of the World demonstrate Hamilton's ability to examine the subtle nuances of family dynamics in the face up of tragedy, misfortune and dysfunction.

David Maraniss (1949- )
Raised and educated in Madison
Maraniss was born in Detroit, Michigan just moved to Madison when he was eight. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin and began his journalism career with the Washington Mail in 1977. He received the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 1993 and the Frankfurt Prize in 1997 for When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi. His non-fiction books range from compelling biographies of larger-than-life figures to in-depth examinations of major events in American history.

John Koethe

John Koethe (1945- )
Professor of Philosophy at UW-Milwaukee
Built-in in San Diego, California, Koethe was educated at Princeton and Harvard Universities. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Blue Vents, The Late Wisconsin Spring, The Constructor, and Northward Point North: New and Selected Poems. His 1973 volume of poems, Domes, won the 1973 Frank O'Hara Award for Poetry, and his 1997 collection, Falling Water, received the 1998 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. In 2000, John Koethe was named Milwaukee's start poet laureate.

Stephen Ambrose / Frederic Cassidy

Stephen Ambrose (1936-2002)
Raised in Whitewater
Graduating with a major in history from the Academy of Wisconsin-Madison, Ambrose earned his master's degree from Louisiana Land Academy, and returned to the University of Wisconsin to begin work on his Ph.D. in history. Some of his best sellers include: Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West, Citizen Soldiers, Band of Brothers, D-Day June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II, and Wild Bluish.

Frederic Cassidy (1907-2000)
Taught in Madison
Cassidy was born in Kingston, Jamaica. He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees at Oberlin College and his Ph.D. at the Academy of Michigan. From 1939-1979, Cassidy taught at the Academy of Wisconsin-Madison where his courses included Beowulf, Old English, One-time English Poetry, Centre English, and the history of the English language. He authored numerous published works, just volition be best remembered as the chief editor of The Dictionary of American Regional English language, a massive compilation of slang, regionalisms, and folk language.

Francis Paul Prucha, S.J. / Frederick Jackson Turner

Francis Paul Prucha, South.J. (1921- )
Built-in in River Falls
A Jesuit priest, Prucha is a professor of history at Marquette University, where he has taught since 1960. In his many writings he explores the complex and sometimes tempestuous relations of the American Indians with the dominant white gild.

Frederick Jackson Turner (1861-1932)
Built-in in Portage
A graduate from the State University (Wisconsin) in 1884, Turner became a professor at the University of Wisconsin, where he drew the inspiration for his essay The Significance of the Borderland in American History which addresses American territorial expansion and its impact on the growth of republic. An author of numerous books, his name is synonymous with the western borderland.

John Gurda

John Gurda (1947- )
Born in Milwaukee
Equally Milwaukee's local historian and author of The Making of Milwaukee, Gurda has chronicled the histories of Milwaukee area neighborhoods, churches and industries. A graduate of Boston College and property a chief's degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, he is also a photographer, lecturer and local history columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Lois Ehlert

Lois Ehlert (1934- )
Born in Beaver Dam, resides in Milwaukee
The talented author and illustrator of over xxx books for young children, Ehlert is a graduate of the Academy of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and the Layton School of Fine art. Her simple and fun concept books abound with brightly colored collages of tone and texture. She received a Caldecott Honor for Color Zoo and has delighted children with her colorful creatures in Circus, Feathers for Tiffin, and Cuckoo: A Mexican Folktale among many others.

Marguerite Henry

Marguerite Henry (1902-1997)
Born and raised in Milwaukee
The beloved children'south author wrote 60 books in her lifetime. Educated at Riverside Loftier School and Milwaukee Land Teachers College (UW-Milwaukee), she institute an enthusiastic audience of young readers for her books about animals, especially horses. Awarded many honors in her lifetime, she won the 1949 Newbery medal for King of the Wind. Her all-time-known volume, Misty of Chincoteague, and the pop Justin Morgan Had a Horse and Brighty of the Grand Canyon were fabricated into films.

Baronial Derleth (and 11 More Artists)

August Derleth (1909-1971)
Life-long resident of Sauk City
Wisconsin's most prolific writer, Derleth published more 150 books ranging from historical novels and poetry to themes of the macabre. The Hills Stand Sentry describes political Wisconsin as it emerged from a territory to a state. August Derleth Society

Edna Ferber (1887-1968)
Babyhood dwelling in Appleton
Once a reporter for the Milwaukee Periodical, Ferber's volume A Peculiar Treasure describes her early on impressions of Appleton. She wrote several best-selling novels including Giant and Prove Boat, and won a Pulitzer Prize for So Big.

Zona Gale (1874-1938)
Built-in in Portage
Edna Ferber recalls existence in awe of this "existent" writer who visited the Milwaukee Periodical while she was a reporter. Gale too wrote for the Milwaukee Periodical but is best known for her novels, plays and short stories which reflect her passion for politics, pacifism, education, social reform and feminism She received a Pulitzer Prize for her play Miss LuLu Bett.

Hamlin Garland (1860-1940)
Born in Westward Salem
A novelist and essayist, his work A Son of the Middle Border and Pulitzer Prize-winning A Daughter of the Middle Edge portray the harsh life on the prairies of rural Wisconsin.

Aldo Leopold (1886-1948)
Lived and worked in Madison
Leopold was a pioneer ecologist whose concept of wilderness preservation is outlined in A Sand County Annual. This collection of essays uses spare, eloquent prose to champion the demand for an environmental code of behavior for humankind.

John Muir (1838-1914)
Boyhood home in rural Montello
Born in Scotland, Muir came to Wisconsin in 1849. The Story of My Boyhood and Youth describes his early on years in rural Montello. Naturalist, inventor, writer and conservationist, Muir is recognized as the begetter of the national park organization and founder of the Sierra Club.

Lorine Niedecker (1903-1970)
Built-in in Fort Atkinson, lived on Blackhawk Island
Niedecker is a poet of a single location, the area around Blackhawk Island. "I spent my childhood outdoors - ruby-red-winged blackbirds, willows, maples, boats, fishing..." wrote Niedecker. She worked for a time as a library assistant in the Dwight Foster Public Library. Her works include New Goose, "My Friend Tree" and "My Life Past Water."

Sterling North (1906-1974)
Born in Edgerton
Life on a farm near Edgerton became the setting for North's The Wolfling and "Morning in the Land." A reporter, literary editor and publisher of North Star Books, Sterling Due north is all-time known for his exploits with his pet raccoon which he chronicled in the novel Rascal, afterwards made into a Disney film.

Ellen Raskin (1928-1984)
Born in Milwaukee
Ellen Raskin received an art degree from UW-Madison and established a New York career in freelance commercial art, likewise as writing and illustrating children's books. In 1966 Raskin wrote Nothing Ever Happens on My Block, which was named one of the x best illustrated children'south books of the yr by the New York Times. She received the Newbery Medal and Banta Award for The Westing Game which is ready in Sheboygan.

Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
Lived in Milwaukee as a journalist
Poet, historian, novelist and biographer, Carl Sandburg lived in Wisconsin from 1907 to 1912. He worked every bit a reporter for the Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Sentinel. He later became best known for his biographies of Lincoln, winning a Pulitzer Prize for history for Abraham Lincoln: The War Years and for poetry with Selected Poems.

Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867-1957)
Born in Pepin
The famous author of the "Piddling House" books was born in Pepin, Wisconsin in 1867. The series of family unit stories describing both the joys and hardships of life on the frontier began with Petty Firm in the Large Woods. This kickoff volume describes Wilder's years in Wisconsin living in a log cabin with her family unit. The "Little House" books inspired the long-running television series "Niggling House on the Prairie."

Thornton Wilder (1897-1975)
Born in Madison
Playwright and novelist, Wilder grew up in Madison and spent his first nine years investigating the city's library, lakes, and the paper function. In 1928 he won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for The Span of San Luis Rey. His popular play The Matchmaker was made into the musical "Hullo Dolly!" and he won Pulitzer Prizes for both Our Boondocks and The Skin of Our Teeth. In 1974 he received the commencement Banta Award for his novel Theophilus North.

By and Present Poet Laureates

Dasha Kelly Hamilton

Dasha Kelly Hamilton is a writer, performance artist and creative change agent.  Through responsive and respectful intentionality, Dasha leverages the creative process to facilitate critical dialogues around homo and social wellness.  Dasha delivers her date sessions to campuses, classrooms, correctional institutions, association conferences, social service agencies, municipal departments and team retreats.

Her nonprofit, All the same Waters Commonage, has curated verse programming and spoken discussion events in the region for almost 20 years. The work has impacting more than 13,000 youth, provided professional development to more than 100 young people and created platforms for thousands of voices to be honored and heard.

Dasha has written for national, regional and local magazines; produced three collections of verse; recorded iv spoken give-and-take CDs; and published two novels. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University and has taught writing courses at Mount Mary University, Alverno College and UW-Milwaukee. Dasha served as an Arts Envoy for the U.Southward. Embassy to teach, perform and facilitate community edifice initiatives in Botswana and the island of Mauritius.

Roberto Harrison

Roberto Harrison has been named the 2017-2019 Milwaukee Poet Laureate. His books include Os (subpress, 2006), Counter Daemons (Litmus Press, 2006), bicycle (Noemi Press, 2015), culebra (Green Lantern Press, 2016), Bridge of the World (Litmus Press, forthcoming 2017), and Yaviza (Atelos, forthcoming 2017), likewise as many chapbooks.

His work has been published widely in journals and anthologies such as Chicago Review, Mandorla, Palabra, Puerto del Sol, Cream City Review, Callaloo, and Best American Experimental Writing 2015. With Andrew Levy, Roberto edited the poetry periodical Crayon from 1997 to 2008, and he is also the editor of Bronze Skull Presswhich has published over 20 chapbooks, including the work of many Midwestern poets. Almost recently Roberto served equally a co-editor for the Resist Much/Obey Littleanthology. For several years, he hosted Milwaukee'due south Enemy Rumor verse reading serial. Roberto is also a visual artist.

Matt Melt 2015-2017

Resident of Milwaukee 1836 – 1875 Increment Lapham wrote and published on a wide variety of scientific and popular topics throughout the mid-19th century. His subjects reflect his broad range of interests in the world effectually him. Lapham is credited for being the author of the outset book written and published in Milwaukee, A Geographical and Topographical Description of Wisconsin; with cursory sketches of its history, geology, mineralogy, natural history, population, soil, productions, regime, antiquities, &c, &c published by P. C. Hale in 1844. Lapham'southward nigh enduring work is his The Antiquities of Wisconsin, as surveyed and described which was published in 1855 equally a function of the Smithsonian Institution'southward Contributions to Knowledge series. In addition to his own writing, Lapham was instrumental in the development of libraries in Milwaukee. He served every bit a fellow member of the city's school board, personally contacting publishers and ordering books for schoolhouse libraries.

Increase A. Lapham2

Resident of Milwaukee 1836 – 1875 Increase Lapham wrote and published on a wide diverseness of scientific and popular topics throughout the mid-19th century. His subjects reverberate his wide range of interests in the world around him. Lapham is credited for being the author of the start book written and published in Milwaukee, A Geographical and Topographical Clarification of Wisconsin; with brief sketches of its history, geology, mineralogy, natural history, population, soil, productions, government, antiquities, &c, &c published by P. C. Hale in 1844. Lapham's most enduring work is his The Antiquities of Wisconsin, equally surveyed and described which was published in 1855 every bit a office of the Smithsonian Institution's Contributions to Cognition series. In addition to his own writing, Lapham was instrumental in the development of libraries in Milwaukee. He served as a member of the city's school board, personally contacting publishers and ordering books for school libraries.

Increase A. Lapham4

Resident of Milwaukee 1836 – 1875 Increase Lapham wrote and published on a wide variety of scientific and pop topics throughout the mid-19th century. His subjects reflect his broad range of interests in the world effectually him. Lapham is credited for being the writer of the first book written and published in Milwaukee, A Geographical and Topographical Description of Wisconsin; with brief sketches of its history, geology, mineralogy, natural history, population, soil, productions, government, antiquities, &c, &c published past P. C. Hale in 1844. Lapham's most enduring work is his The Antiquities of Wisconsin, equally surveyed and described which was published in 1855 as a part of the Smithsonian Establishment'southward Contributions to Knowledge series. In addition to his ain writing, Lapham was instrumental in the evolution of libraries in Milwaukee. He served as a member of the urban center's schoolhouse board, personally contacting publishers and ordering books for schoolhouse libraries.