FREE. In an election year, candidates from all parties toss this word about from swing state to swing state, as in, the land of the free, free trade, tax-free, free Iraq, defend freedoms, free to choose, free to wed, free to worship, etc.
With the third annual Wisconsin Book Festival poised just a few weeks before the national elections, we at the Wisconsin Humanities Council have been preparing to celebrate yet another one of our cherished freedoms: the freedom to read, write, and publish what we wish. Books still can get banned and burned, but we see our Festival as one of the ways we can underscore the importance of a free, open literary culture to the survival of any democracy.
At this year's festival, the WHC is proud to feature our
A More Perfect Union initiative, a series of public programs that examine the ideals of the US Constitution. Our kick-off event feature my new favorite political writer, Stephen Elliott, as well as a non-partisan voter registration drive. We've also brought in great historians like Joseph Ellis, as well as a host of poets and novelists, some of whom threaten to get political on us this year. Finally, we'll be featuring writers from two of the nation's most popular political news outlets, "The Daily Show" and "The Onion."
On behalf of everybody at the WHC, I hope you find our presenters exciting and the conversations they provoke inspiring. And many thanks to our many generous sponsors,
everything is --you guessed it-- absolutely free.
---Dean Bakopoulos, Executive Director, Wisconsin Humanities Council
