This event is co-sponsored by Forage. Enjoy the opportunity to meet and mingle with some of our festival authors with delicious food ahead of B.J. Hollars’s presentation: Things that Go Bump When You Write: On Monsters, Martians, and the Search for the Truth in the Strange. Part memoir and part journalism, Hollars’ latest book, Midwestern Strange, offers a fascinating, funny, and quirky account of flyover folklore. By confronting monsters, Martians, and a cabinet of curiosities worth of strange phenomena in our own backyards, Hollars challenges readers to look beyond their presumptions and acknowledge that just because something is weird doesn’t mean it’s wrong. A little bit X-Files, a little bit Ghostbusters, and a whole lot Sherlock Holmes, Hollars will describe his efforts to get to the bottom of many of our most tangled tales. SCHEDULE: 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Meet some of our authors, enjoy a fall buffet and a cash bar, along with water and lemonade. 7:00 p.m. Remarks and Introductions 7:15 p.m. Hollars will present “Things that Go Bump When You Write” TICKET INFORMATION: Tickets are $35 and will include a fall buffet prepared by Forage’s Chef Michelle Thiede and a cash bar. Space Limited to 80 participants. Ticket deadline is Wednesday, October 16. >> Our book sales committee will have copies of newly released Midwestern Strange: Hunting Monsters, Martians and the Weird in Flyover Country available for purchase at this event. Please join us for an autographing session following the presentation. B.J. HOLLARS is the author of several books, including his latest, Midwestern Strange: Hunting Monsters, Martians and the Weird in Flyover Country. Hollars is the recipient of the Truman Capote Prize for Literary Nonfiction, the Anne B. and James B. McMillan Prize, the The Wisconsin Writers Awards’s Norbert Blei/August Derleth Nonfiction Book Award , and the Society of Midland Authors Award. He is the founder and executive director of the Chippewa Valley Writers Guild and an associate professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire. He lives a simple existence with his wife, their children, and their dog.