Madison Central Library - Lower Level Program Room Presented in partnership with the Wisconsin Book Festival. A first-of-its-kind handbook, allowing the reader to combine the processes of critical and creative thinking with a detailed discussion of the environmental challenges facing our planet. Planting An Idea is part guidebook for better critical and creative thinking and part overview of the environmental challenges that face our planet today. It is designed to help readers young and old examine and develop opinions on…

Madison Central Library - Community Room 302 Presented in partnership with the Wisconsin Book Festival. The definitive story of the scientists who set out to answer two questions: “Why do we sleep?” and "How can we sleep better?” A century ago, sleep was considered a state of nothingness—even a primitive habit that we could learn to overcome. Then, an immigrant scientist and his assistant spent a month in the depths of a Kentucky cave, making nationwide headlines and thrusting sleep…

There is more overlap between scientific research and creative writing than you may think! Both involve a process of research, creative thought and storytelling, and in this panel we will discuss what these disciplines have in common and what each can take from the other. Acclaimed novelist Chloe Benjamin (THE IMMORTALISTS) uses science to inform her fiction, while data scientist and statistician Claudia Solis-Lemus writes fiction and memoir when she isn’t researching evolutionary biology and microbiome. Moderated by novelist and…