Smiles all around --

Several story book characters roamed the streets, handing out hugs and smiles. Thanks to all who visited Adel for the Iowa Book Festival, those who participated and especially those who volunteered their time and talents last weekend. It was a great event!

WEATHER UPDATE

At this point, the weather forecast for the festival tomorrow still looks dry. However, it is forecasted to be in the 30s overnight and windy in the morning. Based on that, we will move the 9 am opening ceremonies, including the keynote presentation by Frank DeFord, in to the Methodist Church at 10th and Prairie Street. The church is located nearly across the street from the outdoor pavilion stage where we originally planned the opening ceremonies. All other festival activities will stay in place as originally planned at various venues and on the street along 10th St. If the weather should take a nasty turn, the entire festival will be moved to the Adel High School on the south edge of Adel. Check here for further updates and come on out for a great day in Adel.

Meet and Greet tickets available

Frank Deford Tickets Still Available for Iowa Book Festival
Adel Partners will be hosting a special "meet & greet" breakfast reception for Frank Deford
on Saturday, April 26 starting at 8AM. Deford will be the keynote speaker at the Iowa Book Festival being
held in Adel that day.Reception tickets are $20 - limited number available! Come out and meet this incredible man whose
work continues to amaze fans of all ages and interests. Pastries, coffee & juice will be served.
The breakfast reception will be held at the Raccoon Valley Bank from 8AM to 9AM followed by his keynote address
at the Iowa Book Festival. The keynote address will begin at 9AM on the Adel Community Stage & Pavilion; reserved seating
is $5 per person; lawn seating available free of charge.
Tickets are available by calling Adel Partners at 993-5472. Don't miss out!
BIO for Frank Deford
Author and commentator Frank Deford is among the most versatile of American writers. His work has appeared in virtually every medium. The author of fifteen books, his newest, The Entitled, a novel about celebrity, sex and baseball, was published in early 2007. On radio, Deford may be heard as a commentator every Wednesday on NPR's Morning Edition and, on television, he is a regular correspondent on the HBO show RealSports With Bryant Gumbel. In magazines, he is Senior Contributing Writer at Sports Illustrated.
Julie M. Bailey
Program Director
Adel Partners Chamber of Commerce
PO Box 73
Adel, IA 50003
515-993-5472
515-993-3384 (fax)
adel@netins.net
http: partners.adeliowa.org

Welcome to the Iowa Book Festival Blog!

Please scroll all the way down for complete details including presenting author bios, schedule of events, and other shops and restaurants to visit while in town. We look forward to greeting you all in Adel on April 26!
Adel Partners Chamber of Commerce

Schedule of Events

Schedule of Events Here is the schedule of events planned for the April, 26, 2008 Iowa Book Festival in Adel, IA. Something for every member of the family! Watch for additions and changes to this schedule as we work out the final details. Note these events will be held at several different locations along a 3 block stretch from the Adel Library to the brand new outdoor pavillion. All events will be moved to the Adel-DeSoto-Minburn High School if the weather warrants.

Saturday, April 26, 2008
Private Reception with Frank Deford
8:00AM to 9:00AM Raccoon Valley Bank
Tickets required. $20
Call Adel Partners at 515-993-5472 for ticket

Opening Ceremony - United Methodist Church, 10th and Prairie St.
9:00AM to 10:00AM
Keynote Presentation: Frank DeFord
Reserved seating available - $5 - otherwise open seating

Festival Vendors
10:00AM to 4PM
10th Street between City Hall & Main Street

Book Art Exhibit
by Peggy Johnston
Hefner Law Office Conference Room
10AM to 4PM

Children's Story Hours
1st Floor, Adel Public Library
10AM to 4PM (on the half hour)

Children'sPuppetWorkshop
10:30AM to 11:30AM
2nd Floor Library - East Side
repeats from 1:00PM to 2:00PM

Author Presentations
10:30AM to 4:00PM
Adel Public Library/Community Room
Deb Marquart - 10:30AM
Michael Carey - 1:00PM
Mary Swander - 2:30PM
Adel United Methodist Church Sanctuary
Michael Carey - 10:30AM
Mary Swander - 1:00PM
Deb Marquart - 2:30PM

Workshops@Adel Methodist Church Basement
Book in a Box - Peggy Johnston
10:30AM to Noon
Scrapbooking
1:00 PM to 2:30 PM
Creative Writing
2:30PM to 4:00PM

Open Mic Tent for authors who wish to share their works
11:00AM - 2:00PM
Hefner Law Office West Parking Lot

Letterpress Printing Demonstration
Adel City Hall Atrium
Rick VonHoldt - hand-set type
Noon to 4PM

Children'sParade4:15PM
10th Street from Library to Pavillion

Portraits of the Prairie
4:30PM
Performance by Eulenspiegel Puppet Theatre
written by Mary Swander
Adel Community Stage & Pavilion

The Little Quilt Shop on the Prairie - -

Calling all quilters in town for the Iowa Book Festival! Stop by Adel Quilting & Dry Goods Co. to get your quilting fix - near 9th and Prairie St.

So many things to see and do while you visit Adel for the Iowa Book Festival!!!

Another fine lunch venue - Cafe in the Park, located on the north end of 10th St., near the city park entrance.


photo by Des Moines Register

Garden Gate Antiques

You won't want to miss a quick stop at Garden Gate Antiques, located in the heart of the Iowa Book Festival on 10th Street.

photo by Des Moines Register

Take a few precious moments - - -

to visit Bonnie's Flower Shop on the west side of the square while you are in Adel for the Iowa Book Festival! Shown here, nestled among the floral arrangements and home dec items, is a nice assortment of Precious Moments Figurines.

photo by Des Moines Register

A few good reasons to visit COOLBEANS! while in town for the Iowa Book Festival!

Located next to Medicap Pharmacy on Hwy.169 across from the ADM High School ~ serving lunch from 11 am to 2 pm, they also offer a full coffee bar and several great dessert selections.

Visit Cameo Rose during the book festival!

photo by Des Moines Register
Visit Cameo Rose on Saturday, April 26 for the 2nd Annual Iowa Book Festival.Check out our selection of gift books, bookmarks and bookplates, for the book enthusiasts. We also have a great selection of gifts, jewelry and home decor which are all beautifully displayed in the restored 1881 Adel Bank building on Adel's courthouse square.Cameo Rose will also be hosting guest author, Joe Millard of Waukee. Joe is author of "The Quiet Journey" memoirs from 1936 - 2000.Cameo Rose is located at 107 N. 9th St. in Adel. Store hours

are Tuesday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Children's activities

Visit the Atherton House, located at 9th and Prairie, to browse an amazing assortment of folk art created by artisans around the world.

In honor of the Iowa Book Festival, this business, located at 9th and Prairie, will also host a garden table for children to make beaded book marks.

photo by Dallas Co. News

Deford presents at Iowa Book Festival - Arpil 26

Mr. Deford is a commentator on NPR Morning Edition, a correspondent on HBO show, Real Sports, with Bryant Gumble,and a senior contributing writer at Sports Illustrated. He is also author of 15 books, including Casey on the Loose,which is being turned into a Broadway music and Alex: The Life of a Child, a memoir about his daughter who died of cystic fibrosis. For sixteen years, Deford served as National Chairman of Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and he remains Chairman Emeritus.

As journalist, Deford has received numerous honors in his field, including election to the Hall of Fame of the National Association of Sportscasters and Sportswriters and was voted by his peers as U.S. Sportswriter of the year six times.

Schedule

8 to 9 am Private "Meet and Greet" with Mr. Deford. Ticket required.

Limited number of tickets available at $20 each.

9 to 10 am Keynote speech - Reserved seating - Front rows in chairs - $5 per person. General admission seating will be available but will be lawn seating, behind reserved rows.

Tickets are available through Adel Partners Chamber of Commerce by calling 515-993-5472

Iowa Book Festival Sponsors

Thank you to these sponsors who, through their funding, help make the Iowa Book Festival possible.

• Adel-DeSoto-Minburn Community Schools
  
• Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust
  
• Bill & Dixie Rhiner (Rhiner Plumbing & Heating)
  
  

Check out the Adel Public Library at http://www.adelpl.org/

Book Sale at the Iowa Book Festival, April 26, 2008

Borders Books of West Des Moines will conduct a book sale at the festival. Bring the whole family to shop from the great selection. Vendors will be located along 10th Street between the library and the new pavilion.

Eulenspiegel Puppet Theatre Co.

See them at the Iowa Book Festival - in Adel, IA - April 26, 2008

Eulenspiegel Puppet Theatre Co. History
Eulenspiegel Puppet Theatre was founded in 1974 as a touring puppet troupe. Founding member Monica Leo was joined by Teri Jean Breitbach early in 1975, and the two performed exclusively as a duo until the 1990's, when they began to incorporate musicians and other puppeteers. Eulenspiegel has been active in the Iowa Arts Council’s Artist in the Schools and Communities Program since 1977. During the 1980’s and early 90’s the company was also active in Wyoming’s Artist in Education Program. From 1981 through ‘91, the puppeteers toured on the Iowa Arts Council’s Summer Touring Arts Team. In 1989, Eulenspiegel Puppet Theatre Co. was incorporated as a non-profit, tax-exempt arts organization for the purpose of providing high quality performances and workshops, educating the public about the art of puppetry, and establishing a regional puppetry center.Through the years, the Eulenspiegel Puppeteers have experimented with almost every type of puppet imaginable, have collaborated with musicians, playwrights, directors, designers, and other theater companies, and have worked tirelessly to hone their art form. They have performed at six national Puppeteers of America Festivals, fifteen regional P of A festivals, a national festival in the former German Democratic Republic in 1987 (the only company invited from a non-Communist country), international festivals in Austria, Japan, and the Czech Republic, and a national festival in Germany. In addition, Eulenspiegel has toured in Germany, Japan, Austria and twenty five of the 50 states. Eulenspiegel is known for witty scripts, original and expressive puppet designs, soft-sculpted, hand dyed scenery, evocative music, and strong graphics.

IOWA BOOK FESTIVAL - Saturday April 26

Childrens Parade

Book Art Exhibit

Don't miss this great indoor/outdoor festival planned for the whole family. This event is sponsored by the Adel Partners Chamber of Commerce.

Vendor Application

Interested in renting a vendor space for the Iowa Book Festival? Call Julie at 515-993-5472 or download a vendor application from http://www.adeliowa.org/ (click on the Adel Partners Tab and then Iowa Book Festival link)

Presenting Author Bios

Michael Carey








Mary Swander

Debra Marquart

AUTHOR BIOS:

Michael Carey (M.F.A, The University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop) is a farmer and author of The Noise the Earth Makes, Honest Effort, Nishnabotna, Carpenter of Song, The Holy Ground and Poetry: Starting from Scratch. He also edited Voices on the Landscape: An Anthology of Iowa Poets. His life and work have been featured by The Wall Street Journal, Time, The Associated Press, Christian Science Monitor Television, and Iowa Public Television’s Living in Iowa, Touchstone and Studio III Presents programs. Michael is founder and executive director of Loess Hills Books and Carrauntoohil Books and founder and host of Iowa Public Radio’s Voices from the Prairie.

Raised in New Jersey, Michael Carey wanted to become a poet. While attending the Writer's Workshop in Iowa City, he met and married an Iowa woman and moved to Farragut to help out on her 5th generation family farm. To Michael, this was a rude and magical awakening. Carey combines farming and poetry in a magical way perhaps partly due to his Irish heritage.

Mary Swander
Mary's Swander's most recent work is a forthcoming book of poetry entitled The Girls on the Roof (Turning Point Press, 2009). This long narrative poem is the story of a mother and daughter stuck on top of the roof of catfish dive on the banks of the Mississippi River for three days during the 1993 flood. There, they discover they’ve both had an affair with the same man.

Ms. Swander’s award-winning memoir Out of this World: A Journey of Healing that was originally published by Viking/Penguin (1995) will be back in print by the University of Iowa Press in 2008.

Swander is also known for her memoir The Desert Pilgrim (Viking, 2003, a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection.) She is the author of three other books of poetry, Heaven-and-Earth House (Alfred Knopf, 1994), Driving the Body Back (Alfred Knopf, 1986), Succession (University of Georgia Press, 1979),as well as a book of literary interviews, Parsnips in the Snow (with Jane Staw, University of Iowa Press, 1990). Swander has edited three books: The Healing Circle: Authors on Recovery from Illness (Plume, 1998, with Patricia Foster); Bloom and Blossom, a collection of garden literature from Ecco Press (1997); and Land of the Fragile Giants, an edited collection of non-fiction and art work on the Loess Hills(with Cornelia Mutel, University of Iowa Press, 1994).

The University of Iowa Press reprinted Driving the Body Back in 1998. Ms. Swander adapted Driving the Body Back to the stage. This piece, along with her co-authored musical Dear Iowa (with composer Christopher Frank), have been produced across the Midwest and on Iowa Public Television. Ms. Swander performs her own work with Teri Breitbach of Eulenspiegel Puppet Company and also gives solo readings throughout the United States. Ms. Swander is a regular commentator on Iowa Public radio and writes a garden column for the on-line magazine MatriFocus.

Ms. Swander has won numerous awards including an Iowa Author’s Award (2006), a Whiting Award (The Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation, 1994), a National Endowment for the Arts grant for the Literary Arts ( 1986), two Ingram Merrill Awards (1980, 1986) , the Carl Sandburg Literary Award (The Chicago Public Library, 1981), and the Nation-Discovery Award (The Nation magazine, 1976) . Publisher's Weekly named Parsnips in the Snow one of the best books of 1990, and the Garden Writers Association of America awarded Swander their Quill and Trowel Award for best magazine writing of 1993. Ms. Swander has published individual poems, essays, short stories and articles in such places as The Nation , National Gardening Magazine, The New Republic, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and Poetry magazine.

Ms. Swander received her M.F.A from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. She is a professor of English and a Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University. She lives in an old Amish schoolhouse, raises geese, goats, and a large organic garden, and plays the banjo.

Mary Swander Home Page: www.maryswander.com

Deb Marquart
Debra Marquart is a professor of English at Iowa State University. She teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing & Environment at Iowa State University and the Stonecoast Low-Residency MFA program at the University of Southern Maine. Marquart's work has appeared in numerous journals such as The North American Review, Three Penny Review, New Letters, River City, Crab Orchard Review, Cumberland Poetry Review, The Sun Magazine, Southern Poetry Review, Orion, Mid-American Review and Witness.

In the seventies and eighties, Marquart was a touring road musician with rock and heavy metal bands. Her collection of short stories, The Hunger Bone: Rock & Roll Stories draws from her experiences as a female road musician. Marquart continues to perform with a jazz-poetry rhythm & blues project, The Bone People, with whom she has released two CDs: Orange Parade (acoustic rock), and A Regular Dervish (jazz-poetry).

Marquart's work has received numerous awards and commendations, including the John Guyon Nonfiction Award (Crab Orchard Review), the Mid-American Review Nonfiction Award, The Headwater's Prize from New Rivers Press, the Minnesota Voices Award, the Pearl Poetry Award (Pearl Editions), the Shelby Foote Prize for the Essay from the Faulkner Society, a Pushcart Prize, and a 2008 NEA Creative Writing Fellowship.

A performance poet, Marquart is the author of two poetry collections: Everything's a Verb and From Sweetness. Her memoir, The Horizontal World: Growing Up Wild in the Middle of Nowhere, was published by Counterpoint Books in 2006. It received the "Elle Lettres" award from Elle Magazine and the 2007 PEN USA Creative Nonfiction Award. Marquart is currently at work on a novel, set in Greece, titled The Olive Harvest, and a roots memoir about emigration, geographical flight, and cultural amnesia titled Somewhere Else this Time Tomorrow.

Debra Marquart's Home Page: www.debramarquart.com

Save the Date

Saturday, April 26 - Family Festival - Adel, IA