News & Events

10/03/2024

Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books seeks new major sponsor

Event’s 15th anniversary to feature four keynote events beginning Oct. 10

By Isabella Kostolni

ikostolni@conleynet.com 262-513-2651

WAUKESHA — The Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books will look a little different this year, and Laraine O’Brien, one of the event’s founders, says it’s because they’re on a hunt for a new major sponsor.

“We are just a committee of the nonprofit called the UWM-Waukesha Foundation, and that’s going to go out of existence,” she said.

In March, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee announced that the Waukesha satellite campus will close after the spring 2025 semester. The decision was made due to declining enrollment at UWM-Waukesha — upwards of 65% in the past decade.

Beyond being a devastating blow for students and faculty, UWM-Waukesha’s closing poses a problem for the book festival too. O’Brien says the school served as the event’s primary sponsor, providing it with funds and a facility to host the yearly literary celebration. So, for the past several months, the founder has been working with 20 longtime festival supporters to determine a path forward. After a series of meetings, they decided to scale back this year’s event — the 15th anniversary — in order to put more effort into securing a new major sponsor.

“We just could not do everything. …It’s a project that requires a lot of work, and in order for us to do a good job finding a new home for the festival, we had to have some time to do that,” O’Brien said.

This year’s Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books features four keynote events, kicking off with local author (and festival program chair) Kathie Giorgio’s novel launch for “Don’t Let Me Keep You,” her 15th book, on Oct. 10.

The other three events include the awards ceremony for the student writing contest along with the Lillian Boese (another festival founder) memorial evening, a discussion with Pulitzer Prize winner Darrin Bell about his book “The Talk,” and a presentation from former U.S. education secretaries.

Having four events stretching from October to April is a big change from festivals past. The Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books historically took place in early November with a full weekend of programming ranging from keynote events to author panels to a live performance to a writers’ marketplace. But once the festival secures a new major sponsor, O’Brien says the event will be back in its entirety.

“We hope to have another sponsor announced by the end of this year, so that next year we could have a full festival again,” she said.

The founder noted that without a new sponsor, the festival can’t go on. Luckily, she said there’s “definitely interest” coming from the community about taking on that role. O’Brien added that whenever a prospective major sponsor comes forward, the festival committee makes sure to give them an idea of what it entails — everything from contributing funds to providing a facility large enough to host their typical programming.

Those meetings have been fruitful, and O’Brien said the committee feels “that we’re going to come away with a really good sponsor.” And they want the new sponsor to have “their purposes and their strengths” reflected in the event too, O’Brien noted, so there might be a couple changes to next year’s festival as well.

“We hope that people will understand our process,” O’Brien said. “We do hope that the festival still has a place in the community next year and that the people will remember and come back.”

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