1,700 screaming kids? Doesn’t sound like a book festival, does it?
What could cause 1,700 kids to consistently laugh and scream at a book festival? Well, R. L. Stine, of course, author of the Goosebumps series. As one of the key events of the UntitledTown Book and Author Festival, Stine spent a few hours with area school children at the Weidner Center, Friday, April 20… much to their frightened delight. According to Prof. Rebecca Meacham, the evening keynote event drew more than 1,000 Stine enthusiasts. “He signed every book in the signing line, which took 2.5 hours,” Meacham said. “People of all ages brought their tattered books and Slappy dolls, and kids turned out in skeleton pajamas.”
Sheepshead staffers, past and present, Belanger and Ladwig
Other by-the-number figures: Roxane Gay’s Saturday evening event sold more than 800 tickets. Festival readings, craft talks and workshops all day on Saturday and Sunday drew, on average, 15-30 people, with some craft talks and workshops drawing up to 60. About 130 people volunteered for the event, with a high number of UW-Green Bay faculty, staff, emerita, and affiliated serving as venue leads, room hosts and moderators.
According to Meacham, Sheepshead Review welcomed multiple generations at its Saturday Pop-Up Reading and Gathering at Kavarna. In the photo, 2003 staffer, Paul Belanger, hands a bit of ancient technology — a SHR diskette he found in his files — to a 2018 staffer, current editor-in-chief Sara Ladwig.
Click to advance slideshow or view the album on Flickr.
– Photos by Amanda Jo Danihel and Dan Moore, Marketing and University Communication
