Festival features eight new books by Badgers
By Maggie Ginsberg, Division of the Arts
The newly announced line-up for the 2026 Wisconsin Book Festival demonstrates UW–Madison’s continuing influence in shaping today’s literary culture.
UW–Madison’s Creative Writing program is hardly a best-kept secret. Long considered among the best MFA programs in the country, the fully funded two-year program only admits six students each year, and draws talent from all over the world. Its prizewinning faculty, fellows and alumni include household names like Amy Quan Barry, Anthony Doerr, Lorrie Moore and Lauren Groff. MFA alumna and New York Times bestselling author Chloe Benjamin released a blockbuster new novel this month, Associate Professor Nate Marshall has a poetry collection coming out in early 2027, and Assistant Professor Dantiel Moniz will publish her widely anticipated debut novel in 2028. It can be hard to quantify the way UW continues to shape literary culture.
That influence was clear last week when the Wisconsin Book Festival announced the line-up for its 25th annual fall celebration season. UW once again had an impressive showing — and not just from the Creative Writing department. Here are eight new and forthcoming books published in 2026 by UW professors across campus, plus one alumna — and even a current graduate student.
Assembled Audience by Erika Meitner
(Milkweed Editions, September 2026)
“Assembled Audience” is UW Creative Writing professor Erika Meitner’s seventh published book of poems. “Bursting with energy, this is a deeply resonant collection,” wrote Publisher’s Weekly in a starred review. You can read more about Meitner’s work in a recent Division of the Arts profile, or attend the special Wisconsin Book Festival launch event at Central Library on Sept. 29 at 7pm.
“All that Refuses to die” by Michael Imossan
(University of Nebraska Press, March 2026)
Michael Imossan is a current UW Creative Writing MFA student with a published full-length poetry collection. “All that Refuses to Die” was the winner of the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poetry. Imossan will appear at the Wisconsin Book Festival on Oct. 17 on a panel called “Histories & Self-Discovery: Writing the African Diaspora” with Kiki Petrosino and Creative Writing MFA alumna Maryhilda Obasiota Ibe, who was also UW’s 2025 Hoffman-Halls Emerging Artist Fellow.
“Will and Attention: A Memoir” by Meghan O’Gieblyn
(Doubleday, October 2026)
In Creative Writing MFA in Fiction alumna Meghan O’Gieblyn’s third essay collection, the award-winning nonfiction author interrogates “secret drinking, fragile recovery, and the deep pull of religion.” O’Gieblyn’s first book, “Interior States,” won the 2018 Believer Book Award for nonfiction, and her second, “God, Human, Animal, Machine,” was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Science & Technology. O’Gieblyn will discuss the new book in Madison on Oct. 16 at 4:30 p.m.
“Forest Imaginaries” by Ainehi Edoro-Glines
(Columbia University Press, January 2026)
This is the first book from Nigerian literary scholar Ainehi Edoro-Glines, who is the Mellon-Morgridge Assistant Professor of English and African cultural studies at UW–Madison, as well as the founder and editor of Brittle Paper. “Forest Imaginaries: How African Novels Think: examines how African writers “draw on the figure of the forest from indigenous narratives to create fictional worlds that challenge systems of power like colonialism, respond to disruption with creativity, and imagine futures beyond inherited structures.” Edoro-Glines will discuss the book on Oct. 15 at 5:30 p.m.
“Every Living Creature” by Joshua D. Mezrich, MD
(MIT Press, April 2026)
Dr. Joshua Mezrich is Professor at the University of Wisconsin and holds the Mark A. Fischer Chair in Transplantation. “Every Living Creature: How Xenotransplantation Will Change Our Lives” tackles the topic of organ transplantation between different species, and it is the second book for the medical doctor with a Russian language and literature degree. His first, “When Death Becomes Life: Notes from a Transplant Surgeon,” was published by HarperCollins in 2019, and sold in 12 countries outside the United States. Mezrich will discuss the new book on Oct. 15 at 7 p.m.
“When Memory Fades” by Dr. Nathaniel Chin, MD
(St. Martin’s Essentials, June 2026)
“When Memory Fades: What to Expect at Every Stage, from Early Signs to Full Support for Alzheimer’s and Dementia” is a new book by Dr. Nathaniel Chin, UW–Madison’s Department of Medicine associate professor and medical director of Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. Chin will appear in conversation with The New York Times Magazine contributor Robert Kolker, author of “The Vanishing Family,” on an Oct. 17 panel called Dispelling Dementia: Narratives Of Loss And Resilience, moderated by Wisconsin Public Radio host Lee Rayburn.
“A Womb of One’s Own” by Tara Mulder
(University of California Press, May 2026)
Tara Mulder is an assistant professor of Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies and affiliate professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at UW–Madison. “A Womb of One’s Own: Lost HIstories of Childbirth in Ancient Rome” follows the transition of childbirth from midwives to medical men all the way to the dawn of Western obstetrics, recovering “stories of ancient women living and resisting as they sought autonomy over their bodies and their health.” Mulder’s Oct. 17 conversation partner is UW GWS teaching faculty Kate Phelps, who published “Digital Girlhoods” in 2025.
“A Keg of Their Best” by Robin Shepard
(Wisconsin Historical Society Press, June 2026)
“A Keg of Their Best: Brewing in the Beer State Capital—From the Beer Baron Era to Modern Microbrews” is the fourth beer-related book by Robin Shepard, Assistant Dean for the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Division of Extension and a faculty member of the Department of Life Sciences Communications. He’ll be joining Madison author Jesse Brookstein on an Oct. 17 panel called Brewers & Butchers: How Beer & Sausage Shaped Wisconsin History.
Bonus reads:
Two more authors with UW–Madison ties are also presenting new books at this year’s Wisconsin Book Festival.
“Unbelonging: A Life in Search of Home” (University of Wisconsin Press, August 2026) is a memoir by Catherine Jagoe, a former associate professor of Spanish at UW–Madison. (Jagoe will appear in conversation with Heather Swan, who teaches writing and environmental literature at UW–Madison.)
Bestselling author and animal behaviorist Patricia McConnell, who received her Ph.D. in Zoology from UW–Madison and taught in the Department as an adjunct, will appear to discuss her debut mystery novel “Away to Me” (Kensington, February 2026).