Ginny Gnadt
Senior Public Relations Specialist
(414) 297-6770, gnadtv@matc.edu

MEQUON, Wis. (Aug. 31, 2009) – Mary Ann Schaeffer and Annie Barrows’ The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, Wendell Berry’s That Distant Land and Edwidge Danticat’s Breath, Eyes and Memory will be featured in the fall series of book discussions at the Mequon Campus of Milwaukee Area Technical College, 5555 W. Highland Rd. Free and open to the public, the sessions will be held on Wednesdays, Sept. 30, Oct. 21 and Nov. 18 in Room A114, from 7-8:15 p.m. A special feature of these selections will be the Milwaukee-area appearance of each author at various times this fall.

On Sept. 30, MATC English Instructor Terri Sutton will lead a discussion of Shaffer and Barrows’ The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, a series of fictitious letters between London writer Juliet Ashton and the residents of Guernsey, an island in the English Channel. The letters illuminate the lives of the Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Society, a group formed to serve as an alibi for people who violated a curfew imposed by the German forces occupying the island during World War II. Ashton learns about the hardships and resilience of the islanders and develops a romantic interest in one of them. This book was written by a team. When Shaffer learned of her terminal illness, she asked her niece Barrows to help finish the novel. A limited number of tickets for an evening with Annie Barrows at Mequon’s Next Chapter Bookshop at 7 p.m., Oct. 1, will be available at the MATC discussion meeting.

On Oct. 21, MATC English Instructor Marianne Szabo will lead a discussion of That Distant Land, a collection of 23 short stories written by Berry, an award-winning novelist, poet, essayist, farmer and advocate for sustainable agriculture. The fictional chronology spans about a century, giving readers a vision of the people of rural Port Williams, Ky., who attempt to be responsible, caring for each other and the land. Berry will make an appearance at 2 p.m., Oct. 10, at Milwaukee’s Urban Ecology Center.

On Nov. 18, MATC English Instructor Myra George will head the discussion of Danticat’s Breath, Eyes and Memory, an Oprah Book Club selection. Partially autobiographical, the novel tells the story of Sophie, conceived through rape and raised by an aunt in Haiti. Sophie eventually reunites with a mother she barely remembers, who had fled to the United States years before. By the end of the novel, Sophie’s psychological odyssey takers her back to her native Haiti.  Named by The New York Times as one of “30 under 30” creative people to watch, Danticat will appear in UW-Milwaukee’s Union Wisconsin Room at 7 p.m. on Nov. 23 as part of the Distinguished Lecture Series.

Buy any of the books at Mequon’s Next Chapter Bookshop or Creekside Books in Cedarburg and get 15 percent off when you mention the MATC Mequon Campus book discussion group. Copies of the books can be checked out at the Mequon Campus Library. For more information, please call Marianne Szabo, (262) 238-2262, or e-mail szabom@matc.edu.