Created in 2012, “Welcome to Night Vale” is a twice-monthly podcast reporting on the strange happenings in the fictional desert town of Night Vale. Wildly successful, this podcast presented as a radio show is currently the most downloaded podcast on iTunes. Described as “A Prairie Home Companion” meets Stephen King, “Welcome to Night Vale” features community updates, news, cultural events and announcements, but with a spooky, dark twist complete with a demonic mayor, resident ghosts and aliens, and loads of conspiracy.
Now the creators behind the series, Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor, are out with a surrealist novel of the same name that follows the mysterious lives of two women living in Night Vale—perpetually 19-year-old pawnshop owner Jackie Fiero and single mother and PTA Treasurer Diane Crayton. Wonderfully written with weird references, laugh-out-loud humor and spine-tingling terror, Welcome to Night Vale is an imaginative and poignant look at the universal human struggle to find oneself. Just as quirky as the podcast, the novel highlights the bizarre and compelling stories of recurring Night Vale citizens and the town’s familiar landmarks, while also shedding light on some of the idiosyncrasies of life in this unidentified Southwestern hamlet. Fans of the series as well as those new to Night Vale will become engrossed with the sci-fi American gothic portrayal of family, responsibility and humanity in the midst of pure strangeness.
“Welcome to Night Vale” creators Fink and Cranor will be the subject of a special event at Turner Hall Ballroom at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 10. Tickets to this event, co-sponsored by Boswell Book Co., cost $22 and are available at pabsttheater.org.
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Book Happening:
John Garofolo
7 p.m., Nov. 5
Shorewood Village Center
3920 N. Murray Ave.
Groundbreaking female photojournalist Georgette “Dickey” Chapelle is the subject of a new book out by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press entitled Dickey Chapelle Under Fire: Photographs by the First American Female War Correspondent Killed in Action. Author John Garofolo has compiled Chapelle’s frontline photographs to showcase her inspiring story as both a brave war correspondent and unwitting women’s rights advocate. Garofolo will speak at the Shorewood Village Center in an event sponsored by Boswell Book Co.
