Women's Speaker Series: Viola Shipman (pen name of Wade Rouse), author of The Heirloom Garden
In conversation with Amy Taylor
Watch a video recording of this virtual event here.
Margy Stratton, founder and executive producer of Milwaukee Reads produces this series of events featuring writers of particular interest to women.
Lynden Sculpture Garden's Women's Speaker Series and Boswell Books welcome Wade rouse (pen name Viola Shipman), author of The Heirloom Garden, to the Lynden Sculpture Garden, Tuesday, May 5, 7 pm, for a conversation with Amy Taylor. For more information on upcoming Women's Speaker Series Events, click here.
About The Heirloom Garden
Iris Maynard lost her husband in World War II, her daughter to loneliness, and, finally, her reason to live. Walled off from the world for decades behind a towering fence surrounding her home and gardens, Iris has built a new family...of flowers. Iris propagates her own daylilies and roses while tending to an heirloom garden filled with starts - and memories of her own mother, grandmother, husband, and daughter.
When Abby Peterson moves to Grand Haven, Michigan, with her family - a husband traumatized during his service in the Iraq War and a young daughter searching for stability - they find themselves next door to Iris, and are slowly drawn into their reclusive neighbor's life where, united by loss and a love of flowers, Iris and Abby slowly unearth their secrets.
In her inimitable heartwarming style, Viola Shipman's brand new novel follows two women, separated by a generation but equally scarred by war, who find hope, meaning, and friendship through a garden of flowers.
About the Author
Wade Rouse is the internationally bestselling author of ten books, which have been translated into nearly 20 languages. Wade chose his grandmother’s name, Viola Shipman, as a pen name to honor the woman whose heirlooms and family stories inspire his fiction.
Wade’s novels include The Charm Bracelet, a 2017 Michigan Notable Book of the Year; The Hope Chest; The Recipe Box; and the bestseller The Summer Cottage. NYT bestselling author Dorothea Benton Frank says of Wade and his latest novel, The Heirloom Garden (April 28, 2020): “Every now and then a new voice in fiction arrives to completely charm, entertain and remind us what matters. Viola Shipman is that voice.”
Library Journal writes that Wade has “hit upon the perfect formula to tell heartwarming, intergenerational family stories by weaving together the lives, loves and history of family through cherished heirlooms.” He recently signed a multi-book book deal with HarperCollins, which will continue the “Heirloom Series” of novels and also launch a series of Christmas novels.
Wade's books have been selected multiple times as Must-Reads by NBC’s Today Show, featured in the Washington Post, USA Today and on Chelsea Lately and have also been chosen three times as Indie Next Picks by the nation’s independent booksellers. His novels have hit the bestseller lists in Germany (where he was #1 on the Spiegel Bestseller List), Italy and Spain.
His writing has appeared in a diverse range of publications and media, including Coastal Living, Time, All Things Considered, People, Good Housekeeping, Salon, Forbes, Taste of Home, Country Woman, Writer’s Digest and Publisher’s Weekly.
Also a noted humorist of four memoirs, Wade was a finalist for the Goodreads Choice Awards in Humor (he lost to Tina Fey) and was named by Writer’s Digest as “The #2 Writer, Dead or Alive, We’d Like to Have Drinks With” (Wade was sandwiched between Ernest Hemingway and Hunter Thompson).
Wade earned his B.A. from Drury University and his master’s in journalism from Northwestern University. He divides his time between Saugatuck, Michigan, and Palm Springs, California, and is also an acclaimed writing teacher who has mentored numerous students to become published authors.
For more, please visit http://www.violashipman.com or http://www.waderouse.com .
About Amy Taylor
Amy Taylor has been talking to the Milwaukee media market since 1998 when she began her career at WTMJ-TV as the Morning News Anchor on the “Daybreak” show. Taylor spent ten years doing the early wake-up call to anchor and report the news for the NBC-TV affiliate. For this self-described “night owl,” the early morning job expanded to a morning talk radio show on 94.5 WKTI-FM on the “Reitman, Mueller, and Amy Taylor, too” show where many laughs were had with two Milwaukee radio legends. Taylor currently substitutes on “The Morning Blend,” a morning television talk show in Milwaukee on WTMJ-TV, and on AM620 WTMJ radio.
Her broadcast work includes professional voice-overs for corporations, commercials, and non-profits.
Taylor’s biggest production yet, a work in progress, is the raising and feeding (and don’t forget driver’s ed) for her 16 year-old triplet daughters along with her good-humored husband, Jason.
