The YWCA Greater Green Bay strives to support and build a community-like atmosphere in all aspects of our work. The Family Night event series provides a free, ongoing opportunity for the community to come together in celebration of family, friends and fun. 

Lion's Mouth Bookstore is proud to join this event by providing a reading space, along with fun books books, games and toys for purchase.  

The YWCA provides fun, inclusive, family-friendly thematic programs, activities and games varying from month to month.

Reading and Book Signing
The Wanting Life
 

Mark Rader was born and raised in Green Bay, Wisconsin, educated at Tulane University and Cornell University, and now lives with his family just outside Chicago. His short fiction has been published in Glimmer Train, Epoch, The Southern Review and shortlisted for an O. Henry Award, the Best American Non-Required Reading anthology, and a Pushcart Prize. He has taught creative writing at Cornell, Northeastern University, Grub Street, and the University of Chicago's Graham School. The Wanting Life is his first novel. 

"An electric, joyful, and dangerous wit whips around under the floorboards of this stunning first novel.  With the good cheer of a Midwestern neighbor winking at you while saving your life during a tornado, Rader dares the reader, over and over again, to feel sad at nature's oldest tricks, to be angry at simply death, or to hide from what we all know is true in our hearts."
-Patrick Somerville, author of The Cradle and This Bright River

About the book:

Set in Rome, Cape Cod, and Wisconsin over the course of the summer of 2009, and Rome during the spring of 1970, The Wanting Life tells the intertwined story of three members of the Novak family: Father Paul, a closeted gay Catholic priest who's dying of cancer and has secrets he desperately wants to share; Britta, his self-destructive sister and caretaker, who's struggling to find meaning in a world without her beloved husband; and Maura, Britta's daughter--a thirty-nine-year-old artist who's facing a choice between her husband and two children, or the man she believes is her one, true love.

Featuring one of most unconventional love stories you'll read this year, The Wanting Life is both a compulsively readable family drama about the toll that secrets and loyalty can take on us, and a gorgeous meditation on the comforts (and limits) of faith and intimacy that calls to mind novels like Marilynne Robinson's Home, Alice McDermott's Charming Billy, and Julian Barnes' The Sense of an Ending.
 

"In his wise and intimate debut, Mark Rader displays an uncanny understanding of the human heart in conflict with itself. At once a Roman idyll and family saga, The Wanting Life is a deeply compassionate cautionary tale of love and regret." -Stewart O'Nan, author of Emily, Alone and Henry, Himself

 

Nancy is coming back for her second Storytime at the bookstore!

My name is Nancy. 
I have been a preschool teacher for 30 years, and I love children's books! 
From the old classics such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar to the new classics like Pete the Cat, books take us to new places and introduce us to so many wonderful characters.
I love to see the excitement in young kids as they see and hear the story unfold. 
I look forward to being the guest storyteller this week.  

Thanks, Nancy! We look forward to your visit to Lion's Mouth!

 

Joan Treppa lives in the Minneapolis area but has established herself in Green Bay as a steadfast social justice advocate on behalf of the six men convicted in the 1992 death of Tom Monfils.

When she learned about the case in 2009, and the many unanswered questions that still lingered, her sense of civic duty and fierce determination to expose the truth kicked in. With no formal legal training or resources initially, she helped to create new interest and heightened awareness about this historic tragedy.   

In a similar vein as the previous book about the case The Monfils Conspiracy: The Conviction of Six Innocent Men (iUniverse, 2009), Joan’s book Reclaiming Lives: Pursuing Justice For Six Innocent Men (Mill City Press, 2017) furthers the premise that all six of these men are indeed, innocent. Her book highlights the groundswell of support that surfaced in 2013 from legal professionals in both Wisconsin and Minnesota, and damning new facts that have since been uncovered that were never disclosed during the lengthy trial in 1995.

The book has won three national indie book awards in the true crime category; the American Book Fest-Best Book Awards in 2017, the Indie Excellence Book Awards in 2019, and Beverly Hills Book Awards in 2019.

This event will include a discussion with Michael Johnson, one of the men convicted in 1995. Johnson maintains he “was falsely accused and unjustly convicted of a crime he did not commit or have any knowledge about.” In July of 2019, after having been denied parole 10 times, and despite continuing to maintain his innocence, he was released on parole after being incarcerated for nearly 25 years.  


 

Join Lion's Mouth Bookstore in partnership with the YWCA for the part two discussion (pages 150-258) of Waking up White by Debby Irving

Part one (pages 1-150) will be discussed at the YWCA on Tuesday, February 11 from 6:30PM - 7:30PM

The final discussion will feature Debby Irving and will take place at St. Norbert College on Thursday, April 30. Click here to register for this free author event.