Tea's Weird Week: I Love Central Library

And a last call for QWERTYFEST fundraiser

Last month, I penned a piece for the Shepherd Express titled “A Love Letter to American Science & Surplus,” which was about the unique store’s fundraiser to stay in business (I’m glad to say they’ve since met their goal and are close to meeting a stretch goal). It felt good to write about a place that I think is great, so with QWERTYFEST MKE 2025 fundraising wrapping up, I wanted to say something about another place I love: Milwaukee Central Library.

We are going to be hosting QWERTYFEST presentations, workshops, and a library tour there on Saturday, October 4 and I could not be more thrilled to be there and to have our festival attendees check it out. Central Library is like a cathedral to me, and it looks the part. I can’t wait for QWERTYFEST guests who haven’t been there to see the rotunda lobby. It is just stunning.

I appreciate Central’s resources greatly. I’ve written five non-fiction books and an unknown number of articles and many research materials for that work have come from there. Being on a pretty thin budget, I’ve been able to borrow almost anything I’ve needed. When I was 20 and interested in listening to classic Blues music, I checked out a bunch of CDs from Central. It was nice to go somewhere to get out of the house but without needing to spend money. When I wanted to read collections of superhero comics while researching Heroes in the Night, they had them. More recently, when I wrote an article on the history of Serb Hall for Milwaukee Magazine, the library’s online newspaper database archive was the key to getting that article done.

I’ve been working a lot on the presentation/workshop line-up a lot this week and it’s a wonderful mix of librarians, typewriter aficionados, poets, mystery novelists, artists, and other interesting characters. It’s everything I hoped QWERTYFEST would be. We’ll be announcing that lineup soon (just got to confirm a couple things) at: www.qwertyfest.com

We are offering all these talks and workshops for FREE. Your support can help us make it happen by supporting our last call for our fundraiser, it is closing in the next couple days. Every little bit helps us fund QWERTYFEST programming: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/qwertyfest-mke-2025#/
You can also contact us about fundraising/ sponsorship at: qwertyfestmke@gmail.com

I hope I might see you there at one of my favorite places on earth, Central Library.