Jane Hamilton Sharing The Phoebe Variations in Conversation with Maggie Ginsberg
Schedule
Fri Dec 05 2025 at 06:00 pm to 07:00 pm
UTC-06:00Location
211 N. Washington Street, Green Bay, WI, United States, Wisconsin 54301 | Green Bay, WI
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Join us for an evening with acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Jane Hamilton, sharing her latest coming-of-age novel The Phoebe Variations, in conversion with fellow award-winning writer Maggie Ginsberg, author of Wisconsin-based debut title Still True. You won’t want to miss meeting and hearing from these incredible storytellers!About The Phoebe Variations
A stunning coming-of-age novel about girls, mothers, and finding one's way in the world.
Seventeen-year-old Phoebe was never interested in her birth family. But on the cusp of her high school graduation, her adoptive mother, Greta, insists on a visit to meet her biological parents and siblings. The encounter is a jolt, a revelation that derails Phoebe.
With the help of her best friend Luna, Phoebe runs away—as far as their friend Patrick O’Connor’s chaotic home, where she hopes to go unnoticed among his thirteen siblings. But when Phoebe asks Patrick to chop off her hip-length hair, she’s suddenly transformed. Patrick’s older brothers can’t help but notice the striking, Peter Pan–like stranger who has suddenly appeared in their midst.
What starts as an adolescent rebellion soon spirals into a whirlwind of self-discovery and unexpected connections. As she grapples with her shifting identity and strained relationships, Phoebe must navigate the tumultuous road out of girlhood and chart a new and unknown course.
About Still True
One summer evening, Lib Hanson is confronted by her painful past when Matt Marlow, the forty-year-old son she abandoned as an infant, shows up on her porch. Fiercely independent, Lib has never revealed her son’s existence—or her previous marriage—to her husband, Jack. Married nearly three decades but living in separate houses (to the confusion but acceptance of their neighbors), they enjoy an ease and comfort together in small-town Anthem, Wisconsin. But Jack is a stickler for honesty, and Lib’s long-dormant secret threatens to unravel their lives.
When ten-year-old Charlie Taylor arrives at Jack’s workshop shortly thereafter, he’s not the first kid in town to need help with a flat tire, and Jack gladly makes the repair to his bike. The Taylors are new to Anthem, and Jack soon discovers that Charlie and his mom, Claire, are struggling to fit in, even as Charlie’s dad, Dan, is thriving in his new job. Extending friendship and kindness, as well as introductions around the local café, Jack assumes a grandfatherly role. What he doesn’t see is the drinking that Claire hides from everyone, or the secret son that Lib has allowed to move into her house and the growing attraction between Claire and Matt. When the terrible events of a fateful evening threaten everyone’s carefully crafted lives, Jack, Lib, and their new friends must each determine the value of truth for the ones they love.
About the Authors
Jane Hamilton’s novels have won literary prizes, have been made into films, and have been international bestsellers, and two of them, The Book of Ruth and A Map of the World, were selections of Oprah’s Book Club. Her nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times; The Washington Post; Allure; O, The Oprah Magazine; Elle; and various anthologies. She lives on an apple farm in Wisconsin.
Maggie Ginsberg is a writer, editor and author in Wisconsin. Her debut novel, Still True, was published by the University of Wisconsin Press in September 2022 and won the Wisconsin Library Association’s 2023 WLA Literary Award for Fiction. It was the honorable mention selection for the 2022 Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award, and is the 2026 inaugural pick for the statewide Wisconsin Reads digital book club. Maggie is also a nonfiction writer and editor who published hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles throughout her career, earning numerous honors from the City Regional Magazine Association, the American Society of Journalists and Authors and the Milwaukee Press Club. She is the former managing editor at Madison Magazine and now works full-time as a writer at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
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Where is it happening?
211 N. Washington Street, Green Bay, WI, United States, Wisconsin 54301Event Location & Nearby Stays:
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