HOUGHTON - Forty writers in 20 towns in 5 days.
That's the setup for the U.P. Book Tour 2012.
"We have a real variety of authors, that's kind of a fun thing about this," said Pam Christensen, director of the Peter White Public Library in Marquette. "They're authors who live in the (Upper Peninsula), authors who might have been born in the U.P. or gone to school in the U.P. ... It's just really a huge variety of authors."
The U.P.-wide event, now in its third year, features writers from Michigan and the Midwest who write about Michigan and the U.P., Christensen said. It originated with Ron Riekki, the author of the book "U.P.," who went on tour with his book in 2010.
"This year we actually received a $15,000 grant from the Michigan Humanities Council and that grant enabled them to do quite a bit more," she said. "It's a partnership between the Peter White Public Library, the English department at Northern Michigan University and Snowbound Books."
Christensen said stops will be made in Ontonagon, Lake Linden and Calumet and all events are free to the public.
At 2 p.m. Thursday, at the Portage Lake District Library in Houghton, there will be a panel discussion with authors Eric Gadzinski, Emily Van Kley, Cris Mazza, M. Bartley Seigel and Steve Feffer.
At 7 p.m. Thursday at the Ontonagon Township Library, authors Eric Gadzinski, Travis Brown, Steve Feffer and Chris Mazza will be featured.
"At the individual stops, you're going to see these really high-class authors," said Ontonagon Township Library Director Eric Smith. "They come from a wide array of disciplines and that's one of the things that's really fascinating about this."
At 3:30 p.m. Friday, authors Jane Piirto, Gordon Henry and Nancy Barr will be featured at the Lake Linden-Hubbell Public Library.
Barr, a former journalist for The Daily Press in Escanaba and former editor at The Daily Mining Gazette, now teaches at Michigan Technological University. Her novels include "Page One: Hit and Run," "Page One: Vanished" and "Page One: Whiteout."
At 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feffer, an award-winning playwright, will do a reading of "Little Airplanes of the Heart" and "...And Yet" at the Calumet Theatre. Local actors will assist by reading parts of the cast.
According to a Calumet Theatre press release, Feffer's play "Little Airplanes of the Heart" was published in Best American Short Plays in 1997-98 and in Plays from the Ensemble Studio Theatre in 2000 (Faber and Faber), and has been produced at regional, university, high school and community theaters around the country.
For more information, visit upbooktour.org.