Lunch for Libraries with Jesmyn Ward

Ticket sales for this event will go on sale on this page at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, February 24, 2026.

Our 15th annual Lunch for Libraries spring fundraiser takes place on Tuesday, May 5, 2026 at Monona Terrace Convention Center!

Lunch for Libraries is Madison Public Library Foundation’s signature spring fundraising event. Your ticket supports Wisconsin Book Festival’s free, year-round programs that bring readers and authors together.

Two Ways to Amplify Your Impact

Join us in supporting free, year-round author programs that champion local voices and bring readers together with award-winning authors. Sponsorship opportunities are available now.

Click here to learn more about becoming a sponsor or email events@mplfoundation.org

Want to engage your friends, colleagues, or community? Become a table captain and help grow our circle of impact. Click here to learn more about becoming a table captain or email events@mplfoundation.org.

About the Book and Author

This year’s featured speaker will be Jesmyn Ward, two-time National Book Award–winning author of On Witness and Respair

In this powerful collection of essays and speeches, Ward blends personal history, literary reflection, and social witness to explore grief, resilience, Black motherhood, and the enduring power of storytelling in the face of personal and collective loss. Ward will reflect on the writers and experiences that have shaped her voice, as well as the role of literature as both testimony and survival.

Jesmyn Ward received her MFA from the University of Michigan and is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, a Stegner Fellowship, the Strauss Living Prize, and the 2022 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. She has won the National Book Award for Fiction twice—for Salvage the Bones and Sing, Unburied, Sing Her memoir Men We Reaped was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and received the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize and the Media for a Just Society Award. Ward is currently a professor of creative writing at Tulane University and lives in Mississippi.

Support Year-Round Programming

Ward’s reflections on storytelling as witness echoes Wisconsin Book Festival’s goal to make transformative literary voices accessible to all. Your Lunch for Libraries ticket supports free, year-round literary programs that bring readers and authors together.

Celebrating its 25th year, Wisconsin Book Festival champions local literary talent and brings nationally recognized authors into our community for conversations that bring readers and writers together.

Event Details

Lunch for Libraries check-in and networking begins at 11:00 a.m., guests can flow to their tables at 11:30 a.m., and the program will run from noon–1:15 p.m.

Have more questions? Email events@mplfoundation.org or call 608.266.6318 for more information, to inquire about sponsorship, or to request an accommodation.