My Homecoming Dance: Reflections on Teaching in Wisconsin with Sue Leamy Kies and Marja Mills

New York Times bestselling author Marja Mills interviews Sue Leamy Kies about her new memoir of teaching high school English for three decades at Platteville High School, her alma mater. With compassion and humor, Kies reflects on life in the classroom, its highs and lows. She discusses what has changed in high school education in Wisconsin in recent decades, what hasn’t and what should.
The two also will discuss what goes into writing a memoir, and will share tips. Kies took one of Mills’s popular online workshops about writing memoirs and personal stories. Copies of books by both authors will be available for purchase after the program.
Sue Leamy Kies recently retired after teaching high school English for nearly three decades. She also has published essays, poetry and short stories. My Homecoming Dance: Reflections on Teaching in Wisconsin is her first memoir. Before teaching, she and her husband ran a dairy and hog farm while raising five children. She returned to college at the age of 36 and graduated as valedictorian from the University of Wisconsin Platteville. Her degree in English and minor in journalism allowed her 27 years at her alma mater, Plattevile High School. In 2000, she earned a master’s degree in education, also from UW-P.
Marja Mills is the author of the 2014 New York Times bestselling memoir The Mockingbird Next Door: Life with Harper Lee. The memoir chronicles her time with Harper Lee, author of the classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird, and Lee’s sister, Alice Finch Lee, in their small Alabama hometown. Mills met the Lees on assignment for the Chicago Tribune, where she was a reporter and feature writer. Mills now divides her time between Black River Falls and Madison.