Apple Blossom Books

For the new year, I've gotten lots of awesome book signing requests, so come see me at:

• Saturday, Jan. 2nd, 6-9pm at Apple Blossom Books (513 North Main Street, Oshkosh, WI) This will be part of the Downtown Gallery Walk (which is done the 1st Saturday of every month in lovely downtown Oshkosh.)
  
  
• Sunday, Jan. 24th, 2-3pm at Books & Co., (1039 Summit Ave., Oconomowoc, WI)
  
  
• Sunday, Jan. 31st, 5pm at Magers & Quinn (3038 Hennepin Ave. South, Minneapolis, MN) which is co-sponsored by the amazing Live Fast Die Young Tattoo (44 Lowry Ave NE, Minneapolis).
  
  
• Friday, Feb. 19th, 7pm, at Quimby's (1854 W. North Ave., Chicago, IL)
  

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Tattooed ladies tell their tales in 'A History'

Book Review: The Tattooed Lady by Amelia Klem Osterud

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In case you missed it this morning, I was interviewed by Dan Harmon about The Tattooed Lady on Milwaukee's local NPR station's Lake Effect show.

You can listen online: http://www.wuwm.com/programs/lake_effect/view_le.php?articleid=863 or download as a podcast via iTunes.

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Photo by Cheri Eisenberg

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The nice folks over at Woodland Pattern are putting out lots of good words about my upcoming book signing...

Check out the current issue of the Riverwest Currents and the Express Milwaukee!

From Express Milwaukee:
Milwaukeean Amelia Klem Osterud is a tattooed academic librarian, so no one should be surprised that her first manuscript is called The Tattooed Lady: A History. Yet while Osterud is indeed permanently inked, this publication is no autobiography. She writes of a time when it was entirely unseemly for a woman to show off a tattoo. The Tattooed Lady is a momentous tale that chronicles the women behind the tattooed bodies, women who traveled across America on circus trains during a time when even to reveal an ankle was outrageous. Osterud provides veritable accounts of these fearless females by bringing them front and center out of the carnival tents and into real life. By combining research with period photography, this local author explores women’s history alongside the cultural movement of tattooing. Osterud will visit Woodland Pattern Book Center as part of a new prose series on Wednesday, Dec. 9, at 7 p.m.

See you all next week at Woodland Pattern!

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This Thursday, Dec. 3rd, I'll be attending the cool Black as Ink film event at Intuit in Chicago:

Jean, the Tattooed Lady of Riverview

An evening of three short films related to tattoo history and culture: 'Stoney Knows How' (1981), by Alan Govenar and Bruce “Pacho” Lane, 29 minutes; 'Tattooed Lady of Riverview' by Tom Palazzolo, 14 minutes; and 'Fullsuit: A Portrait of Blu-Bak' (1991), by Kapra Fleming. There will be a Q&A session with filmmakers, Tom Palazzolo and Kapra Fleming. Kapra will also be sharing an additional short film on Blu-Bak and Amelia Klem Osterud will be on hand to sign copies of her new book 'The Tattooed Lady: A History' (available for purchase in the gift shop).

$10 non-members / $5 Intuit members and students
Tickets can be purchased at the door.

The films should be amazing, and the gift shop at Intuit has gotten copies of The Tattooed Lady and I'll be there to sign them! This is in conjunction with their great exhibit- Freaks and Flash, which is at the museum until Jan. 9th.

See you there!

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A lovely tattooed lady

Join me at Woodland Pattern Books in Riverwest  on Dec. 9th at 7pm.

I'll be giving a short presentation about tattooed ladies as part of their New Prose Series (check out their website for more info: http://www.woodlandpattern.org/)

The event is free and open to the public, and Woodland Pattern will have copies of the book to sell!

Woodland Pattern books is located at 720 E. Locust St. in Milwaukee.

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Yes, there has been a delay. The Tattooed Lady will be here in less than one month- first week in December.
You can still pre-order via Amazon.com, which is kindly sending out little emails recommending it to people who have bought other tattoo books.

New tattoos this summer.

You can even browse through a few selected pages!

I'm in the process of planning two book signings at the beginning of December, more details to follow. One will definitely be at Woodland Pattern Books in Milwaukee on Dec. 9th. I will be talking as part of their Prose Series and signing books.

I think there will also be something at Carroll University in Waukesha in March for Women's History Month.

Enjoy the random new tattoo picture from this summer!

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Amelia Osterud

Amelia Klem Osterud & James A. Levine

Wednesday, October 7  |  5:30 - 7:00 PM

Venue: Wisconsin Studio/Overture

Presenter(s): Amelia Klem Osterud, James A. Levine

An event featuring two wildly diverse books: James A. Levine’s novel The Blue Notebook, a story about a fifteen-year-old girl sold into sexual slavery in Mumbai, and The Tattooed Lady: A History by Amelia Klem Osterud, on women who made sideshow livings by displaying their bodies onstage in an era when even a bit of ankle was considered scandalous. This promises to spark a provocative conversation about women who, by choice or not, do work that puts them on the fringe of society -- and about the economic forces that foster such "work."
Bookseller: University Book Store
Category(s): Fiction, International, Society & Politics, Work

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I was invited to talk on a panel with Anna Friedman Herlihy (exhibit curator) Glen Davies (banner muralist) at Intuit (Outsider art museum in Chicago) for their upcoming exhibit: Freaks & Flash on Tattoo Flash and Circus Banners on Saturday, Sept. 26th @ 3pm.

Free and open to the public

Intuit will host a panel discussion with experts on tattoo history and circus banners and performers. The panelists are Freaks & Flash co-curator, Anna Friedman Herlihy; Amelia Klem Osterud, author of the forthcoming book The Tattooed Lady: A History (Nov. 2009, Speck Press); and former circus traveler turned artist, Glen Davies.

The exhibit itself runs:

September 11, 2009 - January 9, 2010 Opening Reception: Friday, September 11, 5-8pm Intuit is pleased to present Freaks & Flash, featuring artwork from the heyday of tattooing as a Western folk art. Tattoo flash (the design drawings for tattoos) will be combined with sideshow banners depicting tattooed performers and acetate stencils used for transferring tattoo designs on to the skin. From the early days of tattoo shops at the turn of the twentieth century until the beginnings of the tattoo "Renaissance" in the late 1960s and early 1970s, tattooing reflected a wide range of styles and motifs from the mundane to the extraordinary. From the work of "scratchers" to those who bridged the boundary between folk and fine art, the exhibit will offer a glimpse into the multi-faceted history of inscriptions on human skin through the artifacts left behind.

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