The wait is over for fans of best-selling author, humorist, and TV personality Michael Perry of Fall Creek, who will make his first Merrill appearance at 7 p.m. on Monday, May 2, at the Prairie River Middle School auditorium.
Perry is the entertainment for the Friends of T.B. Scott Library’s annual meeting. The Friends’ formal business meeting will be dispensed with to accommodate the program.
After his performance, Perry will have copies of his books and CDs available for sale and signing.
While admission is free, the audience will have an opportunity to join the Friends of T.B. Scott Library for only $5 a year. The Friends is a non-profit, volunteer organization whose purpose is to promote the use of T.B. Scott Free Library and appreciation of its value as a cultural and educational asset of the community.
The Friends support T.B. Scott Free Library by funding educational programs, equipment and library services.
Friends receive a Newsletter, are admitted to preview night of the Friends’ annual fall book sale, getting a first look at available offerings, and can be proud of supporting the library.
Perry’s performance is also an event officially commemorating the centennial year of the Carnegie building erected and opened to the public in August 1911 to house T.B. Scott Free Library.
Humorist Michael Perry is the author of the bestselling memoirs Population 485: Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time, Truck: A Love Story, Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs and Parenting, and the essay collection Off Main Street.
Perry has written for Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, Outside, Backpacker, Orion and Salon.com, and is a contributing editor to Men’s Health. He has performed and produced two live audience humor recordings (I Got It From the Cows and Never Stand Behind a Sneezing Cow) and performs regularly with his band the Long Beds.
Perry’s humor has also been enjoyed by viewers of the Wisconsin Public Television program In Wisconsin, where he appears regularly.
Raised on a small dairy farm, Perry equates his writing career to cleaning calf pens – keep shoveling, and eventually the pile’s so big, someone will notice. Perry further prepared for the writing life by reading every Louis L’Amour cowboy book he could get his hands on – most of them twice.
Perry has run a forklift, operated a backhoe, driven truck, and worked as a proofreader and physical therapy aide. He has worked for a surgeon, answered a suicide hotline, was a country music roadie in Switzerland, and once worked as a roller-skating Snoopy. He can run a pitchfork, milk a cow in the dark, and say “I don’t understand” in French, Greek and Norwegian. He has never been bucked off a horse (falling off doesn’t count), and is utterly unable to polka.
Michael Perry can be found online at www.sneezingcow.com. Learn more about T.B. Scott Free Library at www.tbscottlibrary.org.