BISHOP HILL, ILL.– Author Martha Bergland will be on hand this weekend to discuss her latest book, “The Birdman of Koshkonong: The Life of Naturalist Thure Kumlien.”

Bergland will drop by the Steeple Building Museum, located at 103 North Bishop Hill St., on Saturday, July 20, at 1 p.m. for a free one-hour book talk and book signing.

Bergland is the author of many poems, essays, and short stories, as well as two novels–”A Farm Under A Lake and Idle Curiosity” published by Graywolf Press. Her latest book, “The Birdman of Koshkonong: The Life of Naturalist Thure Kumlien,” was awarded the Wisconsin Library Association Literary Award for Best Work of Nonfiction and The Wisconsin Historical Society Board of Curators Book of Merit Award. Birdman also received the Independent Publishers Silver Medal for Biography and Gold Medal for Overall Book Design.

The subject of her book, Thure Kumlien, was one of Wisconsin’s earliest Swedish settlers and an accomplished ornithologist, botanist, and naturalist in the mid-1800s. He settled on the shore of Lake Koshkonong in 1843 and soon began sending bird specimens to museums and collectors in Europe and the eastern United States, including the Smithsonian.

Email the Bishop Hill Heritage Association at bhha@mymctc.net or call (309) 927-3899 for more information.