The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

In Town: Richard Russo

Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Russo will be in Milwaukee on Monday to read from his work as part of Marquette University's visiting writers series. Russo is known for his depictions of the ordinary man and woman in Main Street, U.S.A. His 2001 novel, "Empire Falls," set in a former logging and textile town in Maine, won him a Pulitzer and was made into an HBO movie. His 1993 novel "Nobody's Fool" was also made into a movie, starring Paul Newman, Melanie Griffith, Jessica Tandy and Bruce Willi...

Bookmarks; Transfixed by Story of Judas Gospel

"The secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot during a week, three days before he celebrated Passover." So begins the "The Gospel of Judas," a text written on papyrus about 1,600 years ago and translated from the Coptic only recently by a team of scholars. The discovery of a copy of the Judas gospel, which was referred to dismissively as far back as A.D. 180 by St. Irenaeus, has galvanized and excited scholars.

Esquivel Fans Will Savor Story of Mexican Traitor'

Malinche. By Laura Esquivel. Atria. 208 pages. $22.95. Smart writers learn early in their careers to find a niche, an area of expertise and writing style they can put their signature on and grow into.

Four Swans

Two years ago, the starring roles in a Milwaukee Ballet "Swan Lake" would have been foregone conclusions. The company's two principal ballerinas, Amy Fote and Yumelia Garcia, would have alternated in the dual-role tour-de-force of Odette / Odile. Fote is now the Houston Ballet's Odette / Odile, and Garcia dances Ballet Florida's more modern repertoire.

Television; Wrangling with Sexism at Pbs Ranch

Maybe it shows a lack of imagination on my part, but I've never been charmed by the idea of living the way people did in centuries past. A world without air travel, e-mail, shampoo and Diet Coke is one I'm happy to read about, thanks, but not experience. This feeling just grows stronger every time PBS airs another one of its historical reality series, featuring a cast of eager time travelers who, by the end of a few months without their Macs and microwaves, look ready to have at each other wi...

Provins, Stetsura Bring Heart, Soul to Roles

Jennifer Provins (Odile), 28, grew up in Carlisle, Pa. She studied as a child at the Central Pennsylvania School of Ballet, where she knew Jennifer Miller, a Milwaukee Ballet veteran. At 16, Provins left a difficult family life and became a scholarship trainee at Pacific Northwest Ballet, in Seattle. Like Jouravel, she spent some time at the Hartford Ballet, then moved on to the Tulsa Ballet and the American Repertory Ballet, in New Jersey. She came to Milwaukee in 1999, to work with Simon Do...

Veteran Swans Jouravel, San Miguel in Step with One Another

Tatiana Jouravel (Odette), 32, grew up in Ukraine, in a town near Odessa. At age 10, she moved to the Kiev Ballet School, a 10-hour train ride from home. She saw her parents only in the summers. Upon graduation, she briefly danced with the Kiev Ballet. She came to the U.S. to dance in a festival and decided to stay. Her first job was with the Hartford (Conn.) Ballet, and then she spent seven years with the Boston Ballet. She met Michael Pink there, when he came to stage "The Hunchback of Notr...