On the Friday 8 O’Clock Buzz, Andy Moore welcomes musician and newly published author Ritt Dietz into the studio. Known in Madison for his music and his work as a faculty member in the UW-Madison Department of French and Italian, Dietz now adds novelist to his list of accomplishments with the release of Settle Down.
The novel follows Kenny McLuher, a protagonist whose journey is in many ways an inverse reflection of Dietz’s own. Kenny’s story explores what it means to take root — geographically, emotionally, and psychologically — while also portraying the restless, unrootable condition of young adulthood.
Dietz explains that Kenny even has a kind of superpower, one that influences his choices and complicates his relationships. The idea emerged as part of a deeper exploration into how we reconcile the desire to belong with the impulse to wander…