Style Spotlight: Artists, Now Authors

Now you can run away and join the circus without ever leaving the comfort of your armchair, courtesy of New Mexico artists Michael Lancaster and Barbara Harnack. The two have been many things in their careers: potters, sculptors, home builders. Now they can add authors and publishers, with Ringling/The Last Laugh and The Boys from Baraboo.

Lancaster, who is the great-grandson of circus founder Charles Ringling, wrote Ringling as a “fictionalized biography.” The book tells the rags-to-riches-to-rags life of John Ringling, at one time one of the richest men in America. Lancaster calls his book not just a circus story, but an American story.

Harnack is completing the couple’s illustrated children’s book, The Boys from Baraboo, about the five brothers from Baraboo, Wis., and their circus life. Ringling is available from Amazon; for it and other works check www.RinglingBook.com.