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Meet the Authors & Bookfaire
The Friends of the
Shannon Center Meet the Authors & Bookfaire will be on
March 31, 2012.
Information and
order form, click HERE
Authors currently scheduled are as follows:
Keynote authors: David L. Ulin and Lisa See.
Breakout authors: James Brown, Laurel Corona, K. L.
Glanville, Sheila Lowe, Susan Patron, and Smoky Trudeau Zeidel.
Opening Keynote Speaker:
·
David L. Ulin,
book critic for the Los Angeles Times, has edited
two anthologies of Southern California literature,
Another City: Writing from Los Angeles, and the
Library of America’s Writing Los Angeles: A Literary
Anthology, which won a 2002 California Book Award
and includes fiction, poetry, essays, journalism, and
diaries of more than 70 writers from Raymond Chandler to
Aimee Semple McPherson, from Evelyn Waugh to David
Hockney, and from William Faulkner to Joan Didion. His
most recent work, The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books
Matter in a Distracted Time, makes a strong case for
the need to read and, moreover, the need to read
books, as well as electronic devices.
Morning Breakout Speakers:
·
James Brown
examines his own and his family’s hardscrabble life
in his two memoirs, The Los Angeles Diaries,
and This River: A Memoir, telling of the events
that led to his brother and sister’s deaths, his own
drug and alcohol addiction, and how he managed to
survive when his siblings didn’t. Author Tim O’Brien
notes that This River is “A beautifully crafted
and intensely moving book. Without artifice or
pretension—without false moves of any sort—James Brown
goes after the biggest literary game: death, love,
children, degeneration, hopelessness, hope. I read this
book straight through, in one spellbound sitting, and I
will read it again in a week or two. It is so good.”
·
K. L. (Karissa) Glanville
is a former teacher turned writer. She has written the
first novels of two different series, The Realm: The
Awakening Begins, and 2108: What Lies Beyond.
The Realm series takes the reader through the
natural and supernatural mysteries of two young people
who find themselves on opposing sides in a 21st
century slum town. 2108 is a fun, adrenaline
pumping, novel that takes the reader on an adventure
into a world now full of Aliens, Bionics, Naturals, and
Holdouts—all from the prospective of a 16-year-old girl
in the year 2108. Glanville has also written Fiction
Writing Notebook and an alphabet coloring book,
which should delight adults as well as children. The
first of The Realm series is available on
audiobook and the second in The Realm series will
soon be on the shelves.
·
Sheila Lowe
is a court-qualified forensic handwriting examiner whose
mystery series features fictional handwriting expert
Claudia Rose. Claudia Rose testifies in court in cases
of forgery, as well as in cases where personality
assessment is required. She is not a detective and she
doesn’t solve cases. What she does do is use handwriting
analysis to understand the characters who populate the
books, the good, the bad, and the truly pathological.
Lowe is also the author of Handwriting of the Famous
& Infamous, and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to
Handwriting Analysis.
Afternoon Breakout Speakers:
·
Laurel Corona,
who has written 17 educational, nonfiction young adult
books and has received the Christopher award for
Until Our Last Breath: A Holocast Story of Love and
Partisan Resistance, has turned to historical
fiction with three novels: her first, The Four
Seasons: A Novel of Vivaldi’s Venice, captures the
vibrancy of the Renaissance era; the second,
Penelope’s Daughter, is a retelling of the Odyssey;
and her third, Finding Emilie, centers on the
daughter left behind after the untimely death of the
brilliant mathematician and scientist in
pre-revolutionary France, Emilie du Chatelet.
·
From the moment she heard her 4th grade
teacher read Charlotte’s Web, Susan Patron
knew she wanted to become a writer, and, as she reached
adulthood, she knew she wanted to have books and reading
at the center of her life. She achieved both, not only
by becoming a librarian and writing children’s books,
but by marrying a rare book restorer. Virtually every
one of her books has earned awards, including the first
in the “Lucky” series, The Higher Power of Lucky,
which won the Newbery Award in 2007. Subsequent books
featuring 11-year-old Lucky in the tiny (population 43)
California town of Hard Pan are Lucky Breaks and
Lucky for Good. Her latest novel, Behind the
Mask, pits a 14-year-old girl against the “bad men
of Bodie” in one of California’s most notorious gold
rush mining towns.
·
Smoky Trudeau Zeidel
taught fiction writing and creativity workshops in the
Midwest before packing up her daughter and sundry pets
three years ago to settle in Hacienda Heights. She is
the author of two romance suspense novels, The Cabin,
which was inspired by true events in her family during
the Civil War, and On the Choptank Shores. Her
nonfiction works include Observations of an Earth
Mage--a collection of her own essays, poems,
and photographs celebrating nature, and Smoky’s
Writer’s Workshop Combo Set.
Closing Keynote Speaker:
·
Lisa See
has always been intrigued with stories that have been
lost, forgotten, or deliberately covered up, and all of
her own books have told such stories, beginning with her
first book--and only nonfiction work to date, On Gold
Mountain: The One Hundred Year Odyssey of My Chinese
American Family. Her subsequent books have all been
fiction, although they are all anchored in real times
and places and are sometimes inspired by actual events.
First were the suspense novels Flower Net, The
Interior, and Dragon Bones. They were
followed by the “mainstream” novels, Snowflower and
the Secret Fan, Peony in Love, Shanghai Girls, and
Dreams of Joy. All of them have been best
sellers and have received critical acclaim.
*Authors subject to change without notice.
Schedule of Day’s Events
All will be held in the Ruth B. Shannon Center for the
Performing Arts
8:30 a.m. Registration (pick up your ticket and
name tag). Beverages only available.
9:00 a.m. Welcoming Comments
9:10 a.m. Opening Keynote Address:
David L. Ulin
10:00 a.m. Introduction of Authors for
Breakout Session I
10:10 a.m. Book Sales and Signing
10:50 a.m. Breakout Session I: James
Brown, K. L. Glanville, Sheila Lowe
11:30 a.m. Book Sales and Signing
Noon Luncheon
1:00 p.m. Introduction of Authors for Breakout
Session II
1:15 p.m. Breakout Session II: Laurel Corona,
Susan Patron, Smoky Trudeau Zeidel
1:55 p.m. Book Sales and Signing
2:30 p.m. Closing Keynote Address: Lisa See
3:20 p.m. Book Sales and Signing
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