By Bill Thorness, Special to the Blog
A crime novelist, a poet and a memoirist sit down to a holiday dinner. Each would write the scene differently, and all would make a reader feel more like anticipating Thanksgiving. But even if grandma dropped the turkey on the way to the table, any of them would smile through the chaos and mutter “to a writer, it’s all material.”
Discover new ways local authors can help you look at life through the world of books available at the Holiday Bookfest, once again, finally, being held in person at the PNA on Saturday, November 19, 2-4 p.m. (Blue Building, 2nd floor).
Come to meet local authors, buy books, and get them signed. Come for author readings, held every 15 minutes. Come to support our local bookseller Phinney Books, who is donating part of the proceeds to the tutoring center Bureau of Fearless Ideas and the PNA. And please bring your gently used children’s books for donation to the Pocket Libraries program!
Among the more twenty-eight authors will be bestselling crime novelist Elizabeth George, Washington State Poet Laureate Rena Priest, first-time young adult novelist Zoe Hana Mikuta, and memoirist Jessica Gigot, a Skagit Valley farmer.
With the holidays at hand, how about a new cookbook? On hand will be four chef authors: Polina Chesnakova, Hsiao-Ching Chou, Jackie Freeman and Andrea Pons.
And in the gift-giving season, new children’s books will delight the kids in your life. Meet authors Rob Albanese, Lynne Brunelle, Ben Clanton, Andy Chou Musser and Walker Ranson, a young man who penned his first book with his mother, veteran novelist Suzanne Selfors.
A smorgasbord of great books awaits from authors Erica Bauermeister, Robert Dugoni, Laurie Frankel, Nicola Griffith, Thor Hanson, Molly Hashimoto, Priscilla Long, Sharon Mentyka, Boyd Morrison, Steve Olson, Putsata Reang, Steven Reddy, Neal Thompson, Tara Austen Weaver, David B. Williams and the students of BFI.
Are some names unfamiliar? Fantastic! Discovery is the joy of the season.
As you stroll the tables of this 13th annual Holiday Bookfest, you’ll be amazed at the myriad ways our local authors can deliver the goods. There’s not a turkey in the bunch.
And by the way, if you are turkey-shopping that afternoon, don’t worry, you can find signed books from all these authors through the holiday season at Phinney Books.
