If you’re looking for a new recipe, want to make a quilt, are in the mood for a little dark humor or want to be inspired, a selection of books by local authors may appeal to you.
(B.C. Manion/Staff Photo)
Seventeen local authors will gather at Barnes & Noble at The Shops at Wiregrass May 17 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., to offer their works for sale, chat with potential patrons, and sign books.
“It’s Barnes & Noble’s way to recognize the community,” said Paul Brouillard, assistant store manager at the bookstore, which is located at 28152 Paseo Drive in Wesley Chapel. “Our customers are readers. A lot of them aspire to be authors and have their books for sale in our store. So this is a great way to get the authors who are local to our store.”
It’s a fun event for the authors, Brouillard added. Besides having a chance to sell their work, they get to talk to customers and to network with each other.
The store will set the writers up in clusters at different locations in the store, with a sprinkling of genres at each table, Brouillard said.
“I’ll have a teen book maybe next to maybe one of the cooking books and the quilting book, something like that,” he said.
Some authors have been there before, such as Leigh Kenyon, a teenager who wrote “The Zebra Riders,” and Madonna Jervis Wise, a retired educator who has written several books, including “Wildcat Creek Kids,” “Sam & Company,” and “Juanita in Blue.” She’s also co-author of “Kachina and the Bully.”
Evelyn Johnson-Taylor, a women’s ministry leader, will be there with her book “A Woman’s Call, Living a Life of Purpose.”
Those interested in learning to quilt can pick up some pointers from Elizabeth Dackson, author of “Becoming a Confident Quilter.”
Guy Cote will offer his book “Long Live the King: Book One of the Charlemagne Saga.” Milt Harris will have three titles available, a book for young readers called “Foxy Roxy,” a self-help guide titled “Ceilings,” and the cookbook “Just Friggin’ Cook.”
Gail Yip-Chuck’s book, “The New Life Diet: A New Way of Eating and Being,” shares her message for diet and health, with the aim of helping readers transform their lives.
Jamie Elizabeth Tingen’s book, “Butterfly Messages,” is a story about second chances. It’s a particularly timely topic in this age of reconnections enabled through social media and of rekindled romance among former sweethearts who have found each other a divorce or the death of a spouse.
If you enjoy dark humor, “The Funeral Portrait” by Vincent Vinas, may be right up your alley.
Those who are drawn to history and photography may want to check out the work of R. Wayne Ayres, author of “Florida’s Grand Hotels from the Gilded Age” and “St. Petersburg: The Sunshine City.”
Other authors expected to be there are Jenice Armstead, Sarina Babb, Shelby Bender, Susan Noe Harmon, Paul Sunshine Murphy, Alison Oburia and Ria Prestia.
Readers drawn to poetry may want to pick up a copy of “Eyes Open, Listening,” by Janet Watson, at the Barnes & Noble author gathering May 17 at The Shops at Wiregrass.
Here’s a selection from her book:
The Artist
His studio was under the basement stairs,
next to shelves of canned tomatoes,
beneath the foundation window through
which he could watch leaves scuttling by.
His day-job at the factory shared space
with thoughts of going home,
of what he’d sketch or paint—
a remembered face, the valley in spring.
His assembly line labor supported us,
and although I understood that need,
when people asked me what he did,
I always said my father was an artist.
-Janet Watson
Published May 7, 2014
