CALENDAR OF EVENTS
NOTE: Local LIT is on summer hiatus June through August. Check back in September for Fall 2010 events.
RIP Joe Drabyak
8/28/2010 — SAD BREAKING NEWS: While checking out the website of Chester County Books & Music Company (CCBMC) for its upcoming events in order to post them here, Local LIT discovered the sad and shocking news that longtime CCBMC bookseller Joe Drabyak died last night, Friday, 8/27/2010. The cause was kidney cancer, diagnosed about two months ago, according to a CCBMC spokesperson.
Joe Drabyak was a bookseller at CCBMC since 1994. The notice on the CCBMC website calls him a “bookseller extraordinaire.” He was that and more. Joe not only loved and gave his all to the cause of promoting good books and reading, but he was also a huge supporter of local authors, consistently booking them for readings and signings, and prominently displaying their books in the store. He also worked diligently for the cause of independent bookshops. Joe supported Local LIT from its inception in 2002, and continued to do so through the years.
He was a generous and kind man.
Local LIT joins the staff at CCBMC, all the authors who ever signed at the store, all CCBMC cutomers, and his fellow independent booksellers around the country in mourning this huge loss to the literary community, and extends condolences to the family.
Watch the CCBMC web page for news of a memorial for Joe. The service desk at CCBMC is happy to collect memories of and tributes to Joe Drabyak via email for possible future posting on his FACEBOOK page and for a keepsake book. You can e-mail these to servicedesk@ccbmc.com
— Kathye Fetsko Petrie, Editor, Local LIT
September 2010
9/07/2010
Will Bunch, Philadelphia Daily News senior writer and author of the political blog “Attytood,” talks about his new book Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, Hi-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama.
TICKETS GO ON SALE for The 2010 First Person Festival of Memoir and Documentary Art.
9/08/2010
Terry McMillan, New York Times bestselling author of Waiting to Exhale and How Stella Got Her Groove Back , talks about and signs her newest novel, Getting to Happy.
9/14/2010
Journalist and poet Eliza Griswold talks about Christianity and Islam.
9/15/2010
PHILLY CRIME FICTION DOUBLE-HEADER at Moonstone Arts Center: Local authors Duane Swierczynski (top) & Dennis Tafoya read their latest novels set in the City of Brotherly Love.
9/16/2010
Rick Moody, author of the award-winning memoir, The Black Veil, as well as three collections of short fiction and five novels, including his latest, Four Fingers of Death, delivers a talk at Bryn Mawr College.
9/21/2010
New York Times bestselling author of of Water for Elephants Sara Gruen talks about her newest novel, Ape House. This event is free and includes an mix-and-mingle happy hour with the author before the event. MORE INFO.
9/22/2010
Suzanne Collins, author of the just-released Mockingjay, the third book in her popular Hunger Games trilogy, visits Children’s Book World in Haverford at 7:30 PM. Special rules apply for attendees. READ DETAILS HERE.
Many Mountains Moving magazine reading.
9/23/2010
Author photo by Kathye Fetsko Petrie
National Book Award-winning author and Swarthmore College graduate Jonathan Franzen talks about Freedom, his first novel since The Corrections.
Joshua Ferris talks about and signs The Unnamed.
9/24/2010
Philadelphia Fantastic presents local author L.A. Banks, author of the Crimson Moon series.
9/25/2010
William Gibson, whose debut novel, Neuromancer, won the Nebula, Philip K. Dick, and Hugo awards, talks about his latest science ficton novel, Zero History.
9/30/2010
Scottish author A.L. Kennedy.
Satirist Gary Shteyngart reads from Super Sad True Love Story, his latest send-up of modern culture. Appearing with A. L. Kennedy (see above). Book signings follow.
Jamaica Kinkaid, author of the novels The Autobiography of My Mother, Annie John, Lucy, and more works of both fiction and non-fiction, delivers a talk at Bryn Mawr College.
October 2010
10/6/2010
Annual McLean Library Garden Book Sale at the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society.
10/16/2010
Philadelphia Stories‘ Push to Publish 2010: Strategies and Techniques to Get Your Work in Print and Online, an all-day workshop for writers at Rosemont College with keynote speaker Paul Lisicky and panels on various topics featuring authors Kelly Simmons, Don Lafferty, Cecily Kellogg, Kelly Whalen,Curtis Smith, Jerry Waxler, Kathye Fetsko Petrie, Lise Funderburg, Julia Chang, Randall Brown, Alison Hicks, Aimee LaBrie, Carla Spataro, Lisa Dale, Lynn Rosen,Jonathan Maberry, Elise Brown, Julia Chang , Judy Schachner, Catherine Stine, Marie Lamba, Marc Schuster, Debra Leigh Scott, Curt Smith, Randall Brown & Josh McIlvain. MORE INFO
November 2010
11/05/2010 through 11/07/2010
PHILADELPHIA’S 39th ANNUAL GREAT BOOKS FALL INSTITUTE WEEKEND at POCONO MANOR INN. The 2010 theme is “The Raptures and Ravages of Love.” Books being discussed are A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, Phedre by Jean Racine and Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert.
11/08/2010 through 11/14/2010
The 2010 First Person Festival of Memoir and Documentary Art
11/11/2010
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and MacArthur Fellow Charles Simic, a former Poet Laureate of the United States (2007-08), delivers a talk at Bryn Mawr College.
December 2010
12/02/2010
Award-winning novelist, short story writer and poet Ha Jin delivers a talk at Bryn Mawr College. Jin’s work includes the novel Waiting, and the story collection A Good Fall.
2011
January 2011
February 2011
March 2011
03/16/2011
Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Jhumpa Lahiri, author of Interpreter of Maladies and The Namesake and Unaccustomed Earth, delivers a talk at Bryn Mawr College.
03/23/2011
Poets Jorie Graham, Rachel Hadas and Susan Wheeler read poems about visual works of art.
April 2011
04/05/2011
Award-winning dramatist John Guare.
04/12/2011
Poet Karl Kirchwey.
May 2011
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Appreciate Local LIT? Help keep it going. Donate online, via PayPal. The smallest amount helps. See “Support Local LIT” and DONATION button on menu at right. Thanks. — Kathye Fetsko Petrie, editor