The Chatham-Kent Public Library is hosting a festival next month to support local authors and encourage residents to "read local."
Collection Development Librarian Arlene Maris says the library is hosting the Read Local: CK Author Festival to support the local writing community. The event will be held on Saturday, May 5 at the Chatham branch.
"There are 18 local authors who will be attending," she says. "They'll be here in the library cafe from 1pm to 3pm that afternoon to share with people who come in, to sell copies of their books, and just talk to people about their writing experience and their books."
The tentative list of authors attending the event includes: Craig Stewart, Sarah Evangeline, David Farquhar, Veronica Lloyd, Meggan MacKenzie, Fred Osmon, Barry Kentner, Shannon Rieger, Heather Dunlop, The Cooking Ladies, Jason Rolfe, Viola Grant, Ethel Wicksey, Deborah Odette, Kelly Young, Yejide Kilanko, Janet McQuiggan, and Robert Marchand.
Genres of the books range from fiction, non-fiction, children’s, to young adult.
Maris says a special guest will also be coming to speak at 3pm.
"Ray Robertson, who is a Chatham native, is going to be here as our special guest. He'll be talking about his new book titled "1979" and the book is set in Chatham, so it should be an interesting discussion with him," she says.
Maris says many people don't realize how many aspiring authours there are in Chatham-Kent.
"We've been quite surprised by the number of [people] who have come forward to be involved," says Maris. "I think it's really encouraging to them and beneficial for us to hear from them, to share their experience, and find out what they're interested in writing about."
Registration is not required for this event. More click here for more details about the event.