Event Guide Civic Center Map Thursday, Oct. 25 Saturday, Oct. 27 (Continued) Jill Lepore Presents the McCreight Lecture in the Humanities The Battle of Lewisburg, Featuring Richard Armstrong First Floor 7:30 p.m. • Riggleman Hall, University of Charleston 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. • Conference Rooms 202 - 205 Lepore will speak on the topic of her new book, These Truths: A History Richard Armstrong will discuss his new book, The Battle of Lewisburg. of the United States, published in September by Norton. Lepore has He is the author of 14 books and journal articles, including The Battle contributed to The New Yorker since 2005, writing about American of McDowell, The Battle of Bulltown and several books in the Virginia history, law, literature and politics. Regimental History series. Armstrong is a veteran of the U. S. Air Force and is retired from the Bath County Sheriff’s Office with 33 years of Friday, Oct. 26 service. He is currently the president of the Bath County Historical Revising Your Novel: Making Your Book the Best It Can Be!, Society. Featuring Meredith Sue Willis 10 a.m. - Noon • Conference Rooms 202 - 204 Live Long and Prosper, Featuring John Scalzi This workshop will suggest a number of concrete strategies aimed 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. • Little Theater at giving the novel greater coherence, stronger structure and more John Scalzi is one of the most popular and acclaimed science fiction powerful momentum. The session will include remarks by the authors to emerge in the last decade. His massively-successful debut presenter, brief written and thinking exercises and time for questions, Old Man’s War won him science fiction’s John W. Campbell Award sharing and discussion. Registration is required. Register online at for Best New Writer. His New York Times bestsellers include The Last www.wvbookfestival.org. Colony, Fuzzy Nation, and Redshirts; which won 2013’s Hugo Award for Best Novel. Material from his widely read blog, Whatever, has also Writing‘Musket’s Big Adventure, A Quest to Find the Gold and Blue earned him two other Hugo Awards. Scalzi also serves as critic-at-large Mountains,’ Featuring Jake Stump and Brad Stalnaker for the Los Angeles Times. 10 a.m. - Noon • Conference Room 205 The children’s book, Musket’s Big Adventure: A Quest to Find the Gold Killers of the Flower Moon: The Arc of Justice, and Blue Mountains, was completely written, designed and illustrated Featuring David Grann by West Virginians. In this workshop, Stump and Stalnaker will read 1 - 2:30 p.m. • Little Theater excerpts from the book and show the process of making a book New Yorker writer and bestselling author of The Lost City of Z and Killers E - Elevator from start to finish. They will also show how children can write, of the Flower Moon, David Grann doesn’t just produce captivating R - Restroom illustrate and make their own books. Children who are interested in stories - he lives them. Whether crossing the ocean on a skiff, or writing and adults who are interested in writing children’s books are trekking for months through the Amazon, Grann immerses himself in S - Stairs encouraged to attend. Registration is required. Register online at his reporting to give his stories a pace and intensity unlike any other. www.wvbookfestival.org. Grann’s latest book, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, is a true crime tale that unravels one of the most How to Keep Readers in Suspense, Featuring Ginger Brookover sinister crimes and racial injustices in American history. It is currently 1 - 3 p.m. • Conference Rooms 202 - 204 in production with Martin Scorsese as director and starring Leonardo Author and Fairmont State University faculty member Ginger DiCaprio. Brookover will present writing style techniques that facilitate suspense and build plots to teach writers how to turn their creations A Literary Concert with Kwame Alexander and Randy Preston into page turners that everyone will want to read. Registration is 1 - 2:30 p.m. • Conference Rooms 202 - 205 required. Register online at www.wvbookfestival.org. Kwame Alexander is a poet, educator and the New York Times bestselling author of 25 books for children and young adults, Storybuilding with Kathy MacMillan including Rebound, the follow-up to his Newbery-medal winning Second Floor 3:30 - 5:30 p.m. • Conference Rooms 202 - 204 middle grade novel, The Crossover. Some of his other works include No matter what the genre, a rich palette of details brings a story The Playbook: 52 Rules to Help You Aim, Shoot, and Score in This Game of world to life. Young adult fantasy author Kathy MacMillan will discuss Life; the picture books, Animal Ark and Out of Wonder, and the novels, the challenges of building a story world without losing sight of the Solo and Booked. He’s led cultural exchange delegations to Brazil, Italy, characters at its heart. Registration is required. Register online at www. Singapore and to Ghana, where he is training teachers and building a wvbookfestival.org. library and health clinic, as a part of LEAP for Ghana, an international literacy program he co-founded. An Evening with Debbie Macomber 7 p.m. • Grand Ballroom, Charleston Civic Center Randy Preston is a singer-songwriter, educator and storyteller, who Debbie Macomber is one of today’s most popular authors of grew up on three different continents. Raised in England and Kenya, contemporary women’s fiction, bringing to life compelling he gained a deep appreciation for the lore, the myths and the legends relationships that embrace family and enduring friendships. Her of the places he has lived. Preston has been touring with Kwame novels, including the beloved Cedar Cove and Rose Harbor series, Alexander visiting schools and special events to entertain and engage have spent more than 1,000 weeks on the New York Times bestseller people through catchy music and interactive storytelling. He’s written list, thirteen of which hit the number one spot. Macomber has also original songs for Kwame’s latest novels in verse, Rebound and Solo. published bestselling cookbooks, several works of nonfiction - such as the popular One Perfect World - an adult coloring book and two An Afternoon with Dennis Lehane acclaimed children’s books. Every year, Macomber delights her readers 3 p.m. • Grand Ballroom with a Christmas novel celebrating the best of the season. Five of Since his first novel, A Drink Before the War won the Shamus Award, these have been made into original Hallmark Channel movies. The Dennis Lehane has published twelve more novels that have been Cedar Cove series was made into Hallmark Channel’s first scripted translated into more than 30 languages and become international dramatic series, and ran for three seasons. She is a Pearl S. Buck bestsellers. Three of his novels – Mystic River; Gone, Baby, Gone and E - Elevator International Honorary Board Member and the recipient of a lifetime Shutter Island – were adapted into award-winning films. Lehane was achievement award by the Romance Writers of America. a staff writer on the acclaimed HBO series The Wire and a writer- R - Restroom producer on the 4th season of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire. Lehane S - Stairs Saturday, Oct. 27 currently is a writer and producer on the television adaptation The Climb from Salt Lick: A Memoir of Appalachia of Stephen King’s Mr. Mercedes and has two dramatic series in (Mary Settle Session), Featuring Nancy L. Abrams development for DirecTV. In 2018, Fox network ordered a pilot 9 - 10:30 a.m. • Conference Rooms 202 - 205 based on Gone, Baby, Gone. His most recent book is a standalone Abrams’ novel, The Climb from Salt Lick: A Memoir of Appalachia, is the novel, Since We Fell. story of an outsider coming into adulthood. Abrams is a writer and photojournalist who moved to West Virginia in the 1970s. Her story is about a unique place and its people from the perspective of a woman All authors will sign books who documents its burdens and its beauty, using words and pictures to tell the rich stories of those around her. Her presentation has been selected as this year’s Mary Lee Settle Session. after their presentations. Learn more about the authors: Visit us on Facebook. www.wvbookfestival.org www.wvbookfestival.org www.facebook.com/wvbookfest Individuals with disabilities who require accommodation to attend a program at any KCPL facility should contact the ADA Coordinator at least 48 hours prior to the event. 304-343-4646 ext. 1242 or 1268; [email protected].