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Washington-Centerville Public Library Presents...

Some great authors will visit the Library during 2010 to help celebrate our bicentennial!


Leah Stewart - September 21, 2010, 7 PM, Centerville Library

Reserve one of Leah Stewart's books.

Cincinnati author Leah Stewart has written three novels, including her newest release Husband and Wife, (Harper Collins, 2010). She was born in 1973 at Laughlin Air Force Base in Texas, where her father was stationed. As a child, she lived in Virginia, Idaho, England, Kansas, and Virginia again. She went to high school in Clovis, New Mexico, a town featured in her second novel, The Myth of You and Me. She always wanted to be a writer, as evidenced by her college application essay.

At Vanderbilt University, Leah was the editor of the student newspaper, the Vanderbilt Hustler, and spent summers interning for the Tennessean in Nashville and the Commercial Appeal in Memphis. The latter experience inspired her first novel, Body of a Girl. After college, Leah went to the MFA program at the University of Michigan, and then moved to Boston, where she put her master’s degree to work by taking a job as a secretary for the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She had an office with a door, and she wrote most of her first novel there.

Since then, Leah has worked as a secretary at Duke, a cataloguer in a used bookstore, a magazine editor, a copyeditor, and a staff member at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. She has been a visiting professor at Vanderbilt University, Sewanee, and Murray State University. The recipient of a 2010 NEA Literature Fellowship, Leah teaches in the University of Cincinnati’s creative writing program, and lives in Cincinnati with her husband and two children.

Learn more about Leah Stewart. Copies of her new book will be available courtesy of Books and Co. for purchase and refreshments provided courtesy of Panera Bread.


Jay Asher - Tuesday, October 19, 2010
4 -5 PM GRADES 6-12 ONLY
7-8:30 PM EVERYONE IS INVITED!

Reserve Jay Asher's book.

Jay Asher, author of Thirteen Reasons Why, will be a part of Teen Read Week in October.

Jay has worked at an independent bookstore, an outlet bookstore, a chain bookstore, and two public libraries. He hopes, someday, to work for a used bookstore. When he is not writing, Jay plays guitar and goes camping.

Thirteen Reasons Why is his first published novel.

Read more about the book and author.


10/28/2010 - A Gathering with Author Martin Fletcher
7 - 9 PM
Center for Jewish Culture & Education
525 Versailles Dr, Centerville, OH 45459
853-0372
Target Group: Adults
Join us in meeting award-winning author Martin Fletcher! One of the most highly respected correspondents in television news, Fletcher will be promoting his new book, Walking Israel: A Personal Search for the Soul of a Nation.

Martin Fletcher, long-time NBC Bureau Chief in Tel Aviv, has seen war, famine, killings and tragedy in his nearly 4 decades as a highly respected war correspondent and bureau chief. In 2008, he took on a different assignment – a personal one – that changed the outlook of this veteran newsman in a way he never saw coming. Instead of walking into a war zone, Martin Fletcher walked into the soul of a nation. In his beautiful and touching new book, Walking Israel: A Personal Search for the Soul of a Nation, Fletcher discovers the complexities of Middle Eastern life, and finds a little of himself, too. Reserve one of Martin Fletcher's books and read more about the book and author.

Ticket purchase is required. Cost is $5 in advance by Friday, October 22, or $8 at the door. Purchase tickets at the Library circulation desk, the Jewish Center, or online beginning September 1.

Co-sponsored with the Dayton Jewish Community Center. Book sales provided by Books & Co.


Sarah Rickman - December 1, 2010, 12:30 PM, Hithergreen Center

Reserve one of Sarah Rickman's books.

After a career as a journalist and editor of local newspapers, Rickman was challenged by a feisty lady named Nancy Batson to write the story of Nancy Love and the original WAFS (Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron) -- the first 28 women to fly for the Army in World War II. Included in the challenge was an invite to a reunion of the nine living WAFS, the "Originals" as they became known.

Rickman tributes that week with those nine ladies as a life changing experience, one which set her on a writing path from which she has not since deviated. In the last ten years, she has published The Originals (2001), Flight from Fear (2002), and Nancy Love and the WASP Ferry Pilots of World War II (2008) published -- thus fulfilling Nancy Crews' wish.

Most recently, Rickman published the biography Nancy Batson Crews: Alabama's First Lady of Flight, as a biographical tribute to her friend, mentor, and inspiration.




See What You Missed!
The Library wishes to thank these fine authors for visiting the Library for our 200th Celebration.

Tami Hoag - January 8, 2010, 2 PM, Centerville Library

Reserve one of Tami Hoag's books.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Tami Hoag began her writing career at the age of nine with the self-published, self-illustrated third-grade hit Black Pony. The school project, a tale of two children sharing a pony named Smoky, sparked Hoag's love for storytelling.

With thirteen consecutive Times bestsellers to her credit, including The Alibi Man, Prior Bad Acts, Dark Horse, and Kill The Messenger, Hoag is a favorite of readers and critics alike, Hoag began her career writing for Bantam's Loveswept line of romance novels, penning sixteen titles in five years. Never wanting to be pigeonholed, the novels ranged from romantic comedy to romantic suspense, with richly drawn characters and sharply written dialogue the hallmarks of Hoag's style. These traits carry through to her thrillers, along with fast-paced plots and dead-on police procedure.

Born in Iowa, raised in Minnesota, Tami Hoag left the frigid north for the warmer climate of Los Angeles in 1998. An avid competitive equestrian in the Olympic discipline of dressage, Tami divides her time between Los Angeles and Palm Beach County, Florida where she competes her horses on the prestigious winter circuit.

Her newest book, Deeper than the Dead was released December 29, 2009.

Read more on Tami Hoag's Web site.

A Gathering With Tami Hoag


Martha Moody - February 10, 2010, 7 PM, Centerville Library

Reserve one of Martha Moody's books.

Martha Moody was born and raised in Ohio. She graduated from Oberlin College and received her MD from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, where she also completed her residency training in internal medicine. She went on to spend 15 years in private practice. Her life-long love of reading and writing crystallized when she read Mario Vargas Llosa's Conversation in the Cathedral. Martha credits that book with the inspiration to try writing fiction.

After publishing her first novel, Best Friends, she retired from private practice. Since then she has written two more books, The Office of Desire and Sometimes Mine. When Moody isn't writing she volunteers as medical director at a clinic for the working poor and as a writing teacher in the local public school system. Moody is also involved in a long-term project teaching English to elementary school students in the Arab village of Deir al Assad, Israel. She has been married since 1985 to Dr. Martin Jacobs; they have four teenage sons and live in Dayton, Ohio.

At her Library visit on February 10, Moody stated that two of her favorite authors are Mary Alice Monroe and Isaac Bashevis Singer, a Yiddish author who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978.

Read more on Martha Moody's Web site.

Author Visit - Martha Moody


Anne Perry - March 26, 2010, 2 PM, Centerville Library

Reserve one of Anne Perry's books.

Anne Perry, an international, best selling historical novelist has penned more than 50 novels and been selected by the Times as one of the "100 Masters of Crime". After a sickly childhood that resulted in missing several years of formal education, Perry held various jobs including retail selling, air stewardess, limousine dispatcher and insurance underwriter. These were just means of income, however and she confesses "there was never anything I seriously wished to do except write."

In 1979, when Perry was in her late thirties, her first book, The Cater Street Hangman, was published. This mystery, set in Victorian London, was the first book in the series to feature Victorian policeman Thomas Pitt and his well-born wife Charlotte. Perry says, "I have continued with the Victorian mysteries because I have come to love both the characters and the period. I have loved the whole series because it is in a way the end of history and the beginning of the modern world, a time in Europe of unprecedented challenge and change, a test of who we are, and who we wish to be." The Pitt Series is arguably the longest sustained crime series by a living writer.

In 1990, Anne started a second series of detective novels with The Face of a Stranger. These are set about 35 years before and features the private detective William Monk and volatile nurse Hester Latterly. The most recent of these (15th in the series) is The Dark Assassin (February 2006) which appeared in the New York Times Bestsellers List.

None of her books has ever been out of print, and they have received critical acclaim and huge popular success: over 20 million books are in print world-wide. Her books have appeared on bestseller lists in a number of foreign countries, where she has also had excellent reviews.

Anne is now working on more titles in the Pitt and Monk series. Here newest book The Sheen on the Silk (March 2010) is a stand-alone epic set in the exotic and dangerous world of the Byzantine Empire.

Read more on Anne Perry's Web site.


Ralph Keyes - May 6, 2010, 7 PM, Centerville Library

Reserve one of Ralph Keyes' books.

Ralph Keyes is an author, speaker and teacher. His 15 books deal with topics ranging from time pressure to body size. Keyes’s bestseller, "Is There Life After High School?" was made into a Broadway musical that is still produced in this country and abroad. Since being published in 1995 his book "The Courage to Write" has become a standard work among aspiring writers.

Keyes’s recent books have focused on language. "Nice Guys Finish Seventh" and "The Quote Verifier" explore the origins of quotations, with an emphasis on correcting misconceptions about who said what. "I Love It When You Talk Retro" is about "retroterms," words and phrases that are rooted in our past. An upcoming book will consider how euphemisms have evolved from gosh darn to collateral damage.

Keyes has also written hundreds of articles and essays for publications ranging from GQ to Newsweek. An article he co-authored won the McKinsey Award for Best Article of the Year in the Harvard Business Review.

In addition to writing Keyes speaks to gatherings that range from professional, corporate and educational groups to ones for writers. As a teacher he has given courses on writing at a number of colleges and universities as well as at writer’s conferences.

After graduating from Antioch College in 1967, Keyes studied at the London School of Economics and Political Science. From 1968 to 1970 he was Assistant to the Publisher of Long Island’s Newsday. Following a decade spent as a Fellow of the Center for Studies of the Person in La Jolla, California, Keyes did free-lance writing and lecturing in the Philadelphia area. Keyes now lives with his wife Muriel in Yellow Springs, Ohio. When not writing he collects toasters and other kitchen appliances. Keyes also likes to hike, bike and follow sports.

Read more on Ralph Keyes' Web site.


Will Hillenbrand - August 11, 2010, 2 - 3 PM, Centerville Library

Reserve a book illustrated by this fine artist.

Will Hillenbrand, is a local author and illustrator from Cincinnati, Ohio. His work in the new book, Don't Slam the Door, will be released in August. He grew up in Cincinnati surrounded by stories. His parents owned a barber shop where he listened to conversations about adult life. When he wasn't at the shop, he spent hours at baseball games, sharing the stories about the teams and players. His grandmother, who lived nearby, shared stories about her earlier life on a farm with Will and his three brothers. Drawing was how he captured the stories he heard. His older brother sketched cartoons and Will began by copying him. He drew mostly at the kitchen table, but also used his crayons on stairwell walls. His early pictures still decorate the basement of his mother's house.

Will has been awarded a Gold Medal and honors from the Society of Illustrators. Will's books have won numerous accolades and awards, including the following:

Counting Crocodiles - Publisher's Weekly Starred Review
Coyote and the Fire Stick - Horn Book Fanfare List 1997
Sam Sunday and the Mystery at the Ocean Beach Hotel - IRA Children's Choice Award
The House that Drac Built - IRA Children's Choice Award
Wicked Jack - Irma S. and James H. Black.Bank Street College of Education Award for excellence in text and illustration, 1995 Blue Ribbon Book - Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, Best Books of 1995 - School Library Journal
Traveling to Tondo - ALA Notable Book Award

Read more on Will's Web site.


Kristina McBride - August 12, 2010, 1 - 4 PM, Centerville Library

Teens - Register to attend a Writer's Workshop With Kristina McBride.

Born in Dayton, Ohio in 1975. She lived across from a library and dreamed of becoming a librarian (or a hairstylist). She was raised in Centerville, Ohio, and graduated from Wright State University in 1997 with a bachelor’s in English Education. She taught English, Yearbook, Film & Literature, and Modern Literature at Springboro High School in Springboro, Ohio. She is married, has two children and quit teaching to stay home with her chilcren and to write.

"Throughout all of my childhood, I was obsessed with books. They were like water and air to me, and I could not have survived without the escape each story brought me. I have always felt the pain of the characters, and would imagine that it was my responsibility to read them out of whatever terrible situation they had been written into. When I started writing, these insistent voices started talking in my head, and I could not get them to stop or quiet down. Until I wrote their story. They’re still talking, thankfully, and I’ll keep writing as long as they’re there."

Her debut novel, The Tension of Opposites, is about a sixteen-year-old girl named Tessa, whose best friend Noelle was kidnapped two years previously and has miraculously made it home to Centerville, Ohio safely, albeit changed, was released in May 2010.

Learn more about Kristin on her Website.