Columbus Metropolitan Library announces Carnegie Author Series speakers
Courtesy of Beverly Jenkins
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Beverly Jenkins says her mission is to write about the parts of black history you don't learn in school -- and wrap them up in a good love story.
The Columbus Metropolitan Library’s sixth annual Carnegie Author Series will feature award-winning authors of literary works in historical romance, historical fiction, fiction and true-crime.
The lineup of authors for 2022 includes Wild Rain author Beverly Jenkins, The Personal Librarian authors Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray, The Feather Thief author Kirk Wallace Johnson, and Leave the World Behind author Rumaan Alam.
The authors will each participate in free talks for Columbus audiences with most events expected to be in person.
Multicultural historical romance author Beverly Jenkins will open the series at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 20. She will discuss her book Wild Rain, the second work in her Woman Who Dare series.
Wild Rain tells the story of a journalist who travels to Wyoming for an assignment and unintentionally sparks a romance with his subject’s sister.
The USA Today bestselling author has won numerous awards including the 2017 Romance Writers of America Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award and the 2016 Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award for historical romance and a nomination for the NAACP Image Award in Literature. Jenkins has been featured on CBS Sunday Morning and in the documentary Love Between the Covers.
Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray will then visit in person to speak on their historical fiction novel The Personal Librarian at 2 p.m. on Saturday, April 9.
The New York Times bestselling book tells the story of J.P. Morgan’s personal librarian, a white woman who quickly becomes a respected literary and art world figure but is desperately hiding a complicated secret: She is actually a Black woman, a daughter of the first Black graduate of Harvard.
The Personal Librarian was a Good Morning America Book Club pick last year. Both authors come from prior careers. Benedict previously worked as a lawyer and now specializes in historical fiction while Murray comes from a business entrepreneurship background and is known for Christian fiction.
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Photo by Marie-Josée Cantin Johnson
The third event of the series will welcome Kirk Wallace Johnson at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 28 to discuss his book The Feather Thief.
Johnson is a screenwriter and political author who served in Iraq with the U.S. Agency for International Development. In this true-crime tale Johnson investigates the heist of precious bird skins from the British Museum of Natural History and the practice of Victorian salmon fly-tying.
The Feather Thief has earned a plethora of accolades including a Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger Award nomination, a place on Oprah’s 20 Best True Crime Books of All Time and an Andrew Carnegie Medal nomination.
The series will finish with Novelist and critic Rumaan Alam at 2 p.m. on Sunday, October 23.
Alam’s novel Leave the World Behind tells the story of a white upper-middle-class family who are vacationing in the Hamptons when the owners of the house, an older Black couple, arrive and inform the family there has been a blackout in New York City. This novel explores themes of race, parenthood and class as the family decides whether it is safe to trust the couple during a crisis.
Photo by David Land
Leave The World Behind is a New York Times Bestseller and was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction. The book made it onto best of the year lists from The Washington Post, Time, USA Today, The New Yorker and many others.
The Feb. 20 event with Beverly Jenkins is the only date currently scheduled as virtual, though the other events remain subject to change due to public health and staffing circumstances. Though the events are free, attendees must register in advance. Register and find more info at www.columbuslibrary.org/special-events.
Maisie Fitzmaurice is an editorial assistant. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
