Zinester Talks Fanzines, Community Daryl Gussin is a writer and musician who has been awkwardly standing around at punk shows for the last twenty-something years. Thankfully at some point in his late teens, he decided to become a little more productive and has been working on zines, setting up shows, and playing in bands consecutively since then. H…

Chef Kenny Offers New Takes on Southern Cuisine Chef Kenny Gilbert is best known for his appearance on “Top Chef” Season seven, where he displayed a big personality and instantly became one of the most likable "cheftestants" to date. He is also the author of the new cookbook, Southern Cooking, Global Flavors (2023), which includes tips and techniqu…

Dean Butler is an actor, producer, and director best known for his role as Almanzo Wilder (the man Laura Ingalls married) in Little House on the Prairie, based on the beloved Little House book series written by Laura Ingalls Wilder. He appeared in the final four seasons of the show, the spin-off show Little House: A New Beginning, and the three pos…

Nate Powell began self-publishing as an Arkansas teenager in 1992. Now, he is a National Book Award-winning cartoonist best known for his work on the ground-breaking graphic novel memoir series, March, with civil rights icon John Lewis. An inside story of the Civil Rights Movement told through the eyes of one of its most iconic figures, it was a #1…

Debut Florida Author Brings the Magic City to Jacksonville "I am, first and foremost, a Miamian. No physical location has done more to shape my personal and artistic sensibilities than the Magic City," Alejandro Nodarse said in a recent interview. "Miami is, unquestionably, very different from its neighboring Floridan cities, and I am a product of …

You May Never See a Hot Summer Day the Same Way Again... Jeff Goodell is a New York Times bestselling author of seven books, including The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World, which was picked as a New York Times Critics' Top Book of 2017, as well as one of Washington Post's 50 Notable Works of Nonf…

Hallmarky Romance with Some Light Spice Siera London says, "I write sassy, sensual heroines." Whether it's the Forbidden series, Fiery Fairy Tales, The Bachelors of Shell Cove, you're sure to find plenty of heat, humor, and a rollercoaster of emotions. Dubbed a "Hallmarky romance with a little extra heat" by author Lizzie Shane, London's latest boo…

A born-and-raised Jacksonvillian, Bethany Baptiste is a preschool inclusion specialist by day and a young adult SFF novelist by night. If she’s not writing an inclusion support plan or a story, she does retail therapy in Florida bookstores and takes scheduled naps with her two chaotic evil dogs. You can visit her website at bethanybaptiste.com Chec…

Death, Love and Redemption "In October 1997, the town of Ringgold in northwest Georgia was shaken by reports of a murder in its midst. A dead woman was found in Alvin Ridley's house..." Georgia attorney-turned-writer, McCracken Poston Jr., joins us live via Zoom to tell the story behind one of his most famous defense cases and his upcoming book, Ze…

The Friends of the Bill Brinton Murray Hill Library sponsored a special Lit Chat Interview with local poet Michelle Lizet Flores. Michelle spoke with fellow poet and Lit Chat alum, Jessica Q. Stark, about her latest book of poetry. Michelle Lizet Flores is a graduate of the FSU and NYU creative writing programs. She currently works as a Creative Wr…

Recently re-released with bonus content, Pucking Around (the first book in the series) is now a USA Today bestseller! The sequel, Pucking Wild, debuted at the top of the Kindle store in multiple countries: #2 in the USA, #1 in Canada, #1 in Australia, and top 50 in the UK! From the author: "The signed paperback preorder campaign for the Kensington …

Jeffrey Blount is the award-winning author of four novels, including Almost Snow White, Hating Heidi Foster, The Emancipation of Evan Walls, and Mr. Jimmy From Around the Way. He is also an Emmy award-winning television director and a 2016 inductee to the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame. During a 34-year career at NBC News, Jeffrey directed a …

Jami Attenberg is the author of seven books of fiction including Instant Love, The Kept Man, The Melting Season, The Middlesteins, Saint Mazie, and All Grown Up. Her most recent novel is All This Could Be Yours (2019). She is also the author of the memoir I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home (2022). Attenberg has written about food,…

Nat Glover was born in 1943, in segregated Jacksonville, Florida. At seventeen, he unknowingly headed into an angry white mob and the Ku Klux Klan attacking young black protestors staging a sit-in at a downtown whites-only lunch counter. Known as “Ax Handle Saturday,” this harrowing encounter with racism would commit him to a lifetime of fighting f…

The Spirit of Place Tim Gilmore is a prolific local history author who has written extensively about Jacksonville. As the writer and creator of www.jaxpsychogeo.com, a project that explores place and catalogs the Southern Gothic, he has told more than 700 stories of strange and historic locations in and around Jacksonville, Florida. He has also pub…

Cat Sebastian writes queer historical romance. Her books have received starred reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Booklist, and she’s been featured in the Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, and Jezebel. She was born in New Jersey and lived in New York and Arizona before settling down in a swampy part of the South. When…

The Legacies We Leave Behind For many childhood summers, Mark Woods piled into a station wagon with his parents and two sisters and headed to America's national parks. Mark’s most vivid childhood memories are set against a backdrop of mountains, woods, and fireflies in places like Redwood, Yosemite, and Grand Canyon national parks. On the eve of tu…

Sohrab Homi Fracis’s new book of North Florida and elsewhere stories, True Fiction, won the 2023 International Book Award for story collections. American Book Award winner Rilla Askew says of it: "True Fiction is a tour de force." Fracis is the first Asian American author to win the Iowa Short Fiction Award, described by the New York Times Book Rev…

Tracey Enerson Wood loves discovering amazing women whose stories have been lost to history and bringing them to life for today’s readers. Her debut novel, The Engineer’s Wife, historical fiction about the woman who built the Brooklyn Bridge, is an international and USA Today bestseller. Her newest book, The President’s Wife, is centered on Edith B…

Hank Phillippi Ryan is the USA Today bestselling author of 14 psychological thrillers, winning the most prestigious awards in the genre: five Agathas, five Anthonys, and the coveted Mary Higgins Clark Award. She is also an on-air investigative reporter for Boston's WHDH-TV, with 37 EMMYs and dozens more journalism honors. National book critics call…

Deb Rogers' novel Florida Woman was published in July 2022 by Hanover Square Press, an imprint of HarperCollins. Called "a bewitching debut" by Publisher's Weekly, Florida Woman was featured as an Indie Next Pick by the American Booksellers Association. Deb has lived and traveled throughout Florida working as an educator, policymaker and victim adv…

Beatriz Williams is the New York Times, USA Today, and internationally bestselling author of Our Woman in Moscow, The Summer Wives, Her Last Flight, The Golden Hour, The Secret Life of Violet Grant, A Hundred Summers, and several other works of historical fiction, including four novels in collaboration with fellow bestselling authors Karen White an…

In resistance to the homogenous policies that limited the possibility and wonder that grows from the earth, Dungy employs the various plants, herbs, vegetables, and flowers she grows in her garden as metaphor and treatise for how homogeneity threatens the future of our planet, and why cultivating diverse and intersectional language in our national …

Anyone can be a writer – even an accomplished chef! The first step is deciding what you'll write about. It could be something you're passionate about or particularly skilled in... Or could it simply be the book (or cookbook) you think is missing from the world! Dennis Chan grew up in Jacksonville, where his family has owned twelve restaurants in th…

Dr. Wayne W. Wood, Hon. AIA. Widely regarded as one of the foremost chroniclers of Jacksonville’s history and architecture, Dr. Wayne Wood has been called “the undisputed godfather of preservation in Jacksonville.” An author, historian, artist, and retired optometrist, Wayne is the founder of Riverside Avondale Preservation, the Riverside Arts Mark…

Michael Wiley’s new novel is The Long Way Out, featuring Franky Dast, an exonerated ex-con who investigates a series of murders in Northeast Florida. Michael is also the author of three mystery and detective series, including the Shamus Award-winning Joe Kozmarski books, the Daniel Turner thrillers, and, most recently, the Sam Kelson PI novels, whi…

Leela Corman is a painter, educator, and graphic novel creator, working in the realm of diaspora Ashkenazi culture and third-generation restorative work. Her books include the Unterzakhn (Schocken/Pantheon, 2012), which was nominated for the Eisner, the L.A. Times Book Award, and Le Prix Artemisia, and won the ROMICS Prize for Best Anglo-American C…

Jessica Q. Stark is the author of Buffalo Girl (BOA Editions, forthcoming April 2023), Savage Pageant (Birds, LLC, 2020) and four poetry chapbooks, including INNANET (The Offending Adam, 2021). Savage Pageant was named one of the “Best Books of 2020” in The Boston Globe and in Hyperallergic. Her poetry has most recently appeared or is forthcoming i…

Aaron Woodson is a Florida-based military combat veteran who has served in the US Air Force and US Air National Guard for over 15 years. He began his military career participating in military campaigns such as Operation Iraqi Freedom and Inherent Resolve. At a very young age, Aaron began to nurture an interest in and passion for poetry. He began to…

Christopher Gorham is a lawyer and teacher of modern American history at Westford Academy, outside Boston. He has degrees in history from Tufts University and the University of Michigan, where he studied under legendary historian Sidney Fine. Gorham has a J.D., summa cum laude, from Syracuse University College of Law, where he served on the editori…

Author Jessica Hatch is a professional freelance editor and novelist with more than a decade of publishing experience. She worked her way through the slush pile at New York-based literary agencies like Writers House, New Leaf Literary & Media, and Fox Literary Management, and learned what attracts readers to a book at St. Martin’s Press. Jessica’s …

Deborah Goodrich Royce’s thrillers examine puzzles of identity. Ruby Falls won the Zibby Award for Best Plot Twist in 2021 and Finding Mrs. Ford was hailed by Forbes, Book Riot, and Good Morning America’s “best of” lists in 2019. She began as an actress on All My Children and in multiple films, before transitioning to the role of story editor at Mi…

Kristy Cambron is a vintage-inspired storyteller writing from the space where art, history, and faith intersect. She’s a Christy Award-winning author of historical fiction, including her bestselling novels, The Butterfly and the Violin and The Paris Dressmaker. Her work has been named to Cosmopolitan’s Best Historical Fiction Novels of 2021, Publis…

Valerie Bowman’s debut novel was published in 2012. Since then, her books have received starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly, Booklist, and Kirkus. She’s been an RT Reviewers’ Choice nominee for Best First Historical Romance and Best Historical Romance Love and Laughter. Two of her books have been nominated for the Kirkus Prize for fiction. Vale…

Madeline Martin is a New York Times and international bestselling author of historical fiction and historical romance. She lives in sunny Florida with her two daughters, two incredibly spoiled cats and a husband so wonderful he's been dubbed Mr. Awesome. She is a die-hard history lover who will happily lose herself in research any day. When she's n…

In her self-published novel, Seen, Julie G. Delegal takes a story straight from Jacksonville’s headlines and tells a fictional version that explores a similar event from two perspectives. Join us to chat with Julie about the process of fictionalizing true events and how she was inspired to write this novel! Julie G. Delegal is a freelance journalis…

Chris Barton and Alton Yates in conversation with local educator TiLena Robinson discussing Chris's book Moving Forward, a nonfiction children's book about Alton's roles in Space Age military experiments and in Jacksonville's 1960 civil rights sit-ins that culminated in Ax Handle Saturday. Chris Barton is the author of picture books including bests…

Jim Rugg is an Eisner and Ignatz Award-winning cartoonist, designer, and YouTuber. His comics have been published by Marvel, DC, Image Comics, AdHouse Books, New York magazine, Dark Horse Comics, Titan Books, and Fantagraphics. Rugg’s comics career began with the publication of Street Angel in 2004. Street Angel comics are part of the National Arch…

Marc Cameron is a New York Times bestselling author. Cameron’s Jericho Quinn Thriller Series debuted in 2011. Since then, he’s written eight Quinn novels and four Arliss Cutter novels featuring a deputy US marshal based in Alaska, including the most recent Cutter, Cold Snap. Marc is the author of five Tom Clancy/Jack Ryan novels for the Tom Clancy …

Chris Crutcher’s first novel, Running Loose, was published in 1983, and by 1984 made USA Today's top ten banned books list, along with nine other long-celebrated novels. He is proud to report that nearly all of his subsequent works have been censored and/or banned somewhere in the great U.S. of A, and that those challenges have earned him two lifet…

Nikesha Elise Williams is a two-time Emmy award winning producer, an award-winning author, and producer and host of the Black & Published podcast. Her latest novel, Beyond Bourbon Street, was awarded Best Fiction by the Black Caucus of African-American Librarians in the 2021 Self-Published eBook Literary Awards. It also received the 2020 Outstandin…

Mackenzi Lee holds a BA in history and an MFA in creative writing from Simmons college. She is the author of the New York Times bestselling Montague Siblings series, which kicked off in 2017 with The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue, which was a New York Times bestseller, an ABA bestseller, has been optioned for film by Greg Berlanti for HBO, w…

In her new book of historic photographs, Jada Wright-Greene celebrates the homes of African Americans throughout the state, including cabins, shotgun homes, and two-story residences in Jacksonville and beach homes in American Beach and Butler Beach. Join us to learn more about these homes and the process of researching their histories! Jada Wright-…

If you love living in Florida, and love to be annoyed at “Florida Man”, you will definitely want to check out our upcoming Lit Chat with New York Times bestselling author Craig Pittman! Pittman writes fondly of the strange state we call home and all the interesting people who make it famous. Thanks to the Friends of the Beaches Branch Library for s…

Dawnie Walton left Jacksonville after high school to pursue a successful career in magazines. Now she returns to town to chat with us about her first novel, which features a music magazine editor on a mission to discover the truth about an enigmatic music duo – a mission which includes a quick trip to Northeast Florida! Dawnie Walton is the author …

Andres Rojas was born in Cuba and came to the U.S. at age 13. He’s been writing poetry since just about then, has an MFA and a JD from the University of Florida, and currently works for the U.S. Department of the Treasury. He is also the poetry editor for Compose. Interviewer Tim Gilmore counts Andres Rojas as one of his favorite poets on a bookshe…

Alyssa Day is the pen name (and dark and tortured alter ego) of author Alesia Holliday. As Alyssa, she is a New York Times and USA Today best-selling author with more than a million books sold, and she writes the Warriors of Poseidonand Cardinal Witches paranormal romance series and the Tiger’s Eye Mysteries, a paranormal mystery series. As Alesia,…

Mia P. Manansala is a writer and book coach from Chicago who loves books, baking, and bad-ass women. She uses humor (and murder) to explore aspects of the Filipino diaspora, queerness, and her millennial love for pop culture. She is the winner of the 2018 Hugh Holton Award, the 2018 Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award, the 201…

Debora G. De Farias graduated in Dentistry from the University of Brasilia, followed by a Master Degree in Health Sciences. She also obtained her equivalent D.D.S degree from the University of Florida, when she moved to the United States in 2001. Debora is passionate about her health career, literature and arts. An avid reader since the age of four…

Dive into the “weird, wonderful, and obscure” parts of Jacksonville history, including Willowbranch Park’s role in LGBTQ+ and music history and the Main Library’s collection of Le Moyne-DeBry Fort Caroline engravings. Bill Delaney is a writer, editor and higher education professional from Jacksonville whose work focuses on the culture and history o…