Want to meet a trio of visiting authors and do your part to promote literacy in Memphis?
The authors are debut novelist Natalie Baszile, best-selling novelist Patti Callahan Henry, and award-winning Mississippi novelist Michael Farris Smith, and they are this year’s featured writers at the Literacy Is Key luncheon and book signing presented by the Memphis Kappa Kappa Gamma Alumnae Association. The event will take place at the Holiday Inn-University of Memphis (3700 Central) on Thursday, January 29th, beginning at 10 a.m.
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All three authors are Southerners or have Southern roots, and all three have had books published in paperback in the past year. Baszile will be signing her Louisiana-set Queen Sugar (in paperback this month from Penguin), Henry will be signing her South Carolina story And Then I Found You (St. Martin’s Griffin), and Smith will be signing his post-Katrina, Gulf Coast novel Rivers (Simon & Schuster).
Literacy is indeed the key for this event. The Memphis Alumnae Association of Kappa Kappa Gamma Fraternity — a nationwide women’s organization founded in the 19th century to promote leadership, learning, and philanthropy — presented its first annual Literacy Is Key luncheon/author fund-raiser in 2011. It’s been growing in attendance ever since. First Book, the national nonprofit that provides low-income, at-risk children with new books, is the beneficiary — with increased literacy among Memphis children the goal of the local alumnae group.
Individual tickets to the Literacy Is Key program and luncheon on January 29th are $55 each, with tables available for groups. Go to the organization’s website for tickets and for more information. The Booksellers at Laurelwood will be handling books for the event. •
