Local Author Expo 2021

Last night was the much-anticipated Greenville County Library Local Author Expo. This year the event was held virtually. I was one of thirteen authors who participated and we had a great turnout, with an especially fun Q&A session following five-minute introductions from all of the authors. We each had a chance to talk a little about ourselves and our books. It was great.

This morning the Library shared a recording of the entire event to YouTube, which you can watch either here or embedded in this post. The Library has also made a lot of good Expo-related resources available online. Be sure to visit the Expo page at the Library’s website, where you can find a listing of all the authors represented, including sample chapters (mine come from Dark Full of Enemies and Griswoldville, if you’re interested) and links to the authors’ websites, social media, and more.

This is my third year at the Expo and I’m grateful as always to the Library for putting it on. Please check out what they’ve made available, and join up for the Library’s adult Winter Reading program. One of the goals for the program is to read a book from the Local Authors collection. As the event itself makes clear, you’ve got lots of good choices.

Piedmont Tech reading and book signing recap

Yesterday was my reading and book signing in the library here at Piedmont Tech. I read a chapter from Griswoldville—a longer portion from the chapter I quoted a few weeks ago commemorating my grandfather—and took some really good questions about history, writing, and storytelling. We had a good turnout—over a dozen people—and several people picked up books. I sold at least one of everything!

But more important was how heartening the event turned out to be. This has been the busiest, most stressful semester of my career—I haven’t even had time for leisure reading the last several days!—and the kind folks at the library helped buoy my spirits. I’m looking forward to future events there. I also received a lot of kind comments afterward from colleagues who weren’t able to make it for the reading, and my dad even flew over from Georgia to attend. All in all, my second author event ever proved a wonderful experience.

Please enjoy the photo gallery from yesterday. All photos except the first provided by Kevin Croom, an old family friend and colleague of my dad’s back in Georgia. Please take a moment to visit Kevin’s photography page here. And as always, please check out my books either here or on Amazon.

Thanks to all who came out! I appreciate y’all’s readership.

Reading and book signing in Greenwood, SC

I’m excited to announce an upcoming event. Wednesday, April 3 I’ll be doing a reading and book signing in Greenwood, South Carolina. The main library of Piedmont Tech’s Lex Walters Campus is hosting me. I plan to read a chapter from Griswoldville, my most recent novel, but will have copies of all of my books available. The basic facts:

Who: Me

What: Reading and book signing

When: 12:45-1:30 Wednesday, April 3

Where: The library at the Piedmont Tech main campus in Greenwood, South Carolina

Sign up on Facebook here. You can check out each of my books here on my website or on my author page at Amazon. Click here for an excerpt from Griswoldville (I’ll read a different passage when the big day arrives).

I’m grateful to PTC for this opportunity and really looking forward to it. Please join us!

Local Author Expo recap

Saturday afternoon was the Greenville Library’s Local Author Expo. I was thrilled when I was invited to join it and looked forward to it for months. It’s hard to believe it’s come and gone now! I set up a table where I sold and signed books, gave away a lot of Griswoldville bookmarks, and got to meet a lot of local readers.

The whole thing was heartening, but perhaps the greatest encouragement was meeting other people doing what I do in the same place I live. Among them were G.P. Hutchinson, an author of westerns—and fellow admirer of Elmore Leonard—whom I’ve been following for a while on Goodreads, and Rebecca Kenney, whose Secrets of the Fae trilogy is a young adult fantasy romance series based on Irish mythology. I also met local poets, memoirists, authors of creative non-fiction, and fellow novelists. It proved a wonderful experience.

Aside from one or two readings or lectures, this was my first real author event and I learned a lot from it. It was also my first time selling books personally. Special thanks go to my father-in-law, who works in retail POS systems, for encouraging me to check out Square, which I used for card payments.

As I’ve said before, I’m grateful to the Greenville Library System for hosting this event and helping ensure its success. Thanks as well to everyone—old friends and new—who came out!

Here’s a small gallery of the event, or at least my corner of it. My parents came from Georgia to check it out, so all credit for the photos to them.

My table at the expo, all set up and ready to go

The Hughes Main Library in downtown Greenville

The expo in full swing

Talking to local readers at my table

Talking to local readers at my table

Portrait of the author among his books

Greenville Library Local Author Expo

I’m pleased to be participating in this year’s Local Author Expo sponsored by the Greenville Library System. Come out Saturday, January 26 to the Hughes Main Library in downtown Greenville, where local authors will be selling and signing books. I’ll have all of my novel-length works available—No Snakes in Iceland, Dark Full of Enemies, and Griswoldville.

The library will also host three panel discussions—one on mystery writing, another on young adult literature, and the last on getting published. The expo will be open to the public from 12:30-3:30. For more info, including lists of the panelists for the three discussions, see the Greenville Library’s website here.

I’m thrilled to take part and grateful to the Greenville Library for making this event possible. Please stop by! I’ll be glad to see y’all.