A Haunting Southern Story Set in the Wild Mississippi Delta Four years after Kelly Mustian's USA Today bestselling debut novel, The Girls in the Stilt House , started appearing on "must-read" lists and earning starred reviews, the author is set to release her much-anticipated second novel on April 1, 2025. Like her first, The River Knows Your Name is already gathering buzz as a tumultuous and "well-woven mystery." Emily Matchar, author of In the Shadow of the Greenbrier , wrote, "You won't be ab...
May 30, 2025•1 hr 1 min
A Tale of Resistance... Based on a Real Story Hannah longs for the days when she used to be free, but now, she is a Jewish prisoner at Theresienstadt, a model ghetto where the Nazis plan to make a propaganda film to convince the world that the Jewish people are living well in the camps. But Hannah will do anything to show the world the truth. Along with other young resistance members, they vow to disrupt the filming and derail the increasingly frequent deportations to death camps in the east. Fr...
May 08, 2025•58 min
Interview with a Debut Author This January, we spoke with the author of Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins's Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany . Released on January 21, 2025, this new book is a fascinating portrait of the progressive female trailblazer and US Secretary for Labor who navigated the foreboding rise of Nazism in her battle to make America a safer place for refugees. As Hitler rose to power, thousands of German-Jewish refugees and their loved ones reached out to th...
Apr 03, 2025•57 min
Black and Brilliant Local Author As the sixteen-year-old President of the Jacksonville Youth Council NAACP, he was one of the leaders of the 1960 sit-in demonstrations that culminated in the infamous and violent Ax Handle Saturday. Hurst's first book, the award-winning It Was Never About a Hot Dog and a Coke®! , tells that story. Hurst’s fourth book, Black and Brilliant (written for 12-18 year-olds), dives deeper into bigotry, segregation and racism he experienced as a pre-teen and a teenager in...
Mar 03, 2025•1 hr
A First Coast Romance Sheila Athens writes smart contemporary fiction set where the South meets the Sunshine state. Her stories are about women seeking to find the peace we all deserve. Readers are drawn to her work because they believe that everyday heroes can make a difference in our world. Featured Book: Mae Van Dorn's Perfect Storm All thirty-four-year-old Mae Van Dorn wants is to live alone. But she soon finds herself living with her estranged brother in a town she’s never been to and worki...
Feb 13, 2025•57 min
A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots New York Times bestselling and National Magazine Award-winning author Morgan Jerkins will be at the Main Library this October to discuss Wandering in Strange Lands , the powerful story of her journey to understand her northern and southern roots, the Great Migration, and the displacement of black people across America. She will be the first featured Lit Chat author in the Library's new African American History series of community programs . Th...
Feb 05, 2025•56 min
Mexican Gothic Author Comes to Jacksonville Silvia Moreno-Garcia, the New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic , is coming to Jacksonville for Hispanic Heritage Month. Her latest novel is a historical drama set in Hollywood, following three different point of view characters all tied to the production of a movie inspired by the Biblical story of Salome. FEATURED BOOK: The Seventh Veil of Salome 1950s Hollywood: Every actress wants to play Salome, the star-making role in a big-budget m...
Dec 05, 2024•58 min
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. He's been integrally involved in Razorcake fanzine for the last seventeen years. ABOUT THE AUTHOR & INTERVIEWER In 2006, Daryl Gussin became integr...
Nov 15, 2024•49 min
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 techniques for making international variations of over 100 iconic Southern dishes. "My passion is food. Wherever I go, whatever I do, that’s how I roll." - Ch...
Oct 15, 2024•1 hr 2 min
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 post-series TV movies. He was also a producer for NBC Golf’s Emmy-nominated series Feherty for over ten seasons. "The idea of being a cowboy and riding...
Sep 12, 2024•1 hr 1 min
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 New York Times and Washington Post bestseller. Nate Powell has received multiple Eisner and Ignatz awards, the Comic-Con International Inkpot Award, ...
Aug 23, 2024•1 hr 2 min
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 that high energy, heavy neon, fiercely multicultural coastal city." Critics seem to agree... This deeply personal vision of the streets and swamps of ...
Aug 02, 2024•56 min
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 Nonfiction in 2017. Goodell's previous books include Sunnyvale , a memoir about growing up in Silicon Valley, which was a New York Times Notable Book, an...
Jul 19, 2024•1 hr 1 min
Hallmarky Romance with Some Light Spice Siera London says, "I write sassy, sensual heroines." Whether it's the Forbidde n 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 book, Fake It Till You Make It , is no exception. In it, we meet Amarie Walker, who has just left her cheating ex and her entire D.C. life in the rear...
Jun 13, 2024•59 min
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 Check out all of Bethany's books in our catalog: https://jkpl.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US/default/search/results?qu=&qu=AUTHOR%3Dbethany+baptiste+&...
May 30, 2024•1 hr 2 min
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, Zenith Man: Death, Love and Redemption in a Georgia Courtroom . "Like a nonfiction John Grisham thriller with echoes of Rainman, Just Mercy, and a capti...
May 17, 2024•59 min
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 Writing Instructor at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts and co-hosts the What's in a Verse Poetry Open Mic at Rain Dogs. Publications include The NCTE...
May 02, 2024•53 min
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 editions of Pucking Around is now LIVE!! I’ve partnered with Femme Fire Books, which is a Jacksonville-based independent bookstore, to help me run t...
Apr 18, 2024•1 hr 2 min
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 decade of Meet The Press , The Today Show , NBC Nightly News , and major special events. He is the first African American to direct The Today Show...
Mar 04, 2024•1 hr 5 min
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, travel, books, relationships and urban life for The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, the Sunday Times, Slate, and others. Her w...
Feb 23, 2024•1 hr 2 min
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 for justice. He joined the Jacksonville Police Department in 1966 where he was named Police Officer of the Year four times, promoted to detective, rose...
Feb 01, 2024•1 hr
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 published 22 books. "Ever since UNF English Professor Alex Menocal introduced me to the concept of psychogeography years ago, I’ve been enthralled with ...
Jan 18, 2024•1 hr
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 she isn’t writing, she’s probably reading, having one-sided conversations with her dog, or doing the crossword puzzle. Interviewer Lori Sterli...
Jan 04, 2024•1 hr 1 min
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 turning fifty and a little burned out, Mark decided to reconnect with the great outdoors. He'd spend a year visiting the national parks and write a book...
Dec 20, 2023•1 hr 2 min
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 Review as "among the most prestigious literary prizes America offers," for his first book, Ticket to Minto: Stories of India and America . Publishers ...
Dec 01, 2023•59 min
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 Bolling Wilson, the second wife of Woodrow Wilson. She is sometimes described as America's first woman President because of the role she played after...
Nov 03, 2023•1 hr 2 min
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 her “a superb and gifted storyteller”; she’s the only author to win the Agatha in four categories: Best First, Best Novel, Best Short Story and Best ...
Oct 23, 2023•1 hr 1 min
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 advocate, and she now lives on the Atlantic side of the state in the very haunted and very beautiful town of St. Augustine. While she'd love to stumble...
Sep 12, 2023•1 hr
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 and Lauren Willig. A graduate of Stanford University with an MBA in Finance from Columbia University, Beatriz worked as a communications and corp...
Aug 24, 2023•48 min
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 discourse about the environment is the best means of protecting it. Camille T. Dungy is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently Trophi...
Aug 14, 2023•59 min
