Jan Brett in Mystic to launch new children’s book
The 11th annual
Connecticut Authors
Trail’s last free talk will be Sept. 17 at
6:30 p.m. at Trumbull
Library, 580 Exeter
Road, Lebanon, and its free finale, featuring author Luanne
Rice, will be Sept. 18 from 6:15 to 8:15 p.m. at Mohegan Sun
Cabaret Theatre, 1 Mohegan Sun Boulevard, Uncasville.
Rice, of Old Lyme, is the best-selling author of 34 novels, some adapted as TV dramas. Her latest novel is “Pretend She’s Here,” a thriller about a girl kidnapped by a friend’s family.
At Trumbull Library, Cate Conte, author of the Cat Café mysteries who also writes the Pawsitively Organic Mysteries as Liz Mugavero, will speak.
Information: connecticutauthorstrail.org.
Best-selling Irish novelist Emma
Donoghue, author of
“Room,” will give a free talk about her latest, “Akin” on Sept.
15 at 2 p.m. at
Wheeler Library, 101
Main St., North Stonington, presented by Bank Square Books of Mystic. Donoghue writes fiction, story collections, literary history and plays. “Akin” is about a retired professor and the great-nephew he barely knows who travel to France, learn unexpected things about their family and forge a new future.
The bookstore will host a talk and drawing demonstration
Sept. 16 from 5 to 7 p.m. by best-selling children’s picture book author and illustrator Jan Brett at Mystic Congregational Church, 43
East Main St., Mystic. Tickets are $5 plus $1.24 and are good for a $5 discount on a book purchase at the event. Brett’s latest, “The Tale of the Tiger Slippers,” reinterprets a classic folk tale set in India about hard work and appreciating your roots. Brett has more than 40 million copies of her books in print and also raises ornamental fowl.
Information and registration: banksquarebooks.com.
Tony Renzoni, a former Connecticut Post columnist and author of a book about Joan Joyce, the phenomenal pitcher for the Raybestos Brakettes and Connecticut Falcons who pitched 150 no-hitters and 50 perfect games and also starred in basketball and golf, will speak
Sept. 16 at 6:30 at RJ
Julia Booksellers, 768
Boston Post Road,
Madison.
On Sept. 18 at 7 p.m.
Casey Barrett, author of “The Tower of
Songs,” will give a free talk. The book involves unlicensed P.I. Duck
Darley in a missingpersons case linked to international drug dealing and politics. Barrett is also a Canadian Olympian swimmer.
On Sept. 19 at 7 p.m. Paul Tough, author of “The Years That Matter Most” and Emily Bazelon, author of “Charged” will give free talks. Tough’s book examines the problems of college education in America. Bazelon, of New Haven, a journalist and legal commentator, explores the role and power of prosecutors in America’s mass incarceration crisis and suggests a solution. She is a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine.
On Sept. 21 at 7 p.m.
Rachel Brathen
(known as Yoga Girl), will discuss “To Love and Let Go” at First
Congregational
Church of Madison, 26
Meeting House Lane,
Madison. Tickets are
$30 and include a copy of the book, which recounts how while
Brathen was undergoing emergency surgery, her best friend was killed in a car accident and how the international yoga expert learned to overcome her grief.
Registration required: 203-245-3959 or rjjulia.com.
Authors also will speak at Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore, 415 Main St., Middletown.
On Sept. 16 at 7 p.m., a Local Author Program on Mind, Body and Spirit will present Jonathan Alpert, a psychotherapist and author of “Be Fearless: Change Your Life in 28 Days;” Lisa Blackman, intuitive healer and author of “The MetaPhysician Within, A Reference for Healing;” Tracy W. Mehr-Muska, chaplain at Wesleyan University, a Presbyterian pastor and author of “Weathering the Storm,” about developing resilience, and Adelia Moore, a clinical psychologist and author of “Being the Grownup: Love, Limits and the Natural Authority of Parenthood.”
On Sept. 18 at 7 p.m. Fairfield University emeritus professor of history Ralph Coury will discuss “Sceptics of Islam: Religious Revisionism, Agnosticism and Disbelief in the Modern Arab World,” about modern Arab religious thought.
On Sept. 19 at 7 p.m., two Wesleyan alumni will be in conversation. Essayist and psychotherapist Sarah Townsend ‘90 will discuss her memoir ‘Setting the Wire’ with Sara McCrea ’21. It is an account of postpartum psychosis and a meditation on motherhood, mental illness and familial ties.
On Sept. 21 at 3 p.m. a program on the work of the late first Poet Laureate of Middletown, Susan Allison, based on her posthumous book, “be full,” will be presented by her husband, Stephan Allison, and friends.
Information: 860-685-3939 or www.wesleyanrjjulia.com.
The Storyteller’s Cottage, 750 Hopmeadow St., Simsbury, will host a dinner with author Marilyn Simon Rothstein on Sept. 19 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Guests will discuss Rothstein’s latest novel, “Husbands and Other Sharp Objects,” have a threecourse dinner and receive a copy of the book. The cost is $50.
From 7 to 8:30 p.m. Rothstein will give a talk about her books. The cost is $5.
Pre-registration required: 860-877-6099 or StorytellersCottage.com.
Clinton Art Gallery’s Poetry Place will present a free reading by three Connecticut poets on Sept. 15 at 2 p.m. in the Olcott Art Center, 20 E. Main St., Clinton. An open mic is included.
The poets are Dennis Barone, Suellyn Callaghan and Karen Torop, Information: pattonybarone@aol.com or 203-627-4148.
The Town of Vernon will celebrate its first Poet Laureate, Pegi Deitz Shea, at Rockville Public Library, 52 Union St., Vernon, on Sept. 16 at 6:30 p.m. A poetry reading and reception will follow. Information: rockvillepubliclibrary.org or 860-8755892.
Lisa Unger, bestselling author of 17 novels, will visit Avon Library, 281 Country Club Road, Avon, on Sept. 20 at 6:30 p.m. to discuss her new book, “The Stranger Inside,” a psychological thriller about a woman forced to confront the dark secrets of her past. There will be surprise giveaways. Information: 860-673-9712 or avonctlibrary.info.
On Sept 21 at 1 p.m. at Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, 77 Forest St., Hartford, Diana Ross McCain, author of “Thy Children’s Children: A Historical Novel Based on the True Story of Five Generations of a New England Grassroots Dynasty,” will speak.
Stowe was the great-granddaughter of John and Hope Lyman, who in 1741 settled on Middlefield land now part of Lyman Orchards, an agricultural/recreational complex operated by the eighth and ninth generations of Lymans.
Information: harrietbeecherstowecenter.org.
More than 40 local authors will take part in a free Books on Pratt-Local Author
Street Fair with live music on Sept. 20 from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Pratt Street in Hartford.
Information: 860-263-2270 or laurie.bompart@uconn.edu.