Harold Augenbraum, outgoing Executive Director of the National Book Foundation, will be at the Kerouac House (1418 Clouser Ave, Orlando, FL 32804) on Wednesday, February 24, 2016, at 8:00 p.m. to talk about “Why Books Are a Crazy Business (and thank heaven for that).”

Wikipedia tells us:

Harold Augenbraum (born New York City March 31, 1953) is an American writer, editor, and translator. He is currently Executive Director of the National Book Foundation, and former member of the Board of Trustees of theAsian American Writers Workshop, and former vice chair of the New York Council for the Humanities. Before taking up his current position in November 2004, for fifteen years Augenbraum was Director of The Mercantile Library of New York (now the Center for Fiction), where he established the Center for World Literature, the New York Festival of Mystery, the Clifton Fadiman Medal, and the Proust Society of America. He has been awarded eight grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, received a Raven Award from the Mystery Writers of America for distinguished service to the mystery field, and coordinated the national celebration of the John Steinbeck Centennial. He is on the advisory board of the literary magazine The Common, based at Amherst College.^[1]

Augenbraum has published six books on Latino literature of the United States and translations of Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca’s Chronicle of the Narváez Expedition and the Filipino novelist José Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere and El filibusterismo for Penguin Classics. He also edited the Collected Poems of Marcel Proust.

National Book Award Finalists visit Rollins College.  Free and open to the public.

Get details on Sy Montgomery events here.

Get details on Ross Gay events here.

Enjoy coffee talk with both writers at Writers Block Bookstore.

Adult Literacy League Fundraiser at Orlando Science Center Serves Community

New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Berg headlines the 9^th annual “Reading between the Wines” Adult Literacy League of Central Florida fundraiser presented by Bank of America at Orlando Science Center April 20 from 6-9 p.m.  Berg, author of “The Dream Lover,” chosen by USA Today reviewers as one of 10 books that made a “lasting impression” in 2015, will speak and sign books at the event celebrated for its generous food and wine offerings by some of Orlando’s top restaurants.

During the festive three-hour event, guests can mix and mingle while enjoying savory and sweet tapas-sized noshes by Swine & Sons, 4Rivers Smokehouse and The COOP, Raglan Road Irish Pub & Restaurant of Disney Springs, Urban Tide at Hyatt Regency Orlando and Jungle Navigation Co. Ltd. Skipper Canteen at Walt Disney World Resort.

Darden Restaurants and its suppliers and PRP Wine International will provide wines to pair with the food.  As guests mix and mingle, they can bid on silent auction items that include everything from airline and theme park tickets to resort spa and golf packages.

All event proceeds will support Adult Literacy League (ALL) programs and services designed to build a literate community.  ALL provides one-to-one tutoring and classes to more than 1,000 adults on a weekly basis, plus books and learning materials to 600 preschoolers in low-income families each year.

Tickets for the event go on sale Feb. 15.  Individual tickets are $85; a $600 Connoisseur’s Table includes four event tickets, a reserved cocktail table, two gift bottles of wine and recognition as a sponsor in the event program.

When the sipping, noshing and bidding wind down, guests can grab a seat to enjoy hearing from event headliner and New York Times bestselling author Berg.

With more than 4 million copies of her books in print, Berg has charmed readers for decades with stories like “The Pull of the Moon” and Oprah Book Club selection “Open House.”

Her latest, “The Dream Lover,” is a historical novel about gender-bending 19^th century French novelist George Sand.  Told in Sand’s voice, her story is melancholy, self-aware and heartbreaking.  Berg draws an intimate portrait of a highly sensual, brilliant, complicated woman whose ideas are as relevant today as they were more than 150 years ago.  It’s a novel not only about Sand, but also about Paris, fashion, desire, love, art, the power of family to define us, and the strength it takes to break free.

Berg will sign books following her author question-and-answer period.

Visit www.adultliteracyleague.org for more information.  To purchase tickets to Reading between the Wines call 407/422-1540, ext. 111 or click on http://www.adultliteracyleague.org/rbtwtickets/.

The Adult Literacy League (ALL) was created by a group of dedicated volunteers in 1968 and, since then, has helped thousands of adults 18 and older gain employment and economic self-sufficiency through one-on-one tutoring and classes in reading, writing, math, computer skills and other key studies.  ALL holds classes in Adult Basic Education (ABE) and English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), and its Family Literacy program teaches parents to become the first and most effective teacher in their children’s lives.  When an adult cannot read, it is a detriment not only to the individual, but also to our community.  ALL’s Reading between the Wines event was designed to raise awareness, funds and friends so we can continue to change people’s lives through literacy.  For more information and to purchase tickets to the event, please call Gina Solomon at 407-422-1540 ext. 111.