Gramercy Books has established an author event rhythm, hosting one every week so readers can hear writers talk about their new books. The October author event schedule is a great example of the diverse mix of selected authors and books, and the multitude of ways to present these authors to the community.
Kicking off the month, on October 11 at 7 pm ET, is a live-streamed program featuring the man who revolutionized music journalism, Jann Wenner, founder of Rolling Stone magazine. Wenner has been the curator, the communicator, and the narrator of public culture, politics, and music for more than five decades and he brings all of that experience into his intensely personal memoir, Like a Rolling Stone, taken from the eponymous Bob Dylan song. In conversation with Jann is Alec Wightman, who served with Jann on the board of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation since 2013. Since Wenner couldn’t be in Columbus, we decided to showcase this conversation virtually, a tool we used exclusively during the height of Covid. An online author event remains a wonderful opportunity to hear from the author when an in-person visit isn’t possible. Online events are also very democratic, available to people who live nowhere near a bookstore or a book festival, or whose health doesn’t permit public outings.
This month we also offer several opportunities for readers to sit in an audience with people who love the same authors, to see and hear that conversation together, and to even raise their hands to ask a question (we do have a question-and-answer option offered in our online events). Our most intimate events take place right at Gramercy Books where we move some of our bookshelves (on wheels) to create an event space that seats sixty people.
We hope to fill those seats on October 19 at 7 pm ET when we host New York Times bestselling author Silas House. Silas celebrates the publication of his seventh novel, Lark Ascending, a powerful story of survival and friendship. He will be in conversation with Denison University scholar and fellow writer, Mike Croley. It will be exciting to welcome Silas back to Gramercy Books; his previous visit was back in 2018 with the release of his novel, Southernmost. Silas is also a music journalist, an environmental activist, a columnist, and a former commentator for NPR’s All Things Considered. His fiction is known for its attention to the natural world, to working class characters, and the plight of the rural place and rural people, exposing his readers to, perhaps, new discoveries and ways of looking at the world.
Gramercy Books also gets the opportunity to bring authors to the Central Ohio area who are so well known to the public that we need to find a venue partner with significantly more seating than we can provide inside the bookstore. We have two such events in October. The first is on October 23 at 4 pm ET when we feature iconic scientist, autism advocate, and animal rights pioneer Temple Grandin as she launches her landmark book, Visual Thinking. Temple will appear in conversation with WOSU Public Media’s Ann Fisher at the Schottenstein Theatre at Bexley High School. Already, all 740 seats are spoken for as the community awaits hearing from the woman who, with her genius of demystifying science, forever changed how the world has understood autism. The second event will be held October 28 at 7 pm ET at Columbus College of Art & Design’s Canzani Auditorium when we feature New York Times bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng. Her new novel, Our Missing Hearts, is the cover story in tomorrow’s New York Times Book Review, written by Stephen King. Ng writes a suspenseful and heartrending story about the unbreakable love between a mother and child in a society of searing injustice toward Chinese Americans. Celeste will be in conversation with poet and essayist Maggie Smith.
We welcome our community of readers to join us for one, some, or all of our exciting October author programs where we can all surrender to the magic spell of language and the transporting power of story.
Written by Linda Kass
About the author: I began my career as a magazine writer and correspondent for regional and national publications and am now an assistant editor for Narrative, an online literary magazine. My debut novel, Tasa’s Song, was inspired by my mother’s early life in eastern Poland during the Second World War. My second historical novel, A Ritchie Boy, was inspired by my immigrant father's role as a military intelligence office in World War II. My third novel, Bessie, a fictional portrait of Bess Myerson's early life, will be released in September of 2023. I am also the proud owner of Gramercy Books, serving all of central Ohio!
Learn more about me on my personal website.
