Author and Special Speaker Events

This couldn't be done Without YOU!

The Library Hosts Interesting Speakers
Supported by your Annual Membership and Donations. Thank You!
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The Library is sponsoring this special event with support from the Friends of the Library


Heather Morris, author of The Tattoist of Auschwitz

March 17, 7:00 - 8:30 PM (registration required)
Shenendehowa High School West Auditorium

Heather Morris is the author of bestselling historical fiction novel The Tattooist of Auschwitz, and her newest book Cilka's Journey.

Ms. Morris will be speaking about both novels and talking about her research and the story behind them.    Q & A and book signing to follow.

Copies of both books will be available for purchase at the event from The Open Door Bookstore.
This event will be held on the Shenendehowa School Campus in the High School West Auditorium.
Generously sponsored by the Friends of the Library.
Click here to register

​Some Previous Author Events
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER
ANTHONY DOERR
​WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2015 
View Photos of the Event!
The New York Times best-seller list is usually filled with super popular authors like James Patterson, John Grisham, Janet Evanovich and JK Rowling. They deserve to be on the list because they are good writers, and they sell a lot of books. However, they are not the only good writers in the world. And, once in a while one of those terrific writers that no one has ever heard of makes it big, too. Such is the case with Anthony Doerr, who spoke at our library on October 14. Anthony Doerr lives in Idaho, and prior to last year, he was an accomplished, but not especially well-known author. He had published one novel, some books of short stories, and a memoir. Then he wrote All the Light We Cannot See, and things took off! Still, it did not happen overnight.

All the Light We Cannot See was published in May of 2014 to positive critical reviews but little fanfare. It made it onto the NY Times Bestseller list, gradually creeping up the list over the next several months. Last fall, the book was named a finalist for the National Book Award. Notoriety started to pick up, mostly through word-of-mouth, but also by winning a myriad of end-of-the-year best book awards. Finally, early in 2015, All the Light We Cannot See ascended to the NY Times top spot for three weeks. Currently, it has been on the list for 48 straight weeks, and remains one of the most popular circulating books in our library!

About the book: All the Light We Cannot See was called “hauntingly beautiful” by the New York Times. The novel follows a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. Deftly interweaving their lives, Doerr illuminates the ways that, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, All the Light We Cannot See is a magnificent, deeply moving novel from a writer “whose sentences never fail to thrill” (Los Angeles Times).
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Anthony Doerr
Anthony Doerr is an American fiction writer, born in 1973 in Ohio. He is the award-winning author of The Shell Collector, About Grace, Four Seasons in Rome, Memory Wall, and the novel All the Light We Cannot See. He was a 2014 National Book Award Finalist. Doerr's fiction has won four O. Henry Prizes and has been anthologized in several prestigious anthologies. He has won the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize, the Rome Prize, the New York Public Library's Young Lions Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an NEA Fellowship, the National Magazine Award for Fiction, three Pushcart Prizes, the Pacific Northwest Book Award, three Ohioana Book Awards, the 2010 Story Prize, which is considered the most prestigious prize in the U.S. for a collection of short stories, and the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award, which is the largest prize in the world for a single short story. His books have twice been a New York Times Notable Book, an American Library Association Book of the Year, and made lots of other year-end "Best Of" lists. In 2007, the British literary magazine, Granta, placed Doerr on its list of 21 Best Young American novelists. (Bowker Author Biography). And now Doerr has won the 2015 Pulitzer Award for Fiction. 
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Nicole Kear
May 20, 2015
Once again, the Library and the Friends Two Towns-One Book committee brought an interesting speaker to our community. Nicole Kear spoke of her life-changing diagnosis that inspired her memoir, Now I See You. She is going blind because of retinitis pigmentosa within the next decade. Instead of making preparations, Kear decides to make the most of the vision she has left. She joins circus school, tears through boyfriends, travels the world, and through all these hi-jinks, she keeps her vision loss a secret.

When Nicole becomes a mother, just a few years shy of her vision's expiration date, she wants to relish every moment with her kids. And, as her world grows blurred, one thing becomes clear: no matter how hard she fights, she won't win the battle. But if she shares her secret, and comes to terms with the loss, she can still win her happy ending.

Told with humor, Now I See You is an uplifting story about refusing to cower at life's curveballs, about the power of love to triumph over fear. And, at its core, it's a story about acceptance: facing the truths that just won't go away, and facing yourself, broken parts and all.
 
Nicole regaled the audience with her humor, signed books, and answered questions. 
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Jan-Philipp Sendker
April 16, 2015
The Library and the Friends Two Towns-One Book committee did it again!  Jan-Philipp Sendker,  author of The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, the book selected for the 2015 community read program, came to Clifton Park.  

 Born in Hamburg, Germany in 1960, Mr. Sendker was the American Correspondent for Stern from 1990 to 1995, and its Asian correspondent from 1995 to 1999.  In 2000 he published Cracks in the Great Wall, a nonfiction book about China.  The Art of Hearing Heartbeats is his first novel.  Mr. Sendker shared share insights, signed books, and discussed his writing ventures and latest book, Whispering Shadows. Questions were answered and long lines waited for book signing.

View Photos of Event
Piper Kerman
September 22, 2014
View Photos of Event.
Ms. Kerman wrote the #1 New York Times best-selling memoir, Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison, in 2010.  A Smith College graduate, Piper was bored stiff with her middle-class life.  Recklessly, she got involved with an unsavory group of bohemian artists who were involved in the drug trade and money laundering. 
Author Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Brent Ridge
January 11, 2013
The Fabulous Beekman Boys, Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Brent Ridge, wowed the Clifton Park-Halfmoon Library audience when they appeared at the Two Towns-One Book author event. 

Eight out of ten members of “Bound by Books” book club attended the event at our wonderful library. Read about their group.
Jim Ryun
May 20, 2013
Olympic Medalist and World Record Miler Jim Ryun wrapped up the 2013 Two Towns-One Book festivities when he spoke at the library. Ryun talked about meeting Louis Zamperini, the subject of Unbroken, shared stories from his own Olympic experiences, and showed videos chronicling his rise from a skinny little kid to world record runner. 
Matt McElligott 
with avid fan.
March 5, 2013
Math, mad scientists, and mixed-up mayhem of a piratical variety was on the library horizon when families and other children's literature enthusiasts were treated to an evening with local author and illustrator Matt McElligott.
Dennis Lehane
Autumn 2012
What a wonderful treat having author Dennis Lehane visit our library.Dennis Lehane is the author of nine novels including the New York Times bestsellers Gone, Baby, Gone; Mystic River; Shutter Island and The Given Day, as well as Coronado, a collection of short stories and a play
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Markus Zusak
April 3, 2012
The Two Towns-One Book 2012 author event brought a discussion with Markus Zusak, author of The Book Thief, using SKYPE technology via computer from his home in Australia.
Janine Cammarata
October 17, 2011
Janine Cammarata launched the second novel in her time travel adventure called Eyes of the Goddess, at our Library.  This is the second book in the Fianna Cycle trilogy that focuses on the mythological stories of Celtic Ireland and entwines it with modern characters. 
Lee Child
November 3, 2010
Author Lee Child thrilled the capacity crowd of over 300 at the Library with his discussion of his writing process (a word at a time without outlining the entire book), noting that he doesn't "even have a plan for that paragraph." Going back to Cro-Magnon man, he noted that through storytelling, we were able to figure out a way to survive the dangers that faced us every day.  
Margaret 
Peterson Haddix
May 26, 2010
Margaret Peterson Haddix comes from a long line of bookworms, so it is no wonder that she became a writer.  "When we went on family vacations, my parents were always saying things like, 'Would you guys stop reading for a minute and look out the window?  That's the Grand Canyon were driving past!'
Scott Kellogg
April 14, 2010
Local author, Scott Kellogg,  believes we can learn to be more self sufficient and tread more lightly on the world. City and suburb dwellers can have local access and control over life's essential resources: food production, water security, waste management, autonomous energy, and bio-remediation of toxic soils. And, he believes we can do these things without huge monetary investments, becoming more secure in the process.