Local Author Fair at Wakefield's Beebe Library, Saturday, November 12th

Wow--hard to believe it's been almost a whole week since the Local Author Fair took place at Wakefield's Lucius Beebe Memorial Library. This has been a very busy week for The Room to Write, but we want to be sure to celebrate having been asked to partner with the library and Whitelam Books for such a wonderful event that brings authors living among us out of the woodwork and into everybody's favorite place: THE LIBRARY!

Karen Stern, Wakefield Library's Head of Reference & Information Services, decided it was about time to give local authors a central place where they would be able to sell and sign their books while connecting with the readers that are so important to them. She asked for our help and we asked for Liz Whitelam's help and it swiftly became a great collaborative event.

With a total of 16 authors (four of which doubled as illustrators as well), the library was a-buzz (wink, wink--bees are kind of a theme of the library's:) with local inspiration. Of the sixteen authors, the majority were either living in or had lived in Wakefield along with some authors from neighboring towns to round out the variety of genres which spanned every age and style: picture books, young readers, middle grade, young adult, poetry, sports photography, comics, graphic novels, self-healing, personal essays, mystery, crime, and a variety of adult fiction--a few with some very local references and settings.


This is our jam! We love an event that supports writers at more than one level and READERS are future writers--especially young readers. This event definitely supported young readers, since there are few things that are more exciting for kids than meeting the person behind the magic they read on a page. Writers, sometimes, become authors and publish a book and so this event was a huge support for those writers among us who have worked hard to create something that was published, either self-published or traditionally published. Finally, this event supported an independent bookstore: Whitelam Books. The small, independent bookstores are super supportive of local authors, libraries and readers.


Local authors sold books, met readers, and readers were able to connect with the creative minds behind some of their favoirte reads. When we think of reading and writing as an entire ecosystem--it makes it easy to see how each component can complement the next and work together to support the community as a whole.

Special thanks to all the authors who took time out of what ended up being a rare, near-80-degree Saturday afternoon in November to highlight how many published authors we have living in the north of Boston region. For younger readers: Monica Acker, Carol Gordon Ekster, Fred Gracely, Kari Percival, Sarah Lynne Reul, Ryan Standley, and Lisa Stringfellow.  

For adult readers: Sally Chetwynd, Brian Codagnone, A R Dugan, Linda Malcolm, David McCoubrey, John Michele, Tim O'Leary, Sharon Saulenas, and Dirk Tiede. We were so grateful to have played a part of making this event happen. Thanks Karen!! Our community is so fortunate to have you in our local library. To see our last newsletter with the links to each author and their books click here.

If you didn't get a chance to stop into the library for the Local Author Fair, you still have a chance to get your hands on a signed copy of the books that were available--almost ALL OF THE BOOKS!! 

The Room to Write is sponsoring a tree in support of one of our favorite community partners: Boys & Girls Club of Stoneham and Wakefield, for their Festival of Trees event happening Sunday, November 20th. Look for our tree which will include many (most) of the books from the author event--personally SIGNED by the authors. Be sure to stop by and drop your raffle ticket in the bucket for our tree--a gift that keeps on giving: books that can be read and reread along with a potted, living tree the winner can plant in the spring. We don't just love books--we love the Earth!










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