READ LOCAL and support area writers at the Salem Museum
The Salem Museum & Historical Society announces READ LOCAL, a very special event for the area’s readers and writers.
On Saturday, May 20, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., visitors to the Museum will be able to meet local book authors who will be selling and signing their books throughout the Museum’s galleries. At least two dozen authors are expected with works in a wide range of genres, including fiction, nonfiction, memoir, children’s, young adult, as well as historical and Christian.
Admission is free, and the first 250 guests will receive a free READ LOCAL book bag, compliments of R. M. Johnson & Sons. Proceeds from book sales benefit the writers; a portion will benefit the Salem Museum.
Authors on hand for this major book event will include Michael Abraham, Betsy Ashton, Frances Curtis Barnhart, Irene Chapman, Donna Conrad, Mary Dalton, Dikkon Eberhart, Ted Edlich, Fred Eichelman, John Hildebrand, Mary Crockett Hill, Liz Long, Kegley Publications/ Historical Society of Western Virginia, George A. McLean, Jr., Linda Miller, Becky Mushko, Carolyn Roth, Neil Sagebiel, Peggy Shifflett, Dan Smith, Karen ReMine Throckmorton, and Peggy Wade. Additional authors are anticipated, and will be posted on the Museum’s web site www.salemmuseum.org.
Several other local authors are unable to attend, but signed copies of their books are available in the Museum’s Gift Shop. Browse a selection of books by Cece Bell, Nelson Harris, Marian McConnell, Sharyn McCrumb, Robert Schultz, and more. The Friends of the Salem Library will also be here with books to sell.
The Gift Shop also features over a hundred titles on topics of local interest, including a number of sought-after books that are out of print. These include Charles Johnson’s book about his harrowing capture by the Shawnee Indians in 1790—the first book published in the Roanoke Valley—and Norwood C. Middleton’s definitive history of Salem, published in 1986.
READ LOCAL is generously sponsored by R. M. Johnson & Sons, the Salem Public Library, and BOOK CITY ★ Roanoke. Roanoke College student Joseph “Cody” Statler designed the READ LOCAL logo.
-Submitted by Fran Ferguson
