·     keynote address by John Grogan, best-selling author of the dog-themed family memoir Marley and Me and The Long Road Home

        ·     talks by two Pulitzer Prize winners, the best-selling author and NYTimes columnist George Vecsey, author of Stan Musial: An American Life, Baseball: A History of America's Favorite Game, and A Coal Miner's Daughter, and journalist William Ecenbarger, author of Kids for Cash: Two Judges, Thousands of Children, and a $2.6 Million Kickback Scheme

        ·     a live taping of PCN-tv’s PA Books show featuring the authors of Pennsylvania Wine: A History

        ·     readings and signings by regional novelists, historians, poets, and children’s book writers

Friday, November 11, 2011
At the Midtown Scholar Bookstore:

6:30-7:30 PM: “John O’Hara’sHarrisburg”: Christine Goldbeck discusses the best-selling 1949 novel A Rage to Live.
An award-winning writer and artist, Goldbeck is the author of a short-story collection entitled A Tribute to O’Hara and Other Stories (2000). She has lectured on how “All Writing is Regional” at centennial celebrations for John O’Hara, and she developed Pennsylvania high school curriculum materials on how “O’Hara Works Endure Time, Criticism.” The owner of Arts on Union in Middletown, PA, since 1989, Goldbeck received an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College. As Executive Director of the PA House of Representatives’ Urban Affairs Committee, she daily tackles issues like land reform, blight, urban planning, housing, and poverty.  She has extensively examined how living in Pennsylvania inspired John O’Hara’s stories:
"O’Hara did for northeastern Pennsylvania, and particularly the hard coal region, what writers before him, such as Sherwood Anderson, who wrote “Winesburg, Ohio” had done; he recorded the social history of a place and time. In addition to Schuylkill County, he also wrote New York City, Hollywood, and Pennsylvania’s Dauphin County, home to Harrisburg, the state capital, which O’Hara named Fort Penn, into his novels. His stories are social history lessons that chronicle the lives and times of people in the early part of the 20th century. To read O’Hara is to know, beyond doubt, what people wore, where they worked and how much they earned, to which clubs they belonged, what kinds of automobiles they drove and what games they played."



8-10 PM: Friday Folk Café presents singer-songwriter Javier Dunn  in concert
Javier Dunn is a singer songwriter from California who pays his bills by touring and playing guitar for Sara Bareilles. He fits in solo tours whenever he can, and he's coming to the Midtown Scholar to play for anyone who will hear him. He's equal-opportunity like that. Join us, won't you? Free show!



 

At MOVIATE Film Space:

8-10 PM: Film Screening of  A Rage to Live  (1965, 16mm)   
Following Goldbeck’s talk, at 8 PM, MOVIATE will host a free screening of the original 16mm, black-and-white 1965 film of A Rage to Live, starring Suzanne Pleshette and directed by Walter Grauman. (Watch the original trailer.) Drawing upon Harrisburg’s social and political elite for inspiration, O’Hara caused a sensation with his 1949 publication of A Rage to Live, celebrated as the “most talked about novel of the year.”  Posters for the 1965 film version touted the book as “the John O’Hara best-seller that dares to probe a woman’s intimate desire!”

Saturday, November 12, 2011

  9:30-10:30 AM – Nightbear and Lambie Storytime for young children
Central PA’s own Kelly McGuinness Royer and Matt Royer, author and illustrator of the popular  Nightbear and  Lambie book series, are here to present their beloved series to young readers. . Kerry McGuinness Royer and her husband Matt write and illustrate children's books from their home in Mount Gretna, Pennsylvania, where they live with their two sons, Luke and Finn. Nightbear & Lambie - Kerry McGuinness Royer's charming story, illustrated by Matt Royer's evocative oil paintings, brings to life two gentle toys for fun and frolic while their young owners sleep. Nightbear & Lambie: A Christmas Ride - An instant holiday classic, Kerry McGuinness Royer's wonderful story and Matt Royer's rich oil paintings bring to life the magic and wonder of a child's Christmas. 

11 AM - 12 PM: I Can Do It Myself Storytime for elementary-school children
Featuring:  Madison Stokes and Floyd “SuperReader” Stokes!  Second-grader Madison Stokes is the newly-published author of  I Can Do It By Myself (2011), illustrated by Sheena Hisiro.  Floyd Stokes is the author of six books.  He has been visiting schools, libraries, Head Start centers and other community locations to read to children for over ten years in all 50 states. 

12-2 PM – “Path to Publication: Tips for Writers and Readers
Featured panel discussion and  book signing with five notable regional authors:  Don Helin on suspense and thrillers, Susan Gourley/Kelley on romance and fantasy, Franklin Kury on nonfiction and memoirs, Cate Masters on urban fantasy and ebooks, and Lori Myers on magazine articles and plays.

2:30-3:30 PM:  Book talk and signing by Tim Portzline, author of Harrisburg Broadcasting (2011 ) 
Timothy P. Portzline began as a volunteer board operator at WMSP 94.9 in Harrisburg in 1974. He went on to become the assistant engineer at WINK 104 and later the chief engineer for Clear Channel Radio in Harrisburg. Currently a television engineer for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, Portzline is also a member of the Society of Broadcast Engineers, Pennsylvania Museum of Music and Broadcast History, and the owner and webmaster of HarrisburgBroadcasting.com.  In his lavishly illustrated new book, part of Arcadia Publishing’s Images of America  seriers, Portzline traces the history of radio and television in the Capital region.   Listen to a radio interview with Tim Portzline here.
 

4-5:30 PM:  “DIY Radio: A Student Workshop”
*DESIGNED FOR HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE PARTICIPANTS*
Critically-acclaimed public radio producers John Biewen and Joe Richman will focus on empowering high-school and college students to record their own audio interviews and create their own radio podcasts.
 Students are encouraged to RSVP to events@midtownscholar.com 

6-7:30 PM:  “Talk-Show Style Book Discussion and Movie Review of The Help”  
The National Coalition of 100 Black Women will host an interactive panel and audience discussion of African American domestic workers in the South during the Civil Rights Era.  

8-9:30 PM: KEYNOTE EVENT – “Reality Radio: Today’s Public Radio Documentary”
 John Biewen and Joe Richman will share their own stories and lead a wide-ranging, interactive discussion.  Their multimedia presentation will feature audio clips from the past fifteen years of “Radio Diaries,” a National Public Radio standout that works with teenagers, seniors, prison inmates and others whose voices are rarely heard to document their lives and share their powerful stories.  The works of Ira Glass, Radio Lab, and other public radio storytellers will be examined and audience questions will, as always, be encouraged. 
 

Sunday, November 13, 2011

At the Historic Harrisburg Association:
9 AM - 10 PM: Thousands of new & used booksfor $1 or $2, arts & crafts vendors, and live folk music.

At the Midtown Scholar Bookstore:
9 AM - 9PM:  The Bookstore and Cafe will be open extended Sunday hours during the Book Festival.

MEET LOCAL AUTHORS:
12-1 PM:  Booksigning by E. M. "Gene" Albano
author of a trilogy of historical novels: The Widow's Web, Bashful Lucy, and The Letters of Peter Mitchell. Eugenio has traveled extensively throughout Europe with single trips to the former Soviet Union and Japan. He has studied French in Paris and Italian in Perugia, Italy. He considers both of these cities his home-away-from-home.After enjoying a span of twenty years of residing in New Hope (often regarded as the 'artsy village' in Bucks County), Albano recently returned to Harrisburg so that he could be both landlord to his neighboring tenants and...freer to travel to and from Europe, in order to work on several additional manuscripts.

1-2 PM:  Booksigning by Penn State Harrisburg's Jen Hirt
author of Under Glass: The Girl with a Thousand Christmas Trees. Jen Hirt came to Penn State Harrisburg in 2007. She earned her MFA in creative writing at the University of Idaho. Her thesis was a book-length collection of essays exploring various aspects of her family's greenhouse business.  The thesis won on Ohioana Library grant for a work-in-process, and it also won Ms. Hirt a position as the 2004 writer-in-residence at Bernheim Arboretum in Kentucky. She also works as a freelance writer, editor, and proofreader. She has edited a book on psychic mediums (Mediums, Greenhaven Press, 2006); proofread entries for The Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender; and her article on American writer Charles Baxter is forthcoming in the reference book American Writers XVII.

1-2 PM: Booksigning by Curtis Smith
Curtis Smith's stories and essays have appeared in over seventy literary reviews and have been cited by The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Mystery Stories, and The Best American Spiritual Writing. He has published four story collections and three novels with small literary presses. His most recent book is Witness, an essay collection from Sunnyoutside Press. He lives with his family in Hershey.

2-3 PM: Booksigning by Alan Kennedy-Shaffer
author of The Obama Revolution. Alan Kennedy-Shaffer, Esq., served as a regional field director for Barack Obama and the Democratic Party in Virginia. Educated at Yale University and William & Mary Law School, Alan is the author of The Obama Revolution and Denial and Deception: A Study of the Bush Administration’s Rhetorical Case for Invading Iraq. His writings have also appeared in The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, the Washington Post, the Huffington Post, the Patriot-News, Scoop Media, and other publications. Alan lives in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

3:30 PM: Booksigning by Emily Parke Chase
author of Help! My Family's Messed Up. Emily speaks to thousands of teens every year at schools and conferences on the topic of relationships. She is the author of Why Say No When My Hormones Say Go?  and You, Me and WHO?.

4-9 PM: BOOK RELEASE EVENTS
On Sunday afternoon and evening, the newly-inaugurated Midtown Scholar Press will celebrate the release of an exceptional book:  City Contented, City Discontented: A History of Modern Harrisburg, in which award-winning journalist Paul Beers (1931-2011) reveals how contemporary Harrisburg came to be what it is. 

4-5:30 PM:  In recognition of what would have been Paul Beers’s 80^th birthday, a panel of distinguished historians, journalists and politicians will participate in a roundtable discussion on “Paul Beers’s Life and Legacy.” Participants will include Philadelphia Daily News political columnist John Baer, Patriot-News  Executive Editor Cate Barron, the  Hummelstown Sun ’s Bill Jackson, acclaimed Harrisburg historian Calobe Jackson, the Dauphin County Historical Society’s Ken Frew (author of Building Harrisburg), the Pennsylvania State Archives’ Linda Ries (author of Images of America: Harrisburg ), longtime Harrisburg City Treasurer Paul P. Wambach, and other special guests. 

5:30-7 PM:  Reception and book release party in honor of Paul Beers, hosted by the Midtown Scholar Press.
With a commitment to preserving the diverse history of Pennsylvania’s capital region, the Midtown Scholar Press is dedicated to exploring the people, places, ideas, and experiences that have shaped Harrisburg and its environs over time. By recovering the contested stories of the past, publications in the Press’s new “Harrisburg History and Culture Series” will help create a shared heritage that illuminates today’s social relations and political culture. The series seeks to educate and inspire readers, to elucidate and inform contemporary public discourse, and to transform the possibilities of civic life in the future by strengthening bonds of community.

7-9 PM:  KEYNOTE EVENT – Penn-State Harrisburg Professor Michael Barton
Prof. Barton transcribed and edited Beers’s original newspaper columns with his American Studies graduate students, and he will offer a keynote lecture in tribute to Paul Beers and his extraordinary contributions to our understanding of past and present, through a lifetime of lively and provocative reporting.   

2010

Our sincere thanks to Jackson Taylor, Bryant Simon, Jehanne Dubrow, and the many other authors who participated in June 2010's first-ever Harrisburg Book Festival!  We are delighted to have inaugurated this annual event!