County Library Authors Festival
The County Library Authors Festival returns April 24, 25 & 26, 2025
Held at the Picton Branch Library, 208 Main Street Picton. Tickets available starting the week of February 18, 2025.
County Reads Debate
Thursday, April 24
5 local residents each present the one Canadian book you should read. If you know a well-read and excellent speaker who might be a good candidate for the County Reads Debate, nominations are being accepted now. Contact Barbara Sweet at ceo@peclibrary.org or 613-476-5962.
Author Events
Friday, April 25
Peggy Collins
About the Book
An exciting picture book inspired by a real-life classroom service dog with themes of friendship, neuro-divergence, and courage.
Harley the service dog is on the job! He goes to school every day with Ms. Prichard to make sure she feels safe. Their students are a lot of fun, but Harley can’t play with them while he's wearing his work vest. They write him lots of letters instead, and everything is perfect in the best, most quiet class in the whole school. Until the day the old stage curtains catch fire. As the fire alarm blares and chaos erupts, Harley remembers that Ms. Prichard isn't the only human in his class who gets upset by loud noises.
Inspired by a true story, Harley the Hero celebrates the work of service animals and the normalization of neuro-divergence. Author-illustrator Peggy Collins brings Harley and his class to charming life and concludes with an Author's Note about the real dog behind the fictional Harley.
About the Author
Peggy Collins is an award-winning children’s book author-illustrator with more than 35 titles to her name, including Hungry for Math: Poems to Munch On, In the Snow, and In the Garden. She has also written and illustrated for animated apps teaching math, indigenous history, and education. Peggy lives in Newburgh, Ontario with her two children.
Friday, April 25
Andrew Forbes
About the Book
Roger Angell meets Hanif Abdurraqib meets Bull Durham in this sharp new collection of baseball writing by Andrew Forbes.
Baseball is a sport, a pastime, an obsession, a dream―and for some, it’s also a day job. Field Work is a poetic survey of baseball’s rich history that uncovers the people who makes the game happen, from the pioneers who built and maintained early ballparks to minor-league players' surprising part-time jobs to the parents who coach Little League teams. Along the way it shines a surprising light on the complex relationships between work and play and how we value labour.
Equal parts sharp-eyed observation and beautiful digression, these essays celebrate the ways in which baseball shapes the way we move through the world—and how our understanding of work has an unmistakable influence on what happens on the ball diamond.
About the Author
Andrew Forbes is the author of two previous collections of baseball writing - The Utility of Boredom (2016) and The Only Way Is the Steady Way (2021) - as well as two collections of short fiction, the novella McCurdle's Arm, and a novel, The Diapause . He is an active member of the Society for American Baseball Research, having participated in several investigative projects. He has written for publications including the Toronto Star, Canadian Notes and Queries, and Maisonneuve Magazine, and his work has been nominated for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award and the Trillium Book Award. Originally from Ottawa, Forbes has lived in Atlantic Canada and rural Eastern Ontario, and now resides in Peterborough, Ontario. For more information, visit andrewgforbes.com.
Friday, April 25
Shane Peacock
About the Book
Hugh Mercer has come to a small town in Ontario, far away from his broken career, broken marriage, and broken life in New York. He’s expecting to take advantage of what he's sure will be a peaceful place in the middle of winter to begin to make some sense of the situations he’s left behind. Before he has a chance to settle into his rented farmhouse, a strange woman appears on his doorstep and makes a startling prediction: Elizabeth Goode, a local, is about to disappear under bizarre circumstances and her life is at risk.
Mercer needs further information, but as quickly as she appeared, the stranger is gone. Within a few days, Elizabeth Goode does indeed vanish from a café in town and all the witnesses have different accounts of the event. Her life now depends on the skills Mercer honed in the New York Police Department as a homicide detective and the down-to-earth abilities of local police officer Alice Morrow. Together they work to solve the mystery of the disappearance and get to Elizabeth before she is murdered; but they, too, are troubled by their own need for forgiveness, their desire for justice, and their passion for each other.
About the Author
As an author of novels (for YA readers and adults), playwright, journalist, and screenwriter, Shane has always been interested in larger-than-life characters, seeking the truth about human beings, and exploring the invisible things that matter to us all.
In the fall of 2024, As We Forgive Others, Shane’s first book in The Northern Gothic Mysteries series (crime novels for adult readers), was published by Cormorant Books. In total, Shane’s novels have been translated into 19 languages in 17 countries.
In demand as a public speaker, he has appeared in many hundreds of schools across Canada, the U.S. and Europe, as well as at many national and international conventions, and on television and radio. His presentations are designed to get young people, students, teachers, and other adults excited about reading and literature in general. Shane lives in southern Ontario with his wife, journalist Sophie Kneisel.
Nita Prose
About the Book
When a daring art heist takes place at the Regency Grand, Molly’s life is threatened. The question is who’s out to get her, and why? Long-buried secrets will be revealed in this intriguing and heartwarming novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Maid and The Mystery Guest.
Molly Gray’s life is about to change in ways she could never have imagined. As the esteemed Head Maid and recently promoted Special Events Manager of the Regency Grand Hotel, good things are just around the corner, including her marriage to her beloved fiancé, Juan Manuel, only two months away.
But Molly’s entire existence is upended when a film crew descends upon the hotel to shoot the hit reality TV show Hidden Treasures, starring popular art appraisers Brown and Beagle. On a whim, Molly brings in a shoebox containing a few of her gran’s old things for appraisal, and much to everyone's surprise, one item turns out to be a rare and priceless treasure. Instantly, Molly is both a multi- millionaire and a media sensation—the world’s rags-to-riches darling—until the priceless piece vanishes from the hotel in the boldest, brashest antiquities heist in recent memory.
The key to the mystery lies in the past, in a long-forgotten diary written by Molly’s gran. For the first time ever, Molly learns about Gran’s true-to-life fairytale, a young girl to the manor born, the only child of a wealthy magnate. But when Gran falls head over heels in love with a young man her parents deem below her station, her life is thrown into turmoil. As fate would have it, the greatest love of Gran’s life is someone Molly knows quite well…
Together with her friends, Molly combs the past and the present to catch the thief before looming threats against her become real.
A spirited heist caper and an epic love story, The Maid’s Secret is a spellbinding whodunnit that will capture and warm your heart.
About the Author
NITA PROSE is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Mystery Guest and The Maid, which has sold more than two million copies worldwide. A Good Morning America Book Club pick, The Maid won the Ned Kelly Award for International Crime Fiction, the Fingerprint Award for Debut Book of the Year, the Anthony Award for Best First Novel, and the Barry Award for Best First Mystery. The Maid was also an Edgar Award finalist for Best Novel. Visit Nita at nitaprose.com. Instagram and X: @NitaProse.
Saturday, April 26
Bonny Reichert
About the Book
When you’re raised by someone who once survived on potato peels and coffee grounds, you develop a pretty healthy respect for food.
Bonny Reichert avoided everything to do with the Holocaust until she found herself, in midlife, suddenly typing those words into an article she was writing. The journalist had grown up hearing stories about her father’s near-starvation and ultimate survival in Auschwitz-Birkenau, but she never imagined she would be able to face this epic legacy head on.
Then a chance encounter with a perfect bowl of borscht in Warsaw set Bonny on a journey to unearth her culinary lineage, and she began to dig for the roots of her food obsession, dish by dish. Tracing the defining moments of her life, from her colorful childhood in the restaurant business to the crumbling of her first marriage and the intensity of young motherhood, her decision to become a chef and that life- altering visit to Poland, the author recounts a tale of scarcity and plenty, stepping into the kitchen to connect her past to her future. Whether it's the flaky potato knishes and molasses porridge bread she learned to bake at her Baba Sarah’s elbow, the creamy vichyssoise she taught herself to cook in her tiny student apartment, or the brown butter eggs her father, now 93, still scrambles for her whenever she needs comfort, cuisine is both an anchor and an identity; a source of joy and a signifier of survival.
How to Share an Egg is a journey of deep flavors and surprising contrasts. By turns sweet, salty, sour, and bitter, this is one woman's search to find her voice as a writer, chef, mother and daughter. Do the tiny dramas of her own life matter in comparison to everything her father has seen and done? This moving exploration of heritage, inheritance, and self-discovery sets out to find the answer.
About the Author
Bonny Reichert is a National Magazine Award-winning journalist. She has been an editor at Today’s Parent and Chatelaine, and a columnist and regular contributor to The Globe and Mail. When she turned forty, she had a now-or-never feeling in her bones and quit her job to enroll in culinary school. After that, she began to explore her relationship with food on the page, seeing her childhood in the restaurant business and her background as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor in a new light. Bonny was born in Edmonton, Alberta, and lives in Toronto with her husband and little dog, Bruno. Her three almost-adult children come and go. She holds a master of fine art in creative nonfiction and teaches writing at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies. How to Share an Egg is her first book.
Saturday, April 26
Marissa Stapley
About the Book
He was the troubled face of rock ’n’ roll…until he suddenly disappeared without a trace.
Jane Pyre was once half of the famous rock n’ roll duo, the Lightning Bottles. Years later, she’s perhaps the most hated—and least understood—woman in music. She was never as popular with fans as her bandmate (and soulmate), Elijah Hart—even if Jane was the one who wrote the songs that catapulted the Lightning Bottles to instant, dizzying fame, first in the Seattle grunge scene, then around the world.
But ever since Elijah disappeared five years earlier and the band’s meteoric rise to fame came crashing down, the public hatred of Jane has taken on new levels, and all she wants to do is retreat. What she doesn’t anticipate is the bombshell that awaits her at her new home in the German countryside: the sullen teenaged girl next door—a Lightning Bottles superfan—who claims to have proof that not only is Elijah still alive, he’s also been leaving secret messages for Jane. And they need to find them right away.
A cross-continent road trip about two misunderstood outsiders brought together by their shared love of music, The Lightning Bottles is both a love letter to the 90s and a searing portrait of the cost of fame.
About the Author
Marissa Stapley is the bestselling author of the novels Lucky, soon to be an Apple limited series starring Anya Taylor-Joy; Mating for Life; Things to Do When It’s Raining; and The Last Resort. She lives in Toronto with her family. Follow her on X and Instagram @MarissaStapley or like her page on Facebook (Facebook.com/MarissaStapleyAuthor) for updates and contests!
Friday, April 25
Phoebe Wang
About the Book
A lingering, long-haul collection of writing about sailing for readers of Julietta Singh and Kyo Maclear.
In Relative to Wind, Phoebe Wang delivers a poetic rendering of her decade-long journey of learning to sail and a deep dive into what it means to be a newcomer to an old tradition. From working alongside crewmates in tempestuous conditions to becoming an avid racer and organizer to drafting a wistful love letter to a Wayfarer dinghy-while examining the loose tether between- sailing and a creative life-Wang delivers a book for sailors and would-be sailors that is thoughtful and surprising at every tack.
"A thoughtful, illuminating look at life away from land."—Kirkus
About the Author
Phoebe Wang is a first-generation Chinese-Canadian currently based in Toronto, Canada. She is the author of the poetry collections Admission Requirements (McClelland and Stewart, 2017), shortlisted for the Gerald Lambert Memorial Award, the Pat Lowther Memorial Award, and nominated for the Trillium Book Award, and Waking Occupations (McClelland and Stewart 2022). Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The Globe & Mail, The New Quarterly, Brick and The Unpublished City, shortlisted for a Toronto Book Award, and she co-edited The Unpublished City: Volume II, The Lived City. She is currently on the editorial board with Brick Books. She has been a mentor with Diaspora Dialogues and is an adjunct professor and mentor in the University of Toronto Creative Writing MA program. Wang lives and sails in Toronto, Ontario.
Friday, April 25
Dr. Samra Zafar
About the Book
Lived experience and the science of healing tell the life-changing truth: unlearning is the key to setting yourself free.
In an inspirational, practical self-help book, bestselling author of A Good Wife Samra Zafar weaves together research and personal stories to share how she has broken free of beliefs that held her back, and how readers can too.
After escaping an abusive marriage in her twenties with her two daughters in tow, Samra Zafar thought the biggest challenges she would face would be supporting her family, putting herself through school, working in the corporate world, and rebuilding a support system for herself and her daughters. But she discovered the hardest challenge of all was within her own heart. Her childhood conditioning to criticize her every move paralyzed her from pursuing what she truly wanted, landed her in relationships that held her back rather than lifting her up, and constrained the way she wanted to mother her children. Finally, when she couldn't take it anymore, she sought help.
In Unconditional, Samra shares everything she has learned, as a woman, physician and mother, about unlearning the harmful beliefs we store deep within ourselves. Through the hard work of digging out past trauma, unpacking faulty ideas that no longer serve you, creating healthier neural pathways, and embracing who you truly want to be, you can learn to love yourself—unconditionally.
About the Author
SAMRA ZAFAR is an award-winning, internationally renowned speaker, physician, author and educator. She has been recognized among the Top 100 Most Powerful Women in Canada, the Top 25 Most Inspirational Women in Canada, and the Top 25 Canadian Immigrants. Her book A Good Wife: Escaping the Life I Never Chose, based on her journey of escaping an abusive child marriage to pursue her freedom, sheds light on gender-based oppression, and was a national bestseller and a CBC Best Book. One of the youngest alumnae to serve as governor at the University of Toronto, she is currently on the board of the Women’s College Hospital Foundation and a celebrated ambassador for Plan International. She is also the founder and executive director of Brave Beginnings, a national charity that provides mentorship to women who have escaped abuse. Her work has impacted millions and has been extensively featured in national and global media. Samra Zafar’s speaking portfolio includes four successful TEDx Talks and many leading organizations around the world.