Are you an indie author looking for a chance to showcase your talent? The Indie Author Project Annual Contest is looking for the best indie-published e-book in seven genres. Submit your work before May 31 for your chance to win $2,500 and other amazing prizes!
Saturday, November 25, 2023, is Small Business Saturday – a day to celebrate and support small businesses, artists, local authors, and other creators! Of course, we hope you support local authors all year long! In addition to our annual Jax Book Fest which features dozens of local authors, we also invite local authors and creators to talk about (and sign) their books at Lit Chat Author Talks and Interview programs. While these events are free to attend, they are a great way for authors to find new readers and for readers to find new authors!
Nat Glover was born in 1943, in segregated Jacksonville, Florida. At seventeen, he unknowingly headed into an angry white mob and the Ku Klux Klan attacking young black protestors staging a sit-in at a downtown whites-only lunch counter. Known as “Ax Handle Saturday,” this harrowing encounter with racism would commit him to a lifetime of fighting for justice. He joined the Jacksonville Police Department in 1966 where he was promoted to detective, rose to sergeant, and was appointed the city’s first hostage negotiator. In 1995, Duval County voters elected him the first Black sheriff in Florida since Reconstruction. Hear more about his incredible work and his new memoir, Striving for Justice: A Black Sheriff.
For National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), we asked a few of our recent Lit Chat and Writer's Lab alumni to answer a few questions about their writing process. Our second guest blogger is Sohrab Homi Fracis. Our second guest blogger is Sohrab Homi Fracis. True Fiction, his new book of North Florida (and elsewhere) stories, won the 2023 International Book Award for story collections. Fracis was also the first Asian American author to win the Iowa Short Fiction Award, described by the New York Times Book Review as "among the most prestigious literary prizes America offers," for his first book, Ticket to Minto: Stories of India and America.
For National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), we asked a few of our recent Lit Chat and Writer's Lab alumni to answer a few questions about their writing process. Hurley Winkler is a writer and a lifelong resident of Jacksonville. Her fiction and nonfiction work has appeared in Hobart, Neutral Spaces, The Millions, and elsewhere, and she interviews writers and musicians for The Creative Independent and WJCT's Jacksonville Music Experience.
Writing 50,000 words in a single month can be a daunting task... but it doesn't have to be a solitary one! There's a whole community of writers, right here in Jacksonville, and several ways to network and learn from them. Between monthly Writer's Lab workshops as well as Lit Chat Interviews and Author Talks, the Library is truly a local author's best friend. You never have to pay to attend these classes either, whether it's an up-and-coming local author or an international bestselling author. Not only that, the Library has tons of books on writing, publishing and more... and it's all completely free to use!
A prolific local history author, Tim Gilmore, has written extensively about Jacksonville. The writer and creator of www.jaxpsychogeo.com, he has told more than 700 stories of strange and historic locations in and around Jacksonville, Florida. He is also the founder of JaxbyJax. A literary arts festival, now in its 10th year, JaxbyJax was built on the theme of “Jacksonville Writers Writing Jacksonville.” Few have written about Jacksonville more. He joins us this November to talk about his latest book, The Culture Wars of Warren Folks.
Jax Book Fest is back at the Main Library and better than ever! Join us for the Main Event on Saturday, September 23 from 10 a.m. -3 p.m. for an awesome lineup of New York Times bestselling authors and DOZENS of local authors! See who's scheduled to appear!
Are you an aspiring author? Have you ever wanted to see your own book on the library's shelves? Join us Friday, September 22 from 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. at the Main Library for FREE writing and publishing workshops, networking with local authors, and more!
Jax Book Fest is back and better than ever! Join us for not one but two bold, bookish days - back-to-back this September 22-23 at the Main Library! This year, we're adding a WRITER'S DAY on Friday with FREE workshops on writing and self-publishing, networking opportunities with local writer's groups and so much more! Plus, we've got an awesome lineup of bestselling and local authors on Saturday for the MAIN EVENT!
