Upcoming Events - Penguin Random House Spring Book & Author Festival

 

I will be participating in the PRH Spring Book & Author Festival on Thursday, April 16. It's a free day-long event that has interviews, book buzzes, eGalleys, and more! There are authors of youth titles from picture books to young adult titles as well as adult fiction and non-fiction.  For those who need it, a CE certificate is available. The sessions will also be available for three months after the event. 

The panel I will be moderating is "Twisted Fiction." So far, the lineup of authors includes (with blurbs from the publisher): 

Bill Schweigart, author of Dirty 20 : The Sopranos meets Dungeons & Dragons when the son of a crime boss accidentally becomes a crowdfunding superstar and disrupts business on the streets with his RPG

Luke Larkin, author of The Unheld : Startling monsters and occult oddities abound in this chilling horror Western as a girl journeys across the haunted Montana Territory to rescue her father from an otherworldly creature.

Emeline Atwood, author of A Real Animal : In this unforgettable debut, a moment of metaphysical transformation launches a woman’s beautiful and terrifying journey through her twenties, through loneliness and complicated love that takes her from the depths of the Pacific Ocean to the plains of Texas

Abe Moss, author of Morsels : Meeting the family is scary. Surviving them is a nightmare.

Heather Parry, author of Carrion Crow : In this viscerally dark, queer Victorian gothic, longing and transformation take wing through the secret selves we nurture when no one is watching.

These events are fun and educational for any library worker. You can view the Winter 2025 PRH Book and Author Festival here. There is not a cost to attend. Staff can register here. 

PRH also has a page with upcoming author events which you can share with your patrons. Working with local bookstores benefits both the library and the bookstore. We are not in competition. Readers often will buy books from authors they have discovered at the library. 

Unshelve Your Collection with The Lineup & Grief Horror

 The Lineup recently featured this list: 9 Unsettling Horror Books About Grief.  For those who don't know, The Lineup covers movies, TV shows, and books about horror, true crime, and thrillers. They focus on backlist titles so it's a great resource for discovering titles for book displays and book lists. 

Grief horror is big right now and a focus on a popular theme, trope, or subgenre can help fans of a recent title find other books they will love. I would add other fiction about grief to the display to fill it out and to allow you to leave it up for a longer time if you don't currently have enough horror titles. Don't forget to include information about which titles you have in your digital collections. 

One of the lists below includes recovering from trauma with the fiction about grief so I included some lists about that subject for those who wanted to expand their display. 

It's always possible to put up a small, curated, pop-up collection at a service desk or on a bookcart. This would allow more staff to be involved as you would have to change it out more frequently when titles were checked out. Include a link to your catalog on the sign and encourage patrons to place holds if titles are already checked out. 

If you decide to put up some non-fiction, consider your community and perhaps place that in a different part of the library. However, as the Reddit threads indicate, reading fiction about loss is one way to grieve and deal with a death. 

Here are some lists to help get you started: 

The Seattle Public Library : Next Chapter: Grief (Fiction)

Goodreads : Grief Fiction Books

Reddit r/literature : Novels with grief as an important theme

Reddit r/suggestmeabook : My partner passed recently, fiction books about loss and grief? 

Reddit r/suggestmeabook :Suggest me a fiction book with grief as a theme

The Fiction Fox : Ultimate Guide to Grief Fiction

Book Riot : 8 of the Best Novels About Grief and Recovering from Trauma

Reddit r/suggestmeabook : Fiction books with a MC struggling/dealing with trauma in a realistic way?

Reddit r/suggestmeabook : Books involving characters who have gone through childhood trauma or dysfunctional families

The Fiction Fox :Ultimate Guide to Novels on (Healing from) Trauma

Electric Lit : 7 Novels About the Reverberations of Trauma

Goodreads : Trauma Book Lists

What I've Read and Reviewed Recently

Beyond reading for pleasure, I review for both Booklist and Library Journal. Here are some of my recent reviews:

I recommend both of these sites and publications for both readers advisory and collection development purposes. They are a fantastic way to keep in touch with what is popular and what is trending. If your library doesn't subscribe, ask that they do. 

Published March 1 by Booklist: Neurotica by Maxwell I. Gold from Shortwave Press

https://www.booklistonline.com/products/9819174. Starred Review
Comps: Stephanie Wytovich or Cynthia Pelayo

Published February 1 by Booklist: The Spoil by Maile Chapman from Graywolf

https://www.booklistonline.com/products/9818773
Comps:  I will add these as soon as I can 

Published February 6 by Library Journal: Molka by Monika Kim from Erewhon Starred Review

https://www.libraryjournal.com/review/molka-100008120
Comps: Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado or My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

Published February 6 by Library Journal: Odessa by Gabrielle Sher from Little, Brown Starred Review

https://www.libraryjournal.com/review/odessa-100008109
Comps: The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman or The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones

I won't republish the reviews here and I will try to do a better job of adding more information to my Goodreads page with more details than can be in print. I did list my comps for the titles to give you some idea.