Benjamin Griffin, associate editor for the Mark Twain Papers & Project at the University of California, Berkeley, will give a free talk on Wednesday, Oct. 8, at 5:30 p.m., following a 5 p.m. reception at The Mark Twain House & Museum, 51 Farmington Ave., Hartford.
His talk will mark the 140th anniversary of the Twain family’s arrival at their house and will launch the debut publication of “A Family Sketch and Other Private Writings” (University of California Press, $25.95), which Twain wrote about his family life and the servants who worked at the house. The talk is part of the “The Trouble Begins at 5:30” series.
Also on Wednesday, Oct. 8, at 7 p.m., the Twain House will present a free Book/Mark series talk by author Evan I. Schwartz on his book, “Finding Oz: How L. Frank Baum Discovered the Great American Story” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $28), which offers new insights into the back story and hidden meanings of many aspects of L. Frank Baum’s 1900 classic tale, “The Wizard of Oz.”
A Twain House four-session writing class will begin Tuesday, Oct. 7, and run each Tuesday through Oct. 28 from 6 to 8 p.m. The cost is $199.
Social Media for Writers, led by Caitlin Thayer, will teach how media platforms work and how to use them to promote a business, organization or personal brand. Bring a laptop to the class. Thayer was named a Hartford Business Journal 40 Under 40 winner.
A one-day workshop on writing and selling op-ed pieces to newspapers and magazines, from essays on current issues to “evergreen” subjects, will be taught Saturday, Oct. 11, from 1 to 4 p.m. by Hugh Ryan, a freelance writer and the Founding Director of the Pop-Up Museum of Queer History, whose op-eds have run in The New York Times, The Guardian, Slate, The Daily Beast and other publications. The cost is $40.
Also on Saturday, Oct. 11, from 1 to 4 p.m., a workshop on the do’s and don’ts of writing dialogue in fiction, creative non-fiction and memoir will be led Dan Pope, author of the novels “In the Cherry Tree” and “Housebreaking,” to be published in 2015. The cost is $40.
Registration for the talks and class: 860-280-3130 or www.marktwainhouse.org.
Oates In New Haven
Author Joyce Carol Oates, known for her prodigious output of novels, short stories, critical essays and many other genres, will appear at WSHU Public Radio/NPR’s “Join the Conversation” author event at The Study at Yale, 1157 Chapel St., New Haven, on Thursday, Oct. 9, at 7 p.m. Her new story collection is “Lovely, Dark and Deep” (Ecco, $25.99).
Oates, a professor at Princeton University, is both a bestselling author and winner of many major literary awards, among them the 2013 PEN American Center Lifetime Achievement Award and 2014 Poets & Writers Lifetime Achievement Award.
Tickets are $10: www.wshu.org.
Mary Karr In Fairfield
Mary Karr, the best-selling, award-winning poet and memoirist whose books include “The Liars’ Club,” “Cherry,” and “Lit”, will give the 2014 Catholicism and the Arts Lecture at Fairfield University’s Dolan School of Business Dining Room,1073 N. Benson Road, Fairfield, on Tuesday, Oct. 7, at 8 p.m.
Karr is a convert to Catholicism. Her free talk, sponsored by the Center for Catholic Studies, is on “Imagination and Passion in Christian Spirituality: Lessons for Writers from the Ignatian Exercises.”
Information: 203-254-4000, ext. 3415.
Prudence Crandall’s Legacy
State Senator Donald E. Williams, Jr., president pro tempore of the Connecticut State Senate and author of “Prudence Crandall’s Legacy: The Fight for Equality in the 1830s, Dred Scott, and Brown v. Board of Education” (Wesleyan University Press, $35), will give a free talk sponsored by The Harriet Beecher Stowe Center and Mark Twain House & Museum on Tuesday, Oct. 7 at 7 p.m.at the Stowe Center, 77 Forest St., Hartford.
Crandall was the 19th century Canterbury teacher and early proponent of civil rights who integrated her school for girls, was jailed for her efforts and became a national figure in the fight against slavery.
Reservations: Info@StoweCenter.org or 860-522-9258, ext. 317.
Williams also will speak Friday, Oct. 10, at Canterbury Town Hall, 1 Municipal Drive, Canterbury. Information: 860-685-7723 or www.wesleyan.edu/wespress.
Benn’s Newest Novel
James Benn, author of the best-selling Billy Boyle World War II mystery series, is back with “The Rest Is Silence” (Soho, $26.95). The story is set during the D-Day invasion of Normandy and Operation Tiger, which led up to the epic event.
He will give free talks about his book, which features a former Boston cop who becomes a military detective on the staff of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, on Monday, Sept. 8, at 7:30 p.m. at South Windsor Public Library, 1550 Sullivan Ave., South Windsor (Information: 860-644-1541) and on Thursday, Oct. 9, at 7:30 p.m., at a Mystic Women’s Club event at St. Mark’s Church, 15 Pearl Street, Mystic. (Information: 860-572-9549).
Connecticut’s Slave Ships
Anne Farrow, a scholar of Connecticut’s history of slave trading and a former Courant reporter and editor, will speak at the launch of her new book on the connection between a famous Connecticut family and the slave trade, on Thursday, Oct. 9, at 6 p.m., at the Hartford Public Library’s Hartford History Center, 500 Main St., Hartford. Her talk will follow a 5:30 p.m. reception. The event is co-sponsored with the Connecticut State Library.
“The Logbooks: Connecticut’s Slave Ships and Human Memory” (Wesleyan, $27.95) traces the life of the logbooks’ author, Dudley Saltonstall, a controversial figure in Connecticut history who was the brother-in-law of Wethersfield’s Silas Deane. The book also explores how history and memory are connected.
Information: hhc.hplct.org.
Authors At R.J. Julia
On Tuesday, Oct. 7, at 7 p.m., a talk in the R.J. Julia Parenting Series will be presented at The Country School, 341 Opening Hill Road, Madison. Pamela Druckerman, bestselling author of “Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting” (Penguin, $16), will speak. Druckerman, an American journalist who lives in Paris and has three children, explores the mix of strict and permissive French parenting that produces lively yet well-behaved kids.
On Wednesday, Oct. 8, at 7 p.m., the Madison Historical Society and R.J. Julia will present British author and TV documentarian Peter Firstbrook, who will give a free talk about his new book, “A Man Most Driven: Captain John Smith, Pocahontas and the Founding of America” (ONEWorld Publications, $30) at Allis-Bushnell House, 853 Boston Post Rd., Madison. It tells the complex and dramatic story of Smith’s life and the Jamestown colony that he helped to save.
On Saturday, Oct. 11, at 3 p.m. at the bookstore, 768 Boston Post Road, Madison, acclaimed Connecticut artist and book illustrator Wendell Minor will give a free talk about the life of artist Edward Hopper, as told in “Edward Hopper Paints His World” (Holt, $17.99), Minor’s new picture book biography for children age 8 and older, written with Robert Burleigh.
On Thursday, Oct. 9 at 7 p.m., poet Richard Blanco, who wrote the poem for President Barack Obama’s second inauguration, will give a free talk on his memoir of life as a child of Cuban exile immigrants, a poet, engineer and teacher and a gay man: “The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood” (Ecco, $25.99).
All events require reservations: 203-245-3959 or www.rjjulia.com.
The Forlorn Soldier
Matthew Warshauer, professor of history at Central Connecticut State University and co-chair of the state’s Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission, will give a free talk at Acton Public Library, 60 Old Boston Post Road, Old Saybrook, on Wednesday, Oct. 8 at 6:30 p.m.
Warshauer is the author of “Connecticut in the American Civil War: Slavery, Sacrifice, and Survival.” His talk, “The Forlorn Soldier,” tells the history of one of the state’s little-known Civil War monuments. The program is co-sponsored by the Shoreline Civil War Round Table and the Old Saybrook Historical Society.
Information: 860-388-9416.
Healing After Sexual Abuse
Author Roberta Dolan, a former special education teacher with a master’s degree in counseling who is a survivor of abuse, will launch her book, “Say It Out Loud: Revealing and Healing the Scars of Sexual Abuse” (She Writes Press, $16.95) at the Meriden Public Library, 105 Miller St, Meriden, on Wednesday, Oct. 8, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. The book offers easy-to-follow strategies to help victims of abuse cope with its effects.
Information: 203-238-2344.
Strecker In Mystic
Essex author Susan Strecker will be at Bank Square Books, 53 W. Main Street, Mystic, for an author luncheon Thursday, Oct. 9, from noon to 1:30 p.m. She will discuss her novel, “Night Blindness” (Thomas Dunne, $25.99), which is set in Connecticut and is about a woman who returns here to deal with her father’s impending death and secret memories of a terrible event in her past. The cost is $30 for her talk, lunch and a signed copy of the book, $10 for lunch only and free for her talk only.
Reservations: 860-536-3795.
Strecker also will appear Thursday, Oct.9, at 7 p.m. at –Ballou’s Restaurant & Wine Bar, 51 Whitfield St., Guilford. Information: 203-453-0319.
“They Called Her Reckless”
Connecticut author Janet Barret, a horse riding expert and author of “They Called Her Reckless — A True Story of War, Love And One Extraordinary Horse” (Tall Cedar, $15.95), will give a free talk on Thursday, Oct. 9, at 7 p.m., at East Granby Public Library, 24 Center St., East Granby.
Barrett’s book is about an extraordinary mare who aided a Marine rifle platoon during the Korean War and was given the rank of sergeant in recognition of its service to the American troops.
Reservations: 860-653-3002 or www.egpl.org.
“Blue Ravens”
Gerald Vizenor, author of more than 30 books and a professor emeritus of American Studies, will give a free talk on Tuesday, Oct. 7, at 4:30 p.m. at Wesleyan University’s Center for East Asian Studies, 343 Washington Terrace, Middletown. His latest book is “Blue Ravens” (Wesleyan Press, $27.95) about Native American brothers who served in World War I in France.
Information: 860-685-7723 or www.wesleyan.edu/amst
Houston At University of Hartford
Pam Houston, whose most recent novel is “Contents May Have Shifted” (Norton, $14.95), will give a free Cardin Reading Series talk on Tuesday, Oct. 7, at 12:15 p.m. in Wilde Auditorium on the University of Hartford campus, 200 Bloomfield Ave., Hartford.
Houston has won a Western States Book Award and the WILLA award for contemporary fiction and is the author of two collections of linked short stories, the best-selling “Cowboys Are My Weakness” and “Waltzing the Cat” and the novel, “Sight Hound.” Information: 860-768-4944 or Grossberg@Hartford.edu.
“Funerals Can Be Murder”
“Funerals Can Be Murder,” the fifth in the Baby Boomer mystery series by Connecticut author Susan Santangelo, will be launched by Suspense Publishing at a party on Monday, Oct. 6, at 7 p.m., at Acton Library, 60 Old Boston Post Road, Old Saybrook.
Santangelo’s comic cozy mysteries feature amateur sleuth Carol Andrews, who solves murders despite the skepticism of her retired husband and detective son-in-law. The book is available for $12.99 through Amazon.com and Suspense Publishing or on Kindle for $3.99.
Information: 860-395-3184 or babyboomermysteries.com.
Authors At Hickory Stick
A Meet an Author for Lunch event at The Hickory Stick Bookshop, 2 Green Hill Road, Washington Depot, on Wednesday, Oct. 8, from noon to 1:30 p.m. will feature Ellen Stimson, whose latest is “Good Grief: Life in a Tiny Vermont Village (Countryman, $23.95). Free with the purchase of the book or $10 for the luncheon only.
On Friday, Oct. 10, at 6:30 p.m., journalist, author, private investigator and boxing judge Andy Thibault will give a reading from his latest essay collection, “More Cool Justice” (Ice Box Publishing, $20). Musical entertainment will be included. The book explores wrongdoing by police and courts and also contains general interest pieces and poetry and fiction.
On Saturday, Oct. 11, at 2 p.m., Litchfield County resident Sandra Waugh will sign copies of her new book, “Lark Rising” (Random House Books for Young Readers, $17.99), a paranormal fantasy romance and adventure story.
Information: 860-868-0525 or www.hickorystickbookshop.com
Poetry Reading And Writing
Poets David Leff, Andy Weil and David Epstein will read on Sunday, Oct. 5, from 2 to 5 p.m., at The Noah Webster House, 227 S. Main St., West Hartford, followed by an open mike session. Former West Hartford Poet Laureate Maria Sassi will be the host. The event is free, but donations will be accepted. Information: 860-521-5362 or www.noahwebsterhouse.org/.
On Saturday, Oct. 11, at 1 p.m., Leff will lead a Nature Poetry Writing Workshop at Childs Center, 200 Canaan Mountain Road, Falls Village, in Great Mountain Forest. The event costs $25 and includes readings, discussion, a walk on a forest trail and a writing assignment with feedback. Pre-registration and payment are required: jean@greatmountainforest.org or 860-824-8188.
Senior Voices Reading
Senior Voices, led by Bloomfield poet Andy Weil, will present a free reading by The White Oaks Poets on Saturday, Oct. 11, at 2 p.m. at White Oaks Retirement Community, 230 Deming Road., Manchester. Information: 860-648-2840.
“Invisible”
Author Dawn Metcalf will give a free talk about the second novel in her “Twixt” fantasy trilogy for young readers, “Invisible” (Harlequin Teen, $9.99), on Saturday, Oct. 11, from 10:30 a.m. to noon at Kent Memorial Library, 50 N. Main St., Suffield. The book is a sequel to “Indelible.” Information: 860-668-3896.
