Local Author Expo at MECC

Just a day after Mountain Empire Community College hosts the 30th Annual John Fox, Jr. Literary Festival, a brand new event featuring and celebrating authors will take place at the college.  For the very first time, the MECC Bookstore in partnership with Student Services will host a Local Author Expo, from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on March 22.  The event will be held in Holton Hall on campus.  Featured authors Sharon Hatfield, Joe Tennis, Frank Kilgore, Katharine Shearer, and Brian D. McKnight will appear at the expo and read excerpts from selected works.

Hatfield, who is also a featured author at the John Fox, Jr. Festival, will read from her book, Never Seen the Moon: The Trials of Edith Maxwell.  Tennis will read from Southwest Virginia Crossroads: An Almanac of Place Names and Places to See, which takes readers on a journey through southwestern Virginia by providing history and pictures of the region.  Tennis included maps and detailed directions in the book offering readers all they would need to actually take a trip to the area.

Kilgore and Shearer will present Far Southwest Virginia: A Postcard Journey, a book they worked on together that includes a collection of over 250 vintage postcards from Kilgore's private collection that illustrate central Appalachian history.  Contested Borderland is McKnight's book that is devoted to the historical events that took place on the border of Kentucky and Virginia during the Civil War.  He will also read from his work, which explains military tactics and civilian life during the occupancy of both the Union and Confederate forces in the region.

All of the authors will be available for signings in the MECC Bookstore from 11:30 a.m. to 12 noon and 3 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. on the day of the event.  In addition, all of the books featured at the Local Author Expo will be available for purchase in the Bookstore.  For more information, contact Dora Hill in the Bookstore at (276) 523-2400, extension 332 or dhill@me.vccs.edu, or contact Linda Childress in Student Services at (276) 523-2400, extension 422 or lchildress@me.vccs.edu.

Author Joe Tennis will read an excerpt from his book, Southwest Virginia Crossroads: An Almanac of Place Names and Places to See, at the 1st Annual Local Author Expo at Mountain Empire Community College on March 22.

Brian D. McKnight, author of Contested Borderland, will make a guest appearance at the 1st Annual Local Author Expo on March 22 at Mountain Empire Community College.

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