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May 2nd and 3rd, 2025
The Friends Of The Brainerd Public Library are proud to announce a new Author Event, Words by the Water. Tickets will go on sale at 9:00 am on January 1st, 2025 - April 1 2025 (or until sold out whichever comes first)
Friday, May 2nd:
5:30 pm - Social w/ Book Sales, NA beverage Tasting by Cash Wise Liquor, Kombucha Tasting from Ya Sure Kombucha, Cash Bar and Coffee available for purchase, and an Electronic Auction using 32 Auctions
6:30 pm: Seating for dinner
7:15 pm: The program starts with Authors Speaking
8:30 pm: Book Sales and Author Signing
Saturday, May 3rd:
10:30 am - Social w/ Book Sales, NA beverage Tasting by Cash Wise Liquor, Kombucha Tasting from Ya Sure Kombucha, Cash Bar and Coffee available for purchase, and Paper Bidding Silent Auction
11:30 am: Seating for Lunch
12:15 pm: The program starts with Authors Speaking
1:30 pm: Book Sales and Author Signing
Pricing:
Individual Seats $50.00
Table of 8: $400.00
Premium Table: 8 seats and Author at Table with Close to the front seating $500 (no more than 8 at this table to allow for seating of author and possible guest ( seats 9 and 10)
Premium + Table: 8 seats and choose the author you are seated with $600 close to the front seating (first request for author - if the author has already been selected either second choice or upgrade refunded.) No more than 8 at this table to allow for seating of author and possible guest ( seats 9 and 10)
We are excited to announce our new event take place at Maddens on Gull Lake. 11266 Pine Beach Peninsula, Brainerd, MN 56401
Donations to our silent Auctions are appreciated. Please use form below.
2025 Author Line Up:
Lorna Landvik is the author of eleven novels, including the best-selling PATTY JANE'S HOUSE OF CURL, ANGRY HOUSEWIVES EATING BON BONS, OH MY STARS, BEST TO LAUGH, and her newest addition: Chronicles Of A Radical Hag.
Landvik's checkered (but legal) past includes working as a chambermaid in Bavaria, winning a trip to Tahiti as a contestant on '$25,000 Pyramid' (MacGyver was her partner), temping at the Playboy Mansion (it was strictly a clerical position) and walking across the country as a member of The Great Peace March.
We are lucky enough to have Lorna as a Minnesota Author and our Emcee to bring in this new event!
Coming
Feb
2025
Allen Eskens is the bestselling author of The Life We Bury, The Guise of Another, The Heavens May Fall, The Deep Dark Descending, The Shadows We Hide, Nothing More Dangerous, The Stolen Hours, Forsaken Country, Saving Emma, and his latest novel, The Quiet Librarian.
He is the recipient of the Barry Award, Minnesota Book Award, Left Coast Crime Award, and Silver Falchion Award and has been a finalist for the Edgar® Award, Thriller Award, Anthony Award and Nero Award. His books have been translated into 23 languages.
Allen has a journalism degree from the University of Minnesota and a law degree from Hamline University. After law school, he studied creative writing in the M.F.A. program at Minnesota State University-Mankato, as well as the Loft Literary Center and the Iowa Summer Writer’s Festival. Allen grew up in the hills of central Missouri. He now lives with his wife, Joely, in greater Minnesota where he recently retired after practicing criminal law for 25 years.
Coming
Feb
2025
Curtis Sittenfeld Curtis Sittenfeld is the bestselling author of seven novels: Prep, The Man of My Dreams, American Wife, Sisterland, Eligible, Rodham, and Romantic Comedy, which was picked for Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club. Her first story collection, You Think It, I’ll Say It, was published in 2018 and also picked for Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club. Her books have been selected by The New York Times, Time, Entertainment Weekly, and People for their “Ten Best Books of the Year” lists, optioned for television and film, and translated into thirty languages. Her short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and Esquire, and in the Best American Short Stories anthology, of which she was the 2020 guest editor. Her non-fiction has appeared in The New York Times, Time, Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, Slate, and on “This American Life.” A graduate of Stanford University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Curtis has appeared as a guest on NPR’s “Fresh Air,” CBS’s “Early Show,” and PBS’s Newshour; four times been a Jeopardy! answer.
Traci Lambrecht (PJ Tracy) PJ Tracy is the pseudonym of the mother-daughter writing duo P.J. and Traci Lambrecht, winners of the Anthony, Barry, Gumshoe, and Minnesota Book Awards. Their cyberthriller “Monkeewrench” series (Monkeewrench, Live Bait, Dead Run, Snow Blind, Shoot to Thrill, Off the Grid, The Sixth Idea, and Nothing Stays Buried) were national and international bestsellers. After PJ’s passing in 2016, Traci wrote two more books in the Monkeewrench series (The Guilty Dead and Ice Cold Heart), and began the Margaret Nolan Detective series, set in Los Angeles, where she lived for many years. Deep into the Dark, Desolation Canyon, The Devil You Know, and City of Secrets have been lauded by critics and fans alike. She now resides in Minnesota and continues to write about murder and mayhem.
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Karen E Cooper Karen E. Cooper is the author of When Minnehaha Flowed with Whiskey: A Spirited History of the Falls. Cooper has discovered the rowdy, forgotten past at Minnehaha Falls, decades when every kind of shenanigans flourished at the Falls. The book, her first, won the 2023 Emilie Buchwald Award for Minnesota Nonfiction and was a finalist for the 2024 Hognander Award for Minnesota History. Cooper’s work has appeared in Minnesota History and Hennepin History magazines.
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Gretchen Anthony is a speaker, humorist, and author of Tired Ladies Take a Stand, a book that the Minneapolis Star Tribune predicted “will almost certainly be snapped up by books clubs everywhere.” Her previous titles include The Book Haters’ Book Club, and Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners. Her novel The Kids Are Gonna Ask received the 2021 Alex Award from the American Library. She lives in Minneapolis with her family, where she stays on the hunt for a good story while listening to 70’s classic rock and scouting a great Manhattan.
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