Booksigning: Priscilla K. Garatti
2019-12-01 12:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York) | Main Street Reads, 115 S. Main St., Summerville, SC, 29483, United States
We have a special event planned for you to welcome December! On December 1st (also our singing bookseller Hannah Rose’s birthday!) we’ll be hosting Charleston author Priscilla K. Garatti!
Priscilla K. Garatti is the author of a collection of reflective essays, On A Clear Blue Day; a novel, Missing God; and a memoir, An Ocean Away.
An Ocean Away
Two stories dramatically entwine through this memoir of a woman’s journey to regain lost love and a lost self.
Thirty-five years ago, a teenage girl boards an ocean liner and meets the Italian boy who becomes the love of her life. Through a series of synchronous events she finds him again and must confront the painstaking choices it will take to love him again.
Missing God
When Emily King finds herself jolted into early widowhood after her husband’s heart attack, she cannot seem to find her bearings in a once predictable world. Desperate for any bit of consolation to soothe her raw heart, she seeks the solace of the Sea Islands that stretch out along the coastline of South Carolina.
During one her sojourns, she meets a winsome child named Ocean. The little boy and his mother enter Emily’s life bearing gifts—warmth, laughter, gritty strength and the friendship of an African man named Cannon to whom Emily finds herself surprisingly drawn.
These four unlikely companions help each other navigate the treacherous terrain of grief, bound together even more tightly as they seek to rescue Ocean when he falls into dangerous hands.
On A Clear Blue Day
People often feel alone and isolated in our performance-based culture. They have a deep desire to be validated and accepted for who they are. To be loved—to know the love of a God who does not reject them.
With lyrical prose and a blend of lush images, Priscilla moves you through the seasons of the year taking on such topics as regret, vulnerability, loneliness, intimacy and imperfection. In each essay she weaves a divine thread through the quotidian.
Meet Priscilla
In 2018, Priscilla was selected as an emerging writer in South Carolina, with both fiction and non-fiction works appearing in anthologies compiled by Z Publishing. On A Clear Blue Day won an Enduring Light medal in the 2017 Illumination Book Awards. And In 2019, Z Publishing once again featured Priscilla as one of America’s emerging authors in their literary fiction anthology for The Carolinas. Look for her latest book, The Light By Which We See in February 2020. Priscilla currently resides with her Italian husband near a tidal creek in Charleston, South Carolina. Find her at priscillakgaratti.com and on Instagram and Twitter.

Booksigning: James Masciarelli's Beyond Beauport!
2019-12-05 17:00 - 19:00
Come on out Thursday evening and meet visiting author James Masciarelli, author of the modern-day pirate tale, Beyond Beauport, a fascinating read that also visits the pirate history of Charleston!
In Beyond Beauport
Shannon Clarke’s childhood dream to become a sea captain is revived when her long-lost seafaring uncle Patrick visits with a salty tale of their maritime family ancestry of pirates and privateers. He shares recovered family letters and artifacts from the Golden Age of Piracy.
They take to the sea in Patrick’s brigantine to follow the siren song of their ancestors in quest of destiny, truth and treasure. The voyage is fraught with raw forces of nature, past traumas and present day sea robbers, as their talents and beliefs of family, identity and purpose are shaken to the core.
James Masciarelli is a writer, entrepreneur, and storyteller with deep experience of the human condition from his work with individuals, families, and organizations in crisis, growth and change. Writing and use of story enabled him to move ideas through organizations in his social work, human resource, and business career. His creative fiction focuses on stories of change and transformation by the sea. He resides in Naples, Florida and his homeport, Gloucester, Massachusetts with his creative wife and twin beagles.

Booksigning: Jewel Sweeney and Terri Barnes
2019-12-07 10:00 - 12:00
On December 7, just in time for more holiday shopping, we’ll welcome back authors Jewel Sweeney and Terri Barnes to Main Street Reads, on hand to sign their books for you and friends, and answer questions about their work!
Here’s Jewel’s full lineup of her popular children’s book series:

Up, Up, & Away: Join Bugaboo & Ladybug as they take a trip in the bright blue skies. Watch them soar like the birds of the air. As the storm approaches, will they be okay?
Out of This World: Bugaboo & Ladybug have a long trip to take. They will join the space team to blast off to Planet Mormorfar! Join them as they meet out of this world friends.
The Fire Breathing Dragon: Oh no! The fire breathing dragon has awakened and is making his way through Buggleland. Knight Bugaboo must defeat the dragon to save Princess Ladybug.

Jewel is also the author of adult titles: A Time to Walk, The Path Unseen, Running 101 and Conditioning 201, which will also be available for signing at her book event!

Terri Barnes is the author of Spouse Calls: Messages From a Military Life. Terri takes readers beyond the headlines and homecoming videos for an inside look at the day-to-day hardships, victories, and many ways military life shapes, challenges, and enriches its families.Through poignant personal stories, incisive interviews, and emotive reflections, Terri s military life columns create a historical snapshot of American and world affairs, preserving an important piece of our nation’s culture.

Booksigning with NYT Best-Selling Children's Author Melinda Long
2019-12-07 15:00 - 17:00
A special event indeed on Saturday, December 7 (rescheduled from November 23 after Melinda’s injury!) when we host NYT best-selling children’s books author Melinda Long to Main Street Reads!
Her books on hand for signing will include Art Smart, Science Detective, How I Became a Pirate, Pirates Don’t Change Diapers, and, apropos to the season, The Twelve Days of Christmas in South Carolina.
Melinda Long began her writing career on a rainy day when she was six. Her mother, tired of hearing how bored Melinda was, told her to write a story about Yogi Bear and friends. She even gave Melinda a typewriter to use. It was so much fun, Melinda just kept writing. Now it’s one of her favorite things to do. Melinda lives in South Carolina not far from two pirate hangouts. She enjoys reading, acting, and visiting schools to talk to kids about writing.

In Conversation: Dr. Benjamin B. Alexander and JC Sasser Discuss Flannery O'Connor (Booksigning)
2019-12-14 14:00 - 17:00
On December 14, JC Sasser, author of the wildly popular 2018 Southern Fiction winning Gradle Bird, and Ben Alexander, editor of Good Things Out of Nazareth, a much-anticipated collection of many of Flannery O’Connor’s unpublished letters, will be at Main Street Reads to discuss brilliant southern fiction and the great lady herself.
Flannery O’Connor is a master of twentieth-century American fiction, joining, since her untimely death in 1964, the likes of Hawthorne, Hemingway, and Faulkner. Those familiar with her work know that her powerful ethical vision was rooted in a quiet, devout faith and informed all she wrote and did.

You’ll have the opportunity to get signed copies of both Gradle Bird AND Good Things out of Nazareth, touted as a literary treasure of over one hundred unpublished letters from National Book Award-winning author Flannery O’Connor and her circle of extraordinary friends.
Good Things Out of Nazareth is a collection of many of O’Connor’s previously unpublished letters—along with those of literary luminaries such as Walker Percy (The Moviegoer), Caroline Gordon (None Shall Look Back), Katherine Anne Porter (Ship of Fools), Robert Giroux and movie critic Stanley Kauffmann. The letters explore such themes as creativity, faith, suffering, and writing. Brought together, they form a riveting literary portrait of these friends, artists, and thinkers. Here we find their joys and loves, as well as their trials and tribulations as they struggle with doubt and illness while championing their beliefs and often confronting racism in American society during the civil rights era.

JC Sasser’s work has been compared by other great southern authors to Flannery O’Connor, and Sasser says she’s been a huge influence on her own work, so this will be a VERY engaging discussion!

Praise for Good Things Out of Nazareth
“An epistolary group portrait that will appeal to readers interested in the Catholic underpinnings of O’Connor’s life and work… These letters by the National Book Award–winning short story writer and her friends alternately fit and break the mold. Anyone looking for Southern literary gossip will find plenty of barbs… But there’s also higher-toned talk on topics such as the symbolism in O’Connor’s work and the nature of free will.”—Kirkus Reviews

“A fascinating set of Flannery O’Connor’s correspondence . . . The compilation is highlighted by gems from O’Connor’s writing mentor, Caroline Gordon. . . . While O’Connor’s milieu can seem intimidatingly insular, the volume allows readers to feel closer to the writer, by glimpsing O’Connor’s struggles with lupus, which sometimes leaves her bedridden or walking on crutches, and by hearing her famously strong Georgian accent in the colloquialisms she sprinkles throughout the letters. . . . This is an important addition to the knowledge of O’Connor, her world, and her writing.”—Publishers Weekly

Praise for Gradle Bird

“J.C. Sasser takes us on a romp of an adventure through the life, eyes and heart of Gradle Bird‘s dark and twisted, but loving and hilarious world in rural Georgia. Gradle Bird reads like it was written, in collaboration, by the ghosts of Flannery O’Connor and Florence King, while finishing off a bottle of Battlefield Bourbon. And truth is, if it had been the fruit of the ghosts of two of the South’s darkest and wittiest writers, we could only hope that they would continue the collaboration. But we’re in luck as J.C. Sasser is alive and well and, hopefully, will be telling her stories for years to come. It’s a wonderful story, a wonderful book.” – Robert Hicks, author of The Widow of the South and The Orphan Mother
“Think Flannery O’Connor riffing Elmore Leonard and you get some sense of this wildly inventive, picaresque novel that stretches the boundaries of what it means to be family and what it costs to love and be loved. But don’t get me wrong. J.C. Sasser writes in her own lyrical style, weaving often tragicomic events into a mosaic of sometimes hallucinogenic wonder. Her characters seemed swept up in an arc of ever-pending disaster. And yet in the unforgettable presence of Gradle Bird herself, the book’s 16-year-old chief protagonist, you learn how redemption can stumble into our lives at the unlikeliest of times from the unlikeliest of places.” –Ken Wells, author of Meely LaBauve
“Anyone who doesn’t fall in love with Gradle Bird, the character, might want to stop by an Urgent Care facility for an EKG. Anyone not totally mesmerized by the world depicted in Gradle Bird, the novel, might as well forfeit his or her Human Being ID card. J.C. Sasser’s invented a complex, big-hearted, dirt-road-smart protagonist surrounded by hilarious one-of-a-kind characters (and a ghost). Absurd, yet utterly believable. Southern, yet universal. I’m jealous.” –George Singleton, author of The Half-Mammals of Dixie
This special event takes place between 2 and 5 p.m. — The spirited discussion will begin promptly at 3 p.m. and refreshments will be served! Following their conversation, JC and Ben will take questions from the audience.

Booksigning: Prayers of an Adoptee with Alison Holley
2019-12-15 12:00 - 14:00
On Sunday, December 15, we’ll proudly host Summerville native Alison Holley, celebrating the release of her debut novel, Prayers of an Adoptee.
Based on a true story, Prayers of an Adoptee is about the life of Alexandra, a woman who was adopted at birth and spent decades searching for her biological family. Although she was raised by wonderful parents in a loving family, as a teenager, she began to feel an unexplained void in her life. This void sparked her need to solve the mystery of her past and find the family she had never known.
During her teenage years and throughout her adult life, with help from her adoptive parents and her husband Teddy, she searched and prayed for clues that would lead to her biological family. But early in her search, Alexandra realized that the pieces of the puzzle-the answers to her prayers-would be revealed only in God’s timing.
Alison Holley is a first-time author and has launched her book, based on her decades-long search for her biological family. She is a native of Summerville, SC. She now resides with her husband in Bluffton, SC. She has two grown children. Alison loves sitting on her back porch, enjoying the coastal wildlife, while working on her second book. Find her at https://www.facebook.com/alisonholley100/ and on Instagram.

Booksigning: Third Thursday Features Christmas Confusion!
2019-12-19 17:00 - 20:00
Meet local author Christina Sinisi at Main Street Reads this Third Thursday when she’ll be here to sign her brand new novel, Christmas Confusion! Just in time for the holidays – come join us for merriment and a signed copy, the perfect gift!
As always, our Third Thursday will feature treats and a special performance by local singer, songwriter and guitarist Mike Kaltofen, who’s being featured in this week’s Summerville Journal Scene!

Booksigning: Acting Lessons for Living AND Beyond the Bookclub
2019-12-27 17:30 - 19:00
On Friday, December 27th, we’re off to an early start with our “New Year – New You” theme when Chicago author Ruthie Landis will be in town and has graciously agreed to join us to sign copies of her newest release, Acting Lessons for Living, as well as her release from earlier this year, Beyond the Bookclub: We Are the Books We Must Read.
LOTS of fodder for discussion in both these wonderful, heartfelt books — we hope you’ll join us for a chat and free refreshments!

Booksigning: Meet Author Cheryl Oliver
2019-12-28 10:00 - 13:00
On Saturday, December 28th, we’re pleased to host local author Cheryl Oliver, with the release of her latest book, My Best Friend is Gone, about her daughter Jennifer, killed by a drunk driver in 2017. Cheryl wants to help others through their grieving process, especially during the Holiday season.
A Virginia native, Cheryl Oliver grew up near Washington D.C.Aside from “My Best Friend is Gone” biography about her daughter, Oliver has written 7 historical non-fiction books. A graduate of Marymount University, she is a member of the National Genealogical Association, DAR, UDC, in process with Colonial Dames, and was invited to join the Descendants of Jamestown, VA. She lives in Summerville, SC, enjoys reading and tending to her beautiful garden flowers. She is currently working on a book about all the men behind the designing, building, training, and sailing of the H. L. Hunley.
