Library Speakers Consortium
Virtual Author Talks
Each talk features the opportunity to participate in author Q&A or pre-submit questions during registration. Read on for details on how to register for these and other upcoming talks.
Wednesday, November 1, @ 8 PM:
John Stamos, If You Would Have Told Me
Join us for an intimate conversation with Full House star, John Stamos, as he leads us through his incredibly moving and vulnerable memoir, If You Would Have Told Me.
If you would have told a young John Stamos flipping burgers at his dad’s fast-food joint that one day he’d be a household name and that, at the height of his success, he’d be living alone, divorced, with no kids, high on a cocktail of forgetting, he might’ve asked, “You want fries with that?”
John burst onto the scene in General Hospital, propelling him into the teen idol stratosphere, a place that’s often a point of no return. But Stamos beat the odds and over the past four decades has proved himself to be one of his generation’s most successful and beloved actors. Whether showing off his comedic chops on Full House or his dramatic skills on ER, pushing the boundaries on Broadway or living out his youthful dreams as an honorary Beach Boy, John has surprised everyone, most of all himself.
A universal story about friendship, love, loss, and the courage to embrace love once more, John Stamos’s memoir is filled with some of the most memorable names in Hollywood, both old and new. Funny, deeply poignant, and brutally honest, If You Would Have Told Me is a portrait of a boy who went from believing in Disney magic to a man who learns that we have to create our own magical moments in life.
Thursday, November 9, @ 2 PM:
Tiffany Aliche, Get Good with Money
Tiffany "The Budgetnista" Aliche was a successful preschool teacher with a healthy nest egg when a recession and advice from a shady advisor put her out of a job and into a huge financial hole. As she began to chart the path to her own financial rescue, the outline of her ten-step formula for attaining both financial security and peace of mind began to take shape. These principles have now helped more than one million women worldwide save and pay off millions in debt, and begin planning for a richer life.
Her New York Times bestseller, Get Good with Money, introduced the powerful concept of building wealth through financial wholeness: a realistic, achievable, and energizing alternative to get-rich-quick and over-complicated money management systems.
We all want to live within our means, save for retirement, invest a little, and yet still have some left over each month for fun. But as most people know, real life can get in the way of even our best intentions! To help us set realistic goals and keep us on track to meeting them, Tiffany has another invaluable 10-step action plan: Made Whole. A masterclass in taking charge of your money, “The Budgetnista” has what every reader needs to achieve financial savvy, stability, and security.
Thursday, November 16, @ 4 PM:
Joy Harjo, Catching the Light
United States Poet Laureate and winner of the 2022 Academy of American Poets Leadership Award, Joy Harjo, joins us for a chat about her most recent memoir, Catching the Light, and to discuss her rewarding lifetime as a writer and poet.
In Catching the Light, Harjo examines the power of words and how poetry summons us toward justice and healing.
In this lyrical meditation about the why of writing poetry, Harjo reflects on significant points of illumination, experience, and questioning from her fifty years as a poet. Comprised of intimate vignettes that take us through the author’s life journey as a youth in the late 1960s, a single mother, and a champion of Native nations, this book offers a fresh understanding of how poetry functions as an expression of purpose, spirit, community, and memory.
Harjo insists the most meaningful poetry is birthed through cracks in history from what is broken and unseen. At the crossroads of this brokenness, she calls us to watch and listen for the songs of justice for all those America has denied. This is an homage to the power of words to defy erasure—to inscribe the story, again and again, of who we have been, who we are, and who we can be.
Thursday, November 30, @ 3 PM:
Naomi Alderman, The Future
Bestselling and award-winning author, Naomi Alderman will join us to talk about her new book, The Future. This new novel delivers a dazzling tour de force where a handful of friends plot a daring heist to save the world from the tech giants whose greed threatens life as we know it.
When Martha Einkorn fled her father’s isolated compound in Oregon, she never expected to find herself working for a powerful social media mogul hell-bent on controlling everything. Now, she’s surrounded by mega-rich companies designing private weather, predictive analytics, and covert weaponry, while spouting technological prophecy. Martha may have left the cult, but if the apocalyptic warnings in her father’s fox and rabbit sermon—once a parable to her—are starting to come true, how much future is actually left?
Across the world, in a mall in Singapore, Lai Zhen, an internet-famous survivalist, flees from an assassin. She’s cornered, desperate and—worst of all—might die without ever knowing what's going on. Suddenly, a remarkable piece of software appears on her phone telling her exactly how to escape. Who made it? What is it really for? And if those behind it can save her from danger, what do they want from her, and what else do they know about the future?
Martha and Zhen’s worlds are about to collide. An explosive chain of events is set in motion. While a few billionaires assured of their own safety lead the world to destruction, Martha’s relentless drive and Zhen’s insatiable curiosity could lead to something beautiful or the cataclysmic end of civilization.
By turns thrilling, hilarious, tender, and always piercingly brilliant, The Future unfolds at a breakneck speed, highlighting how power corrupts the few who have it and what it means to stand up to them.
