African American Authors Featured at SC Book Festival

The 13th annual SC Book Festival will be held February 27-28 and March 1 at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center and features several prominent African American authors.

Featured African American authors include Tiffany L. Warren, Grace Octavia, Marvelyn Brown, Beverly Jenkins, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, Adam David Miller and Ronald Gauthier among others.

Marvelyn Brown, a 24-year-old native Tennessean, has moved audiences around the United States, Canada, Mexico, Jamaica and South Africa with her compelling personal story of being diagnosis with HIV at 19. Now as the CEO and HIV Consultant of New York based consulting firm, Marvelous Connections, her message is simple, Be Responsible, Get Educated and Get Tested! Her highly anticipated autobiography, The Naked Truth: Young, Beautiful and (HIV) Positive, was released from Amistad/Harpercollins on August 19, 2008.

Ronald M. Gauthier was a library branch manager in New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina forced him to relocate to Atlanta. He is the author of Hard Time on the Bayou, a prison novel based on his experiences working in corrections, Prey for Me: A New Orleans Mystery and its sequel, Crescent City Countdown, which is the only work of fiction depicting the slavery reparations issue as part of the storyline.

Beverly Jenkins’ novels highlight African/American life in the 19th century. Ms Jenkins has been featured in many national publications and speaks across the country on both romance and African-American history. With 21 published novels to date, her first contemporary faith-based women’s fiction title, Bring on the Blessings was published in Jan 2009.

Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe was born on the Southside of Chicago and began her training in the fine arts at a young age studying at the Art Institute of Chicago and later receiving her bachelor of Fine Arts from the Cooper Union, in New York City for photography. Her work has appeared in publications such as Life, Smithsonian, Sports Illustrated, Ebony, Essence, People, and The New York Times and has been shown in solo and group exhibitions around the world.

Adam David Miller has worked in northern California in the arts for four decades as a teacher, writer, poet, editor, publisher, and radio and television producer. His Dices or Black Bones won the 1970 California Teachers Association Award for best anthology.

Tiffany L. Warren is the author of three inspirational fiction novels. The Bishop’s Daughter is Tiffany’s most recent novel. Tiffany also writes young adult fiction under the pen name Nikki Carter. Her first young adult novel, Step to This will be released in the spring of 2009.

A former relationship blogger, praised Kensington author Grace Octavia has written three African American contemporary fiction novels: Something She Can Feel (set to be released in June 2009), the Essence Magazine pick Take Her Man, and His First Wife, a Black Expressions Book Club selection.

Friday Book Festival events feature six master writing classes, book appraisals and an opening reception. The opening reception will be held at the Thomas Cooper Library on the campus of the University of South Carolina in Columbia from 7 pm – 10 pm Friday, February 27. Tickets for the event are $60 each and may be purchased online. Join authors on Sunday for the Brunching with Authors at the Hilton Hotel. Tickets are $35 and can also be purchased online. Registration for these special events is available online at www.scbookfestival.org.

Saturday and Sunday listen to local, regional and national authors discuss their writing in a relaxed atmosphere, shop the many exhibitor booths, and get books signed or appraised. More than 75 authors and poets will be attending the festival including Scott Turow, Fritz Hollings, Ron Rash, Mary Alice Monroe, South Carolina Poet Laureate Marjory Wentworth and many others. Admission Saturday and Sunday is free.

Keynote author Scott Turow is the author of seven best-selling novels: Presumed Innocent (1987), The Burden of Proof (1990), Pleading Guilty (1993), The Laws of Our Fathers (1996), Personal Injuries (1999), Reversible Errors (2002) and Ordinary Heroes (2005). Turow will speak at the Book Festival on Sunday, March 1.

C-SPAN’s bus will again be a part of the Book Festival. The 45-foot mobile production studio is on the road across the country conducting educational programs for teachers and students. Every weekend, Book TV airs 48 hours of non-fiction book programming on a variety of topics including history, biographies, politics, current events, and the media.

For more information on the SC Book Festival visit the website at scbookfestival.org.