More than 300 fans who took part in Wilmette Public Library’s “One Book, Everybody Reads” program not only got the chance April 26 to hear the author of that one book talk about her writing process.
They got the chance to dialogue with her.
Jane Smiley’s approach to her Wilmette Junior High School visit was an intriguing and entertaining deviation from traditional author presentations, Library Director Ellen Clark said April 27.
“Instead of doing a half-hour speech and then taking questions, she started reading pieces from her book and then asked people what they wanted to know; then she read some more and asked people more questions,” Clark said. “It made for a kind of dialogue, and once we worked out getting the mikes to people, it worked very well.”
Library patrons and other program participants read Smiley’s “Some Luck,” a multi-generational story about an Iowa farm family, as part of the 2015 “One Book, Everybody Reads” communal reading experience.
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Beginning in March, the library offered related events, including book discussions, presentations on family farming, a review of films that celebrate farming, an introduction to family genealogy and even a trip to the Wagner Farm in Glenview. Smiley’s appearance and reading were the program’s culmination.
“She talked a lot about the research process,” Clark said, adding that the author elicited a lot of good questions from her audience.
Many who attended the April 26 event also purchased the author’s books, including advance copies of the second book in the “Some Luck” trilogy. It was available to those who attended the presentation, although the book wasn’t available to the public until April 28.
Twitter: @pioneer_kathy