On January 13, under the twinkling lights of the library’s Palm Garden, Ayana Mathis read from her most recent prize-winning book The Unsettled about a mother fighting for her sanity and survival in 1980s Philadelphia. A forceful and articulate speaker, Mathis explored using the “under story” and how this process informs character development as well as plot — a description that kept her audience spellbound. Ayana appeared courtesy of the Key West Literary Seminar. 

On the evening of January 20, poor weather drove the lively conversation between Jimin Han and Elise Hart Kipness, author and Friends board member, inside the library. Jimin described her “writer’s journey” in which she struggled to “get into the head of my grandmother” for the protagonist of  her novel. In The Apology, a 105-year-old matriarch is thrust into the afterlife where she seeks to make amends. Elise and Jimin, at one time, respectively, student and teacher, discussed when to write by the seat of your pants (“a pant-ser”) and when to outline.

On January 27, in conversation with Friends board member and author Ellen T. White, self-described Floridaphile Cathy Salustri related how the Depression era WPA American Guide Series became the focus of her master’s thesis turned book, titled Backroads of Paradise: A Journey to Rediscover Old Florida. Also the author of Florida Spectacular: Extraordinary Places and Exceptional Lives, Cathy gave compelling descriptions of the Florida’s habitats, history, and heroines — a state that is so much more than “Florida Man, sandy beaches, and theme parks.”