Beach Reads Night

With Beatriz Williams

By Amy Bromberg

I had such an amazing time at the Princeton Library Beach Reads Night on Friday, June 7^th. You ask how did I get involved in this event? Well, of course I’ll tell you. I saw Ann Leary tweeting with the Princeton Public Library (Janie Hermann, the programming librarian, does the tweeting) about a signing she was doing there several months ago. I replied to the tweet saying I wish I could go. Janie saw that I’m with Chick Lit Central, and asked if I would like to help out with the event, starting with recruiting some authors to attend and to moderate the panel. Well, I did and as they say...the rest is history.

The following authors made up the panel: Priscille Sibley, author of The Promise of Stardust, Beatriz Williams, author of A Hundred Summers, Lisa Takeuchi Cullen, author of Pastors’ Wives, Pamela Redmond, author of The Possibility of You, Christina Baker Kline, author of Orphan Train and Sally Koslow, author of The Widow Waltz.

The author panel part of the evening was set up like a talk show. I asked a question and in no certain order, the authors answered. Certain times a conversation arose, as opposed to me just firing off questions. Think of what you see on The View. Some of the questions I asked included:

• What do you consider a beach read? 
• What's one summer read you recommend? 
• What defines Chick Lit? 

It was interesting to hear that all of the authors, in one way or another, said a beach read has to be a form of escape, where the book will transport you to another world. I have to say I fully agree with this. As you can see from the pictures here, at the middle front of the room there was a display of yummy cupcakes, cookies and chocolates. How cool is the beach theme display? Do you see how the white shells spell out "read" in the brown sugar, that's acting as sand? 

The remainder of the evening consisted of refreshments (everyone dived into the goodies above), mingling, and book signings. Sweet Spirited Cupcakes provided the cupcakes, Cake It Up provided the cake stands, Dessert Boutique provided the cookies and The Bent Spoon provided the yummy sorbets. Check out this Examiner article for more details about the food.

It was such a pleasure working with Janie and the entire library staff while representing Chick Lit Central. 

With Priscille Sibley and Lisa Takeuchi Cullen

I hope to work on future events with the library and it would be great if there was a Beach Reads night next year.

If you'd like to see more pictures, click here.