Location change for December 15, 2018 only:
Gwinnett County Public Library, 4817 Church St NW, Lilburn, GA 30047 (GSU-Dunwoody campus closed for winter break)
- Nosh & Networking in library meeting room: 12:30-1:30 p.m.
- Meeting in library meeting room: 1:30-4:00 p.m.
1:30-1:45 p.m.
Club Business, Upcoming Events, and Announcements
1:45-2:00 p.m.
Ray Dan Parker, December 2018 member-minute speaker:
“My Journey as a Novelist”
As a student at the University of Georgia, Ray Dan Parker studied literature and history and worked for local and campus newspapers. It was there that he first developed his love of writing. Mr. Parker’s fiction career began with the publication of his debut novel, Unfinished Business, a murder mystery set in 1968 in rural Florida. Fly Away, his second novel, takes place more recently in the Atlanta area.
2:00-2:45 p.m.
Phillippe Diederich, December 2018 guest speaker:
“Writing that Introduces Readers to Other Cultures”
Phillippe Diederich is the author of the novels Playing for the Devil’s Fire (Cinco Puntos Press, 2016), which was named the 2017 Best Young Adult novel by the Texas Institute of Letters and 2017 Young Adult Library Services Association Best Fiction for Young Adults; and Sofrito (Cinco Puntos Press, 2015). His short fiction has been published in national literary journals including Quarterly West, Acentos Review, Burrow Press, Hobart and others.
In 2017 he was awarded the PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship. He also is the recipient of the Chris O’Malley Prize for Fiction from the Madison Review, an Elizabeth George Foundation Grant, a Florida Individual Artist Fellowship in Literature from the Florida Department of Cultural Affairs, and a John Ringling Towers Grant in Literature from the Sarasota County Artist Alliance.
Mr. Diederich is the son of Haitian exiles, born in the Dominican Republic and raised in Mexico City and Miami. In the 1990’s he worked as a photojournalist covering news and feature assignments in the U.S. and Latin America for national publications such as The New York Times, U.S. News & World Report, and many others. He holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of South Florida.
2:45-4:00 p.m.
Holiday party and book-signings for Ray Dan Parker and Phillippe Diederich in library meeting room.