LITERARY LIFE: Spring events for readers and writers

Spring is officially here, with plenty of local and nearby events for writers and book lovers alike.

Book lovers won’t want to miss this on

The 10th annual Ohioana Book Festival will take place on Saturday, April 8, 10:30 a.m.-5 p.m. at the Sheraton Columbus Hotel at Capitol Square, 75 E. State St., Columbus.

A number of notable Dayton-area and Cincinnati talents will be in attendance, including Young Adult authors Krysten Lindsay Hager, Lorie Langdon and Kristina McBride; novelists John Kachuba, Raul Ramos y Sanchez, Jessica Strawser and Jennifer Chiaverini, memoirist Kim Dinan, illustrator C.F. Payne, and many other writers and illustrators.

The festival welcomes nearly 100 authors and more than 3,000 visitors each year, and offers author talks, family activities and more.

For writers: Honing your art and craft

The 43rd annual Sinclair Community College Writers’ Workshop, “Writing for Transformation,” will take place on Monday, April 10, 11 a.m.-4:30 p.m. at the college’s Dayton Campus (444 W. Third St., Dayton), Building 7, Library Loggia.

The event is free and open to the public.

The featured speaker will be writer, attorney and activist Melody Moezzi, author of "Haldol and Hyacinths: A Bipolar Life" and "War on Error: Real Stories of American Muslims." Learn more about her at www.melodymoezzi.com. Her writing has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Christian Science Monitor, The Daily Beast, Al Arabiya, The South China Morning Post, Hürriyet, The Straits Times, Parabola and The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine, among many other outlets.

Also teaching will be local writers Omope Carter Daboiku, a storyteller and memoirist, whose prose and poetry are regularly featured in the Southern Appalachian Writers Collective Journal, and poet Grace Curtis, whose books include “The Shape of a Box” and “The Surly Bonds of Earth.”

For more information, contact workshop director Furaha Henry-Jones at furaha.henry-jones@sinclair.edu or call 937-512-3078.

RELATED: Writers’ Workshop offers spring seminar, summer scholarships.

Upcoming Literary Events

Sunday, April 2, 2 p.m., Wright Memorial Public Library, 1776 Far Hills Ave., Oakwood — Dr. Herbert Woodward Martin, poet and Professor Emeritus at University Dayton, performs the poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar, who was a friend of the Wright Brothers and the first African-American Poet to be nationally recognized for his literary work.

• Monday, April 3, 7 p.m., Books & Co. at The Greene — John Scalzi will introduce "The Collapsing Empire," the first novel of his new series set in an all-new universe. Line numbers will be distributed beginning at 6 p.m. Scalzi is the keynoter for the Antioch Writers' Workshop at University of Dayton's summer program, Saturday, July 8, and will also teach a session on creating writing craft on the morning of Sunday, July 9. The keynote is free and open to the public; the craft session has a registration fee. See www.antiochwritersworkshop.com for details.

Tuesday, April 4, 6:30 p.m., Books & Co. at The Greene — Cammie McGovern will introduce her children's novel, "Chester and Gus." The novel is billed as being reminiscent of "Because of Winn-Dixie," "Shiloh" and "Old Yeller."

Wednesday, April 5, 7 p.m., Books & Co. at The Greene — The bookstore will host a discussion of the Miami Valley's "Big Read" book, "The Wright Brothers," by David McCullough. Leading the discussion and sharing insights on the famous brothers will be Tim Gaffney, aviation author, and Dawne Dewey, Wright Brothers archivist at Wright State University Library.

Wednesday, April 5, 6:30 p.m., Wilmington Public Library, 268 N. South St., Wilmington — The library will host a free discussion of Amy Stewart's "Girl Waits With Gun, the 2017 Clinton County Reads selection.

Thursday, April 6, 5:30 p.m., General Denver Hotel, 81 W. Main St., Wilmington — Clinton County Reads selected Amy Stewart's "Girl Waits With Gun" as its county read for 2017. The author will visit Wilmington at a social gathering and dinner to discuss and celebrate her historical mystery novel at the General Denver. Call 937-383-4141 for reservations. Learn more about Amy Stewart at www.amystewart.com. Learn more about Clinton County Reads at www.wilmington.lib.oh.us/Clinton-county-reads

Friday, April 7, 7-8:30 p.m., Wright Memorial Public Library, 1776 Far Hills Ave., Oakwood — Writers' Café, a casual hang-out for writers ages 18 and up and of all experience levels, meets the first Friday (7 p.m.) and third Sunday (at 2:30) of each month.

Sunday, April 9, 2-3:30 p.m., Books & Co. at The Greene — Antioch Writers' Workshop at University of Dayton presents a free mini-seminar on writing poetry, in celebration of April as National Poetry Month. The program will be led by poet Jamey Dunham, author of the poetry collection "The Bible of Lost Pets," and co-editor of the text, "An Introduction to the Prose Poem. Learn more about the workshop's programs at www.antiochwritersworkshop.com.

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