Is there a story in you that needs to be told, but you don't know how to get it out?  

You were able to get your story out on a manuscript... now what's next?

Are you a reader looking to discover your next exciting page-turner?

If any of the above describes you—this event is for you.  On October 8, 2016,  the Bronx Library Center will be joining  libraries across North America  in the Inaugural Indie Author Day—an event  designed to bring the local writing community together. The Indie Author Fair at the Bronx Library Center will occur on October 8, 2016, Saturday from 1-5 PM and  will feature a variety of authors from the Bronx and beyond.  

Here is the event plan for the day:

1-2 PM - Author presentations

2-3 PM - Live Webstream: 

Join industry leaders as they offer up guidance and insight to local writers.

Whether you’re new to the writing world or are a literary veteran, you know that there is much to be learned from people all across the industry. For the first time in a global panel presentation, leaders from the literary technology world, a librarian, a leader in review publications, publishing experts and writers will all come together to offer inspiration and advice to your local indie community.

Moderator:  Jon Fine, a First Amendment attorney, is best known in the publishing industry as the longtime Director of Author and Publisher Relations for Amazon. He left that position at the beginning of 2015 after almost a decade with the company, and now is consulting in professional online and traditional media and e-commerce, both in legal and business affairs.

Panelists:

Robin Cutler - she  began her career in publishing over 30 years ago and is currently the Director of IngramSpark.

Kiera Parrott - Reviews Director for School Library Journal and Library Journal.

Jim Blanton - Assistant Director of the Chesapeake Public Library, Virginia

L. Penelope -  Author of  Song of Blood & Stone,  which won the 2016 Self-Publishing eBook Award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association.

3-5 PM - Author presentations continue

Some of the participating authors include:

(Bios and summaries provided by the authors)

Annette Libeskind Berkovits

Annette Libeskind Berkovits was born in Kyrgyzstan and grew up in postwar Poland and the fledgling state of Israel before coming to America at age sixteen. In her three-decade career with the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York, she spearheaded the institution’s nationwide and worldwide science education programs. The National Science Foundation has recognized her outstanding leadership in the field. Now retired, she is pursuing her life-long love of writing. 

Her first memoir, In the Unlikeliest of Places, a story of her remarkable father’s survival, was published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press in September 2014. Berkovits has completed two other non-fiction manuscripts and is working on a poetry collection as well as a novel.

Rebecca Brooks

Rebecca Brooks lives in New York City in an apartment filled with books. She received a PhD in English but decided it was more fun to write books than write about them.

She has backpacked alone through India and Brazil, traveled by cargo boat down the Amazon River, climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, explored ice caves in Peru, trekked to the source of the Ganges, and sunbathed in Burma, but she always likes coming home to a cold beer and her hot husband in the Bronx.

Rebecca is the author of Above All, How to Fall, and Make Me Stay, sexy romance novels about independent women who love to travel and the rugged, outdoorsy men they fall for.

Valencia Clay

Valencia D. Clay is a teacher of Humanities in Harlem, NY. She is a co-founder of the Flourishing Blossoms Society for Girls, Inc. and the author of Soundless Cries Don't Lead to Healing. Through social media and her blog, ValenciasGarden.com, she is leading our generation to empower themselves through literacy and learning.

Soundless Cries Don't Lead to Healing: A Critical Thinking Guide to Cultural Consciousness pushes the reader to be honest with who they are and how their personal experiences have shaped their perceptions of others. It is a resource for analyzing current events related to social justice, race, equity, and other provocative topics that one may find themselves in too much of a perplexed state of silence to discuss. It includes tools for self-reflection, inquiry, and engaging in productive discourse.

Marion Cuba

Marion Cuba worked as a writer in advertising, promotion, and nonprofit fundraising. She served as editor of the New York Chapter Hadassah Newsletter. And, for many years, she was an Adult Literacy Tutor. She attended Brandeis University and the University of Michigan, earning a degree in English Literature.

Cuba first learned about the Shanghai Ghetto nine years ago on a trip to China. Born Marion Liniado, she is half-Sephardic (Jews who fled the Spanish Inquisition to such countries as Turkey, Iraq, and Syria). On a ferry bound for Hong Kong, she overheard a conversation about a man named Kadoorie—a name she recognized as Sephardic—who had lived in Shanghai with several other families during World War II. She was fascinated, and did further research upon returning home.  "What ignited me," says Cuba, "was the fateful reason that these 20,000 people happened to be given refuge in this unlikely place." With Hitler having announced the Jews stateless, there was this one haven that would take them without a visa. "I knew I had to explore this in a novel."

Barbara Donsky

When Barbara's mother disappears, no one tells the young girl that her mother has died. Her father is intent upon erasing any memory of his dead wife. Forced to keep the truth of her mother’s existence from her younger brother, Barbara struggles to keep from being crushed under the weight of family secrets as she comes of age and strives to educate herself despite her father’s stance against women's education. A coming-of-age tale of loss and resilience, the memoir shows the healing power of literature to offer hope where there is little.  

Barbara Donsky was honored as ‘Woman of the Year’ by the Boys and Girls Club for her 'public-spirited contributions advancing the general welfare of the community.’ She is working with the National Alliance for Grieving Children to donate a portion of the proceeds from her book sales. She lives in Manhattan.

Martha E. Hughes

M.E. Hughes has guided and edited a small army of writers since receiving her MFA in creative writing from Bennington College. In 1991, she founded the nonprofit Peripatetic Writing Workshop, Inc. She has taught creative writing at New York University for many years and is also a freelance book doctor/editor. She has published two nonfiction books and the novel, Precious In His Sight (Viking Penguin). 

Letting Go is a fascinating collection of life stories told by 30 authors from seven countries. They write of their attempts to move beyond crippling grief, free themselves of haunting memories, get out from under abusive relationships. They tell of their struggles—often painful, sometimes funny—to let go of everything from a fear of horses, to old family homes, and piles of books and papers.  The essays range in tone from comedic to the deeply moving and serious, and the subjects are varied—from letting go of trying to be the "perfect mother," to letting go of early sexual abuse. Others wrote about trying to let go of spouses or children because of divorce or death or children simply growing up and leaving home.

David Lamb

This retelling of A Christmas Carol has nothing to do with the holidays: Ebenezer Scrooge has been re-cast Scrooʝe Ebonyzer, music's biggest superstar and biggest jerk—handsome, brilliant, devious, and obsessed. Belle is a take-no-prisoners legal shark whose beauty causes traffic accidents as she stylishly zips through Manhattan. They never imagined being music's most powerful couple, but that's exactly what happened when Belle fell head over heels and gave the biggest nerd on her campus the ultimate makeover—only to realize too late she'd created a chart topping monster with an unstoppable ego. Now it's been three years since they've spoken, but tonight at Hollywood's biggest red carpet event, they'll be given a second chance. Will Scrooʝe listen to the ghostly advice of Marley, his best friend who (until his untimely drowning at a Brazilian poolside birthday bash) was as big a star as Scrooʝe? Will he finally do right by Cratchit, a genius comedian, whom Scrooʝe invariably rips off every chance he gets? And most important of all—will Belle even give him a chance? Masterfully blending heart, soul, bling and romance, this fresh satire about race, class, and celebrity worship will have readers laughing, thinking, and enjoying themselves from the first page to the last, all year round.

Like Charles Dickens, DAVID LAMB grew up a poor boy in the big city who discovered that the pen really is mightier than the sword. Growing up in New York City, David went on to attend graduate school at Princeton University and NYU School of Law. While working as a lawyer by day, at night David transformed into a writer and eventually wrote and produced the award-winning hit off-Broadway play "Platanos Y Collard Greens."

Carmen D. Lucca

Born in Puerto Rico,Carmen D. Lucca is a bilingual poet, translator of the first collection of Julia de Burgos’poetry. Ms. Lucca, whose poetry has been published in Ireland, Latin America, Puerto Rico and the United States, is listed in the the Directory of American Poets & Writers. Her awards include the Palma Julia de Burgos, a Silver Medal from the Academie des Arts, Sciences et Lettres, Paris, France, a 108th Wing Essential Piece for her contribution to the National Hispanic Heritage Month events honoring Julia de Burgos at McGuire Air Base, and a Disney Teacher Award Nomination. Ms. Lucca’s most recent books are The Sunset Watcher, a collection of poetic meditations based on her observations of life and The Diary of Julia de Burgos and Other Simple Truths, a book based on research and investigation of the poet’s true biography. The book aims to shatter myths, legends and slander built around the life of Julia de Burgos.

Lavie Margolin 

Lavie Margolin is the author of Winning Answers to 500 Interview Questions, an Amazon Kindle #1 Best Seller for Job Interviewing. Lavie holds a B.S. degree in Marketing from Yeshiva University, and an MA in adult learning from SUNY Empire State. He’s regularly quoted in mainstream media, having been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and CNN.com. Lavie uses his background in marketing and adult learning, his expert knowledge of LinkedIn and over a decade of experience in career coaching to help individuals and businesses identify and reach their goals.

Winning Answers to 500 Interview Questions is a comprehensive resource to job interviewing success. It not only features nearly any question that you can be asked on an interview but insight into why the question is being asked as well as a sample answer for each question.

Stephen Morris

With degrees in medieval history and theology from Yale and St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Academy, Stephen Morris brings his extensive knowledge and meticulous research in medieval magical practices to all his historical-urban fantasy writing. In each of his novels, the magical and fantastic elements are all drawn from authentic occult beliefs and practices from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance or from local legends and folklore. 

"LIBAHUNT!" Alexei breaks the terms of the wolf-magic he inherited from his grandfather and loses the ability to control the shapeshifting. His grandfather's magical wolf-pelt was meant to protect their rural village in 1880s Estonia by fighting the terrible storms in the sky but instead, it drives Alexei to kill, slaughtering his neighbors, his friends —even his family. Heartbroken, Alexei flees his home in search of an enchanter to free him from this hideous curse. Wandering through Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Bohemia, he encounters the Master of Wolves, who forces Alexei to terrorize and murder the local farmers, and the infamous Frau Bertha who traps all those who anger her by turning them into wolves. Will Alexei find a sorceror who can free him?