Sacramento Public Library honors local authors
Two ARC professors, along with 38 other northern Calif. authors, are being honored by the Sacramento Public Library Foundation in an event called “Authors On The Move”.
This year’s theme, “There is Still the Story,” marks the 11th annual presentation of the premier literary event. The two alums being honored are Math Professor Anthony Barcellos, who wrote “Land of Milk and Honey,” and English Professor Christian Kiefer, who wrote “The Infinite Tides.”
The event will be held Saturday, March 9, 2013, from 5-9 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency Sacramento, and is billed as, “Sacramento’s premier literary event,” by the foundation. The guests are provided with a champagne reception, a four course meal, unlimited wine, conversations with three local authors at their table, a keynote presentation by author Gail Tsukiyama, and a live auction.
The theme, “There is Still the Story,” emphasizes the importance of stories. The “Authors on the Move” website states, “Telling stories, writing stories and reading stories enrich our culture and enrich our lives generation over generation.”
“There are tons of amusing, entertaining, and tragic stories in my family’s history and folklore,” said Barcellos. “I like telling stories, as does much of my family, and I wanted to capture and preserve some of those tales in book form. I chose to fictionalize the stories in a novel so that I would have the freedom to invent and modify details. That let me create a big narrative arc with a beginning and end.”
Barcellos is a Calif. native who grew up on his grandfather’s dairy farm in Porterville, Calif. His first language is Portuguese, and his novel reflects on his experience growing up in an American and Portuguese lifestyle.
Kiefer is an active poet, songwriter, and recording artist. “There’s a rich vocabulary there that I was interested in exploring,” he said when asked what inspired him to write the book he was being honored. “My fellow Author-on-the-Move, Tony Barcellos, was kind enough to help me with that vocabulary.”
The Sacramento Public Library Foundation has supported local libraries for many years. The Foundation’s website states that it “was created as a nonprofit corporation in 1984 to encourage support for the benefit of the Sacramento Public Library. Foundation funding complements, but does not supplant, the city and county responsibility for library operations.”
“I’m quite happy to be included in this gathering of miscreants and ne’er-do-wells,” said Kiefer. “Libraries are important and need our support.”
