Authorama a Valentine’s treat for avid readers

Green Valley News

A Valentine’s Day treat awaits literary enthusiasts Feb. 14 as the fifth annual Authorama fundraiser comes to Green Valley.

More than 20 Southwestern authors will take part Saturday in this popular showcase from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at Valley Presbyterian Church, 2800 S. Camino del Sol.

The authors will be available to answer questions and autograph copies of their books. Several will give short presentations about their works.

Cost for the event, sponsored by the American Association of University Women, is $5. Tickets will be available at the door, and proceeds will provide grants and funds to women working toward advanced degrees.

The theme of this year’s Authorama is “Love to Write; Love to Read,” and two of the featured speakers have written about candy, but not just ordinary Valentine’s candy.

Gail S. Halversen, who winters in Southern Arizona, is a retired Air Force pilot who flew in the Berlin Airlift in 1948 and 1949 and distributed candy to children in Berlin. His book is titled “The Berlin Candy Bomber.”

Andrei Cherny, an Arizona criminal prosecutor who lives in Phoenix, also has written about the Candy Bomber in his new book, “The Candy Bombers: The Untold Story of the Berlin Airlift and America’s Finest Hour.”

Green Valley author Ned Lord served in the Navy aboard the USS Strong, DD758, a destroyer not unlike the fictional USS John R Chaise, the ship in his first novel.

Lord wrote articles for electronics, hobby and golf magazines before turning to fiction. “All the Guys are Bad Guys” was his second full-length novel. He has written a novella, “The Man who was Cremated Twice,” and recently finished the sequel to Andy Bowers’ first adventure, “An Opportunity for Revenge.”

Richard Johnsen recently illustrated a children’s bilingual book about Arizona’s monsoon rains, “Hip, Hip, Hooray, It’s Monsoon Day!” A retired teacher, he now works as a water colorist and acrylic painter has had his work in many art shows in Tucson, Tubac, Green Valley and Sahuarita.

Also attending will be Southwest mystery writer Rebecca Cramer, whose latest book in a series of three is “High Stakes at San Xavier.”

kwalenga@gvnews.com | 547-9739\

Who’s coming

A partial list of authors expected, their titles and who the books are for.

Byrd Baylor, “Everybody Needs a Rock,” children

Beverly Bear, “Strawberry Finds a Home,” children

Shannon Cain, co-editor, “Powder: Writing by Women in the Ranks”

Jack and Anna Childs, “Ambushed on the Jaguar Trail: Hidden Cameras on the Mexican Border”

Tim Flood, “Dreams of a Ball in Flight,” golf

Louise Gibbeson, “Madera Canyon”

Lynn Hassler, “Birds of the American Southwest”

Joan Lewis, “Madera Canyon Wildflowers,” field guide

Susan Lowell, “The Bootmaker and the Elves,” children

Fran Marian, “The Rug Broker,” fiction

Douglas Moore, “The Nature of Madera Canyon”

Chi Newman, “Farewell, My Beijing: The Long Journey from China to Tucson,” biography

Marilyn Pate, “The Green Gecko,” memoir

Carol St. John, “Little ways,” novel

Doris Steffy, “Our Mother, the Mortician,” biography

John Sweet, “Discovery at Prudhoe Bay,” biography

Evelyne Tannehill, “Abandoned and Forgotten,” biography

Janet Taylor, “The Healthy Southwest Table,” cookbook