Great Basin Book Festival events

Mary Sojourner
Author and environmental activist Mary Sojourner will conduct a writing workshop titled, “Writing from Shadow and Neon,” 3 p.m. Sept. 20; all writers, both published and unpublished, are invited to attend. Sundance Bookstore, 1155 W. Fourth St., Suite 106; call Jennifer at 786-0540 to reserve a seat. Free.

Earnest Gaines
Earnest Gaines, author of A Lesson Before Dying, will give the festival’s keynote address, followed by a book signing, 7:30 p.m. Sept. 20. Nightingale Concert Hall, Church Fine Arts Complex, University of Nevada, Reno. $10.

Family Fun Faire
Children can enjoy stories, including African tales read by Nigerian children’s book author Slade Njoku and storyteller Abayomi Goodall, and participate in games, 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Wingfield Park, corner of West First and Arlington streets. Free.

Book Appraisal Clinic
Have books, letters and manuscripts professionally appraised for their value and history, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Sept. 21; limit of six items per person. Wingfield Park, corner of West First and Arlington streets. $5 for each item appraised; $10 for three items.

Booksellers’ Marketplace
Browse through hundreds of books and meet authors John R. Campbell, Nikki Tate, David J. Strohmaier, Ann Ronald, Jimmy Lerner, Danielle Campbell, Sherril Steele-Carlin and Dale Brown, 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Sept. 21. Wingfield Park, corner of West First and Arlington streets. Free. Call 327-8360 for more information.

Leonard Nimoy
The festival’s second keynote speaker, Leonard Nimoy, will present ideas from his book of photographs, Shekhina, and from A Lifetime of Love: Poems on the Passages of Life, 7:30 p.m. Sept. 21 at Nightingale Concert Hall, Church Fine Arts Complex, University of Nevada, Reno. $10. Nimoy’s art will be on display through Sept. 27 at Sierra Arts Gallery in the Riverside Artists Lofts, 17 S. Virginia St.

Meet the authors

Dale Brown: (Appearing at Booksellers’ Marketplace). A former U.S. Air Force captain, Brown is the author of Flight of the Old Dog, Day of the Cheetah, Chains of Command and many other military thrillers. The New York Times bestselling author lives in Nevada, where he can often takess to the skies, piloting his own plane.

John R. Campbell: (Appearing at Booksellers’ Marketplace). Campbell’s poems and essays have appeared in numerous magazines and journals including Poetry, the Georgia Review, the Threepenny Review and Sewanee Review. Since moving west from Chicago in the 1970s, he has lived in California, Oregon and Utah and has worked as a ranch-hand, tree planter, migrant camp teacher, railroad worker, high school teacher, poetry editor and university instructor. Absence and Light is his first book.

Leonard Nimoy: (Keynote Speaker, Nightingale Concert Hall, Sept. 21). OK, so we all know the name … but he’s much more than the guy who used to play Spock. In addition to being an actor and director, Nimoy is a recording artist, photographer and author of two autobiographies and several volumes of poetry. Shekhina, due out next month, combines his photographs of the female form with an essay by Donald Kuspit.

Jimmy Lerner: (Appearing at Booksellers Marketplace). It’s not a book for the squeamish … but if you’re intrigued by tales from an ugly experiences in the Nevada prison system, Lerner’s first book, You Got Nothing Coming: Notes from a Prison Fish, may make for a fascinating read. Lerner, who grew up in Brooklyn and has been a cab driver, Army infantry sergeant and Pacific Bell marketing executive, now lives in Reno after serving time for a voluntary manslaughter conviction. He has appeared on the CBS Early Show with Bryant Gumbel. Forthcoming books include The Therapy Isn’t Working, a sequel to his first book, and a book of poems titled It’s All Part of the Punishment.

Ann Ronald: The woman largely responsible for bringing a Literature and Environment graduate program to Reno, Ronald is a Foundation Professor of English at the University of Nevada, Reno. Her works of literary criticism include a book on Edward Abbey’s writing—but she currently prefers to write nonfiction about the West. Her books include Earthtones: A Nevada Album, with photographs by Stephen Trimble, and her latest book, GhostWest: Reflections Past and Present, which explores places haunted by history.

David J. Strohmaier: Author of Seasons of Fire, Strohmaier is a public comment analyst with the U.S. Forest Service. His most recent research focuses on fire and the concept of loss. Strohmaier’s articles and essays have been published in Wildfire Magazine and Ecological Restoration.

Nikki Tate: She’s got the guts to step into the shoes of a Pony Express rider. Tate’s newest book, Jo’s Triumph, is a short historical novel about a girl disguised as a boy who rides for the Pony Express. Tate, who lives in Victoria, British Columbia, didn’t stop with writing a book about the postal riders—she rode horseback across Nevada in early September to deliver two hundred letters from Canadian students, picking up replies from Nevada students on her way west from Ely. The performer, freelance writer and children’s novelist is author of the Tarragon Island novels and the Stablemates series.