INFORMATION RELEASE           


Media Contacts:

Karen Sloan, Library Development Specialist

(239) 461-2914 or ksloan@leegov.com

 

Heather O’Connell, Community Relations Coordinator

(239) 461-2924 or hoconnell@leegov.com

 

Stuart Woods Headlines ’08 Southwest Florida Reading Festival

FORT MYERS, Fla., February 11, 2008 – One of contemporary fiction’s most celebrated authors will greet fans and speak about his 28-year career at the 9th Annual Southwest Florida Reading Festival on Saturday, March 15. Stuart Woods, a prolific writer of three-dozen novels, is the keynote speaker and one of more than 25 acclaimed authors scheduled to appear.

 

The Lee County Library System presents the area’s premiere literary event at the Harborside Event Center and Centennial Park in the Fort Myers River District. The free event runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and promotes reading as the community participates in outdoor programs for all ages and accesses the wealth of resources available at Lee County public libraries.

 

Woods, a part-time Key West resident, catapulted to fame with his award-winning novel Chiefs – which chronicles the efforts of three Georgia police chiefs who each work to solve a 40-year-old mystery. In the 1980s, Charlton Heston led an all-star cast in a television miniseries adapted from the book. Woods will autograph copies of his books following his 2:30 p.m. presentation in Room A1 of the Harborside Event Center (1375 Monroe St.).

 

Other authors on tap to speak and conduct book signings include Angelo Dundee (Muhammad Ali’s personal trainer and author of My View from the Corner) and Colombian novelist Gustavo Bolivar Moreno (Without Breasts There is No Paradise).

 

“Each year is a challenge to give attendees something exciting and different,” said Karen Sloan, Reading Festival coordinator. “We’ve really done it this year with a good mix of programs and an impressive roster of big-name writers from various genres.”

 

Thousands of booklovers are expected to crowd into downtown Fort Myers to meet today’s literary giants and to participate in Reading Festival activities: live entertainment, demonstrations of online library resources and more for adults; a full day of storytelling programs for young children; and presentations from graphic novelists and young adult authors for teens, too. Every child may even receive one free book to take home.

 

For more information about the Southwest Florida Reading Festival, call (239) 337-READ or visit www.lee-county.com\library.