91´«Ã½

PHILADELPHIA - The Association of Library Trustees, Advocates, Friends and Foundations (ALTAFF), a division of the 91´«Ã½ (91´«Ã½), will host “Tales from the Heart: Literary Memoirs” from 4 to 5:30 p.m. CDT on Saturday, June 25 at the 2011 91´«Ã½ Annual Conference in New Orleans.

Featured memoirists include Wendy McClure, Margaux Fragoso, Brianna Karp, Theresa Weir and Rachel Hadas. The program will be moderated by Barbara Hoffert, editor, Prepub Alert, Library Journal. An author book signing will follow. Some books will be given away, and others will be sold at a generous discount.

Wendy McClure (“The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie,” Penguin, April 2011) has been writing about her obsessions both online and in print for nearly a decade. She is the author of the 2005 memoir “I’m Not the New Me” and a columnist for BUST magazine, as well as a contributor to The New York Times Magazine. McClure, who holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, lives in Chicago, where she is a senior editor at the children’s book publisher Albert Whitman & Company.

Margaux Fragoso (“Tiger, Tiger,” Farrar, Straus & Giroux/Macmillan, March 2011) recently completed a PhD in English and creative writing at Binghamton University. Her short stories and poems have appeared in Literary Review and Barrow Street, among other literary journals.

Brianna Karp (“The Girl’s Guide to Homelessness: A Memoir,” Harlequin Nonfiction/Harlequin, May 2011) was raised in Orange County, Calif. She supported her mother and younger sister by working multiple jobs from age 12 to 18, when she left home for good. She enrolled in community college and worked her way from entry-level to an executive assistant at a major corporation, where, within a few years, she was earning $50,000, until being laid off from her job in 2008. She has become a passionate advocate and spokesperson for the homeless.

Theresa Weir (“The Orchard,” Grand Central Publishing/Hachette, Sept. 2011) is a USA Today best-selling author of 19 novels that have spanned the genres of suspense, mystery, thriller, romantic suspense and paranormal. Writing as Theresa Weir, she won a RITA for romantic suspense (“Cool Shade”) and the Daphne du Maurier Award (for “Bad Karma”). She has also published as Anne Frasier. Theresa spent 20 years living on a working apple farm and now divides her time between St. Paul, Minn., and a century-old Gothic church in rural Wisconsin.

Rachel Hadas (“Strange Relation: A Memoir of Marriage, Dementia, and Poetry,” Paul Dry Books/Consortium, Feb. 2011) is Board of Governors professor of English at Rutgers University in Newark, N.J. She is the author of many books, including “The River of Forgetfulness”,“Laws,” “Indelible” and “Halfway Down the Hall: New & Selected Poems.”

“Tales from the Heart: Literary Memoirs” will be held at the Morial Convention Center, Room 283. The event is free for conference attendees; for more information about registration options, visit . Those purchasing the Exhibits Plus package ($35) will have access to hundreds of vendors on the exhibits floor, plus programming on the PopTop Stage, the Opening General Session and all non-ticketed programs of ALTAFF, including “First Author, First Book.” For more information about “First Author, First Book” and other ALTAFF events at the 91´«Ã½ Annual Conference, visit .

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is a division of the 91´«Ã½ that supports citizens who govern, promote, advocate, and fundraise for libraries. ALTAFF brings together library Trustees, advocates, Friends, and Foundations into a partnership that creates a powerful force for libraries in the 21st century. For more information, visit , or contact Jillian Kalonick at (312) 280-2161 or jkalonick@ala.org