Hill Country Authors Series Speaker May 8

Amanda Eyre Ward, author of the critically-acclaimed novel Forgive Me, will speak at the Georgetown Public Library on Thursday, May 8. Ward’s talk is part of Hill Country Authors series sponsored by the Friends of the Georgetown Public Library. Published last year, Forgive Me, is inspired by the true story of Amy Biehl, an American Fulbright Scholar teaching in South Africa at the end of the apartheid period. Biehl was viciously stoned to death as she drove her student home from class.

Forgive Me is a “powerful and fast-paced novel…. An acute, sharp-angled love story with a rare sense of history,” according to Kirkus Reviews. The novel was similarly praised in a starred review in Booklist: “Upon finishing Ward’s tantalizingly spare yet precisely powerful novel, readers will want to start all over again, looking for the clues they missed the first time around when Ward, like a cunning magician, so deftly led them astray.”

Ms. Ward won the Violet Crown Award in 2003 for her first novel, Sleep Toward Heaven. That book and her second, How to Be Lost, are both categorized as “psychological fiction,” evidence of Ward’s interest in developing strong characters and examining relationships. While the topics of these books, chance relationships among women and family disfunctionality, might appeal to readers of lighter chick lit, Ward’s fine prose and unexpected plot twists reward all readers.

After living several places on the East Coast, studying in Kenya and teaching in Greece, Ms. Ward studied fiction writing at the University of Montana, where she completed her MFA and met geologist Tip Meckel, whom she married in 2000. She now has two young sons and lives and works in Austin.

Ms. Ward’s talk on May 8 begins at 2 p.m. in the upstairs community room at the Georgetown Public Library. Desserts and beverages served by the Red Poppy Café are included. Copies of Ward’s books will be for sale. Tickets, which are $13 in advance and $15 at the door, may be purchased at the Second-Hand Prose used book store in the library, or by calling Louise Beyer at (512) 635-3447. Proceeds of the fundraiser will be used to support unbudgeted projects at the library. The Georgetown Public Library is located at 402 W. Eighth Street.