January 11th Author Event at Page 158 Books
By Darian Kiener, Editorial Assistant
From left to right- Joey Powell, Sue Anger, Susan Beckham Zurenda, Dean Tryon
On January 11th 2024, I had the pleasure to attend a Local Author Event organized by Wake Forest’s local independent bookstore, Page 158. The event opened with a meet and greet where each of the authors met with family, friends, and book lovers. Guests were invited to peruse the shelves of Page 158, or purchase a snack or refreshment from The Lemon Tree Cafe. Then, we settled comfortably into Page 158’s nonfiction and cafe section, which has ample accessible seating and makes for a very comfortable listening environment.
Each author was given ten minutes to present their books and take questions from the audience. Sue Anger, a Wake Forest local, presented her debut novel, Last Known Port, a historical mystery based in Beaufort North Carolina during the Prohibition era. When I read the blurb for this book before attending the event, I got excited. The gangsters and bootleggers of the prohibition era had always fascinated me, and I had to assume that anything based in this time period would touch on that aspect of life, especially given that this book is a mystery about a man searching for his missing brother. I am very excited to open this one up.
Susan Beckham Zurenda, a retired South Carolina teacher and award-winning author, presented her second novel The Girl From the Red Rose Hotel, a literary novel that tests the waters of shifting perspectives; moving between the budding romance of an unexpected pair, and the life of their “Stern but compassionate English teacher,” (Zurenda), who is a witness to their journey and someone looking to help both students progress in life. I am excited about this story because I am intrigued by the potential for growth in the characters presented by Zurenda, I believe that this focus on the effects of the characters' compassion and love for one another will result in a very moving story, and I am excited to read it.
Joey Powell, a Wake Forest-based creative with experience as an actor, screenwriter, and podcaster, also shared his debut novel Nightmares from the Gray, a YA horror novel inspired by the likes of Deathnote (the Netflix film), Stranger Things (the Netflix Original Series), and the novel, Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare. This book interested me because in my last semester at UNC Greensboro, I took a class about young adult literature, and I found that this genre is more than worthy of close study. The messages hidden within young adult fiction are just as powerful for adults as they are for children, so I am very excited to read this book and find out what Powell has to say.
Dean Tryon showcased his debut book, Fundamental Carburetion. This non-fiction work is about how carburetors worked within automobiles, from the age of the Model-T all the way up through the 1990’s when carburetors were replaced with fuel injectors. I am excited for this because growing up, one of my favorite things to do was repair my car whenever it needed it (and also when it didn’t) and that learning experience was invaluable to me. Though my car was a 2006 Mitsubishi Eclipse and did not have a carburetor, I am nonetheless excited to learn about an essential car part from a previous era.
Once each author had their time to present and take questions, the audience once again mingled with the authors and had the opportunity to buy signed copies of each novel. It was a very welcoming experience, and each of the authors were more than happy to talk about their books, their experience writing them, and their inspirations behind them.
I felt that this event was a great inspiration to me as a writer and would be for other writers as well, for events like these show aspiring writers that their dream of writing a book is possible and worth pursuing. It was also fascinating as a reader to hear authors discuss their craft. If you were to walk away from an event like this with any of the authors' books, you would gain a greater understanding of the person behind the story as well as insights into the work you may have otherwise missed. I invite the readers and contributors of The Wake Forest Review to venture out to author events like this one so that you may get to know the literary side of your community and perhaps be inspired in much the same way I was.
It is my hope that I get to interview these wonderful authors once I have read and reviewed their works. Those reviews and interviews will also be found here.
These authors’ works can be found at Page 158 and on their websites:
Joeypowellcreative.mystrikingly.com
Darian Kiener is an author and poet from Wake Forest, NC who joined The Wake Forest Review team in January 2024 as an Editorial Assistant. He graduated in December of 2023 with a B.A in English from the University of North Carolina Greensboro. His writing has been featured in The Coraddi Fine Arts Magazine, Atlantis Creative Magazine, and The Wake Forest Review, along with a few others. In his free time, he enjoys watching and playing hockey, reading, cooking and learning. Some of his interests include astronomy, history, and philosophy. He has high hopes to get accepted into graduate school to study post-modern literature and poetry.