Local authors to speak at Swampscott library

SWAMPSCOTT – Technology allows authors to circumvent traditional publishing houses, now the Swampscott Public Library is helping authors with the most important part of becoming a successful writer – getting their works read.”We have a lot of people who have written books and will come in and have a book reading – but we like to have a decent crowd, and we sometimes only draw two or three people,” said Public Library Director Alyce Deveau. So the library decided to bring multiple authors in at once. “So now an author says ?I know a few people who want to hear me,’ and another person brings in a few people who want to hear them, and that’s how you get a crowd coming.”Nine local authors will visit the Swampscott Public Library on Monday evening to draw that crowd. Each will be given 15 minutes to explain their book, and then there will be a question-and-answer period, according to Deveau. She said that this is the second time that the library has held a forum with multiple and diverse authors. The goal is to increase exposure for both the authors and the members of the audience.”Sometimes you don’t know about the first all-black basketball team at Omaha Central,” Deveau said providing an example of the subject of one of the books to be discussed on Monday. “Each [author] sells a few books ? and It does open up doors to people who don’t know about it.”Author Steve Marantz wrote about that basketball team in “The Rhythm Boys of Omaha Central.” The Swampscott resident attended that high school and describes his book as “a story about a high school basketball team in 1968 that collided with political and social trauma.”It details the first race riot in the United States that occurred in 1968, a state high school basketball tournament, and a visit from the pro-segregation third-party presidential candidate George Wallace.He is joined by Carol Coen and Bettie Hamilton, the co-authors of Artists in the Kitchen: a Marblehead Seafood Cookbook.”It sort of reflects what daily conversation is like,” Marantz said. “Conversations tends to be eclectic and disconnected and so it doesn’t strike me as all that unusual.”It may be an unusual conversation, however, according to the authors listed in a press release sent by Deveau.There will be advice offered by great philosophers, poets and political and religious leaders when Michael Hickey describes his compendium Get Wisdom. Marbleheader Jean Hamburg will offer more contemporary advice stemming from her work as a social worker in Cooperation Counts! : Life-Saving Strategies for Parenting Toddler to Teens.Swampscott author Nancy Shultz provides a history lesson detailing the intersection of faith, science, politics and – perhaps – a charlatan, in her book “Mrs. Mattingly’s Miracle: The Prince, the Widow and the Cure that Shocked Washington City.”Dale Stanten also focuses on a woman who shocked a community: But this woman was Stanten’s mother and a prostitute n which Stanten recounts in her memoir “The Hooker’s Daughter.”And those are just the nonfiction booksSomerville author Clea Simon will promote the intuition of a cat in the first book of the Pru Marlowe ?pet noir’ mystery series “Dogs Don’t Lie.”Rozi Theohari will read her poetry.”It will be very interesting, and I think it’s wonderful to be able to share our various interests and expertise,” said Hamburg. “We’ve put our hearts and souls into our books, so it’s a wonderful opportunity to be able to share our enthusiasm.”Simon agreed that it would be interesting – at the very least.”It will either be a madhouse or a lot of fun,” she said. “But either way it will be interesting.”