Local Quad Cities authors to support independent bookstores on Small Business Saturday

The QC Book Rack, an independent bookstore with locations in Davenport and Moline, and 918studio, an independent literary press in LeClaire, have teamed up to participate in Indies First and are promoting a local author event for Small Business Saturday sponsored by the American Booksellers Association (ABA).   

Quad City area local authors, Ann Boaden, Sean Leary, Cindy McDermott, Jane Reinhardt-Martin, Lilly Setterdahl, Jodie Toohey, Robin Throne, Connie Corcoran Wilson, Karin Youngberg, and illustrator William Hannan will join about 700 authors across the U.S. at more than 400 independent bookstores to make appearances at the Book Rack locations on Saturday, November 30, to sign books, recommend books, and talk about books in support of independent bookstores. An interactive map of the event can be viewed at http://www.indiebound.org/indies-first   

The QC Book Rack offers a local author section at both stores and other local authors will also have their book recommendations on display for holiday shoppers. McDermott, Toohey, and Throne will be at the Davenport store, and Boaden, Hannan, Leary, Reinhardt-Martin, Setterdahl, Wilson, and Youngberg will make appearances at the Moline store.

Economic indicators have shown independent bookstores have begun a new chapter in a shifting bookselling climate when compared to the past decade. The ABA reported that since 2009 more independent bookstores have opened than closed in America.  In September, the noted Native American writer, Sherman Alexie, called for local authors to use Small Business Saturday to support independent bookstores in turn for their ongoing support of both authors and readers.  

Get a Manuscript Makeover at the fall Pen in Hand

Fall 2013 Pen in Hand mini-Conference
Saturday, October 5th
9am-5pm
Midwest Writing Center



Ann Boaden

The Midwest Writing Center’s Fall 2013 Pen In Hand mini writing conference is designed to help writers begin to get their partially or completely finished manuscripts ready for submission to agents or publishers. Those who just want to listen are also encouraged to attend. The conference will be held on Saturday, October 5th, and will feature four different workshops held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Nancy Ann Schaefer

Participants may sign up for one workshop, two, three, or all four. Discounts are offered for members and those who register before September 28th. For instructor bios, further details and information about how to register, click on the link above or visit Pen In Hand under the “Events & Opportunities” drop down menu at the MWC web site. All sessions are held on the third floor of Bucktown Center for the Arts at 225 E. 2nd Street in downtown Davenport.

The four sessions include:


Daniel Horne

“Put the YOU in Your Work: Voice & Style” with Ann Boaden and will help participants learn the differences and similarities between voice and style and begin their journeys to find their personal writing voices.

“The Great Battle: Show vs. Tell” with Nancy Ann Schaefer will help attendees learn how to recognize when they are telling rather than showing and what to do to reverse it.

“Polishing Pointers: Editing and Proofreading” with DanielHorne will help people look at their work on the micro level and correct any grammar, punctuation, and mechanical mistakes. 




Katie Ganshert

“Query Quandaries: Research Agents/Publishers and Submit Your Work” with Katie Ganshert will help participants find agents or publishers to whom they can submit work and teach them how to write a query letter.

December's Featured Author: Ann Boaden

December’s featured author is Ann Boaden, co-author of two young adult novels, short fiction, and creative non-fiction, including her most recent work, Light and Leaven: Women Who Shaped Augustana’s First Century, published by the Augustana Historical Society in 2011. Light and Leaven contains portraits of women who changed the character of Augustana College by their vision, energy, and dauntless love, set within the historical context in which they lived and worked.

Ann was inspired to write Light and Leaven by the fact no one had devoted significant time and research to tell the stories of Augustana’s women. She wanted to tell those stories and the more she researched and the more she dug out materials from the crumbling boxes and yellowed papers and journals of the past, the more the women became alive for her and the more she came to know, admire, and love them.

Under the name of Ann Young with co-author, Karin Youngberg, Ann has published two young adult novels: The Nine Days Wonder published by East Hall Press in 2002 and The Mysteryof the Singing Mermaid originally published by Weekly Reader Books in 1987. The Nine Days Wonder is a lively adventure story set in Shakespeare’s England that tells the story of the journey of a boy’s growing up with all the color, mystery, and danger of Elizabeth England. The Mystery of the Singing Mermaid tells the story of a smart, spunky teenager who sets out to answer the questions of what’s going on in a spooky old mansion with a possible ghost, and who stole the antiques from the mansion.

For as long as Ann could remember, she’s loved telling, hearing and reading stories, becoming a part of the story, acting it out, finding friends and even parts of her in the characters. So it wasn’t a big jump from there to wanting to make up her own stories, invent her own characters, and later, exploring real people from history and trying to make them come alive in her own words. When she is not writing, Ann works as a professor of English Literature and Creative Writing at Augustana College. She also likes to act, walk, and experiment with cooking.

Ann will be at Midwest Writing Center December 8th from 1 to 3 p.m., reading from, signing, and selling Light and Leaven as part of MWC’s and Bettendorf Public Library’s Read Local Program. It is the last installment of the series for 2012.

For aspiring writers, Ann offers this advice: “Be bloody, bold, and resolute! Well, maybe not bloody, but certainly bold and resolute. It’s not an easy calling, but if it’s yours, there’s none more intensely important than shaping experience with words. You must be persistent, patient, and most of all, you must be wiling to work at the craft and art of writing, draft after draft, revision after revision.”