New York Times (NYT) bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones to visit Alpena
Trending
ALPENA -- New York Times (NYT) Bestselling Author Stephen Graham Jones will make an appearance at the Alpena County Library for a special Q&A on Friday. Jones is known for his thrillers based on Blackfeet indigenous characters, such as The Only Good Indians, The Buffalo Hunter, and his newest book Off the Reservation, which is a sequel to The Only Good Indians.
The Alpena County Library will host Jones at the Alpena Community College (ACC) Granum Theatre on Friday at 7 p.m. Tickets cost $25 per person and are available at alpenalibrary.org/events#/events/yuahZADYPR/instances/GR3KbVEClS/.
Alpena County Library Executive Director Christina Markowski said the library budgets to bring in visiting authors every other year as a way to engage with the community.
"Every other year, the library tries to bring in a popular author," she said. "It's a way for the community to meet a well known author, one who they read their books."
Markowski said that the library decided to bring Jones to Alpena because they haven't featured a horror novelist yet. She said that library staff members have read some of Jones' books and a few local book clubs have been reading his bibliography to prepare for the event.
Previous visiting NYT best selling authors have included Shelby Van Pelt (Remarkably Bright Creatures) in 2024 and David Sedaris (The Land and Its People) in 2023.
"We haven't really done a horror genre author," she said. "We thought it would be really cool to branch out."
Markowski said that the author events bring people from around the area to Alpena to attend. She said that this not only helps the library with community engagement but it gives locals an opportunity to meet their favorite author without having to travel far.
According to the Alpena County library, Jones is not only a NYT bestselling author but also an NEA recipient, winner of the Texas Institute of Letters Award for Fiction, the Los Angeles Times Ray Bradbury Prize, and the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award.
He's received the August Derleth British Fantasy Award for Best Horror Novel, the Independent Publishers Award for Multicultural Fiction, the Western Literature Association's Distinguished Achievement Award, the American Library Association's RUSA Award and Alex Award, the 2023 American Indian Festival of Words Writers Award, the Locus Award twice, four Bram Stoker Awards, three Shirley Jackson Awards, and six This is Horror Awards.
Jones has also been inducted into the Texas Literary Hall of Fame; he's been a finalist for the World Fantasy Award and the Eisner Award; he's made Bloody Disgusting's Top Ten Horror Novels; been a NYT Book Club selection; and has been featured on Barack Obama's Summer Reading List.
Kayla Wikaryasz can be reached at 989-358-5688 or kwikaryasz@TheAlpenaNews.com.