Fox Valley Reads: Luis Alberto Urrea and Me

Fox Valley Reads is an annual one book, one community collaboration of 5 Illinois libraries in the far Western suburbs of Chicago, including Aurora, IL, the second largest city in the state.

Last year, I was asked to interview Erin Morgenstern when the book was The Night Circus. You can click here for coverage of that event.

This year, the book is Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea.  Last month, Magan, the Popular Services Librarian from the Aurora Public Library, wrote this guest post about the program.

You can click here for all of the scheduled events, but as for me, I will be having a conversation with Urrea on stage at the Copley Theater in Aurora at 7pm on October 24th.  This year, they are doing something a bit different to fit in with the bilingual nature of the book.  On October 23rd, Jacqueline Camacho-Ruiz a local author and entrepreneur will be having a conversation with Urrea in Spanish.

We are working very hard to make the evenings as similar as possible, except for the language they are conducted in that is. Fox Valley Reads does request that you register.  You can click here to sign up for the English conversation or here for Jacqueline's Spanish language event.

But why I am posting all of this today, six weeks out from the event. There is a reason others than sheer promotion of my appearance.  Today Mr. Urrea called me so we could have a chance to talk and get to know one and other.  For the Morgenstern interview, I was able to spend 2 hours with her before the event, but due to the back-to-back night appearances this year, that will not be possible.

After our conversation this morning I am happy to report that Mr. Urrea was wonderful. He is personable and interesting.  He took time out of his very busy writing, touring, and teaching schedule to talk to me today and I appreciate that.  Also, I am happy to say he is a big horror fan too.  We traded many a book suggestion for each other.  In fact, as soon as I finish this post, I am taking his advice and reading this book.

To see an interview with Urrea right now, go to his website.  Between watching that and talking to him myself, I feel confident that our event will go very well.

I will have a review of Into the Beautiful North up on the blog in the days leading up to the October 24th event, but in the mean time, check out the events the Fox Valley Reads Committee has planned and sign up to participate.  You do not need to be a member of these communities to read the book and attend events.  The more the merrier.

And, after talking with Mr. Urrea, I am confident that this will be an awesome author event.  I hope to see you there.