It's National Author’s Day!
Enjoy this roundup of all the authors we featured this year.
Photo courtesy of Alec Wightman
Alec Wightman (left) and Dion
Early in Alec Wightman’s memoir, Music in My Life: Notes from a Longtime Fan, he lays out his two guiding principles: great music and nice people. It’s perhaps a little too simple for understanding Wightman, a truly multi-dimensional person.
A longtime executive partner at Baker-Hostetler, Wightman has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America since 1995. Yet, simultaneously, he’s lived a double life, promoting shows for artists such as Art Garfunkel and members of Buffalo Springfield and Jefferson Airplane. Wightman has also served on the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame board for more than 15 years and completed a stint as its chair.
Isabel Wilkerson’s second nonfiction book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, was published in August 2020 and describes racism in the United States as a caste system – a system dividing society into classes – with similarities to those seen in India and Nazi Germany.
One Columbus-based family is doing everything it can to uplift and inspire children to seek out the best versions of themselves.
In 2020, Alexis and Ralph Carter, parents of three, started The Carter Chronicles, a collection of items that aim to affirm children and their dreams, after posting conversations with her sons on Facebook, Alexis says. It was originally called The Ralph Carter Chronicles, but it was renamed to incorporate their other son, Riley.
Alexis also wrote a book called I Dream Big! Positive Affirmations For Kids in December 2020. The book, which contains 34 statements of encouragement, was inspired by her routine of motivating Ralphy and Riley while taking them to school.
As part of our holiday giveaway, we're raffling off some of the authors' work. Enter for the chance to win!
P.J. Ford
Jesse Hubbard
When Jesse Hubbard first decided to write a cocktail book, he wanted to find a way to distinguish it from the thousands of other titles in the genre. So, he turned to his other love: music.
The result is Punk Rock & Cocktails, a book that pulls inspiration from 20 of Hubbard's favorite musical artists to create new riffs on classic drinks.
“I come from the mixtape generation, making mixtapes and sharing them with your buddies,” Hubbard says, “and that’s kind of what this is.”
What started as a love for marine life for Pickerington High School North’s Sophia Klein has transformed into a full-fledged enterprise, culminating in a widely adored children’s book, an invite to the Ohioana Book Festival and the carving of one prospective author’s career path.
Even more remarkable, the author and curator of it was just 14 years old when she did it all.
Now 15 and a freshman at North, Klein is working on her next adventure. However, she’s still taking a moment to bask in the impact she and her book, Turtle Tide, have made.
Pickerington’s own children’s author S.R.D. Harris is looking to spread messages of positivity while also giving back to a local shelter in need.
After Harris and her family adopted a puppy from Columbus’ CHA Animal Shelter, she felt inspired to write her fourth book, Gracie’s Grace. Thanks to her seamless and worthwhile experience with the adoption process, she decided that all proceeds from the book will go to the shelter.
Jeff Sabo
Will Haygood PortraitWill Haygood Portrait
Will Haygood, former resident of the King-Lincoln District, will release his ninth book, Colorization: 100 Years of Black Films in a White World, on Oct. 19. The book, which covers more than 100 years of film from Gone with the Wind to Black Panther, will be celebrated with a series of related events across Columbus from Oct. 16-28.
Haygood, a fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and National Endowment for the Humanities, uses Colorization to examine the struggles Black artists face both in the film industry and throughout society. He uses the films as vehicles to delve into Black culture, civil rights and racism.
The Columbus Metropolitan Library hosted Haygood as part of the Carnegie Author Series.
In his book, The Blue Zones Solution: Eating and Living Like the World’s Healthiest People, explorer and award-winning author Dan Buettner focuses on the five places in the world, dubbed “blue zones,” where people live the longest, healthiest lives.
Brandon Klein is the senior editor. Feedback welcome at bklein@cityscenemediagroup.com
