Local Authors Celebrating Publication of Three Books

It’s such a tough business, this writing game. Creating the work, getting published and reviewed--usually while working another job and/or managing a family--demands passion and dedication.

So when three authors shared their latest published efforts at a regular lunch gathering of literary toilers (where anxious complaining often occurs), the carping changed to happy talk.

Kathryn Phillips of Ventura presented her latest title, “Paradise by Design: Native Plants and the New American Landscape,” a beautiful book for everyone who loves to smell the flowers.

Ojai resident Jerry Camarillo Dunn’s fun read for word mavens is “Idiom’s Savant.” And the group was awed by the 1,506 pages of “The Film Encyclopedia,” co-edited by Fred Klein of Santa Barbara. May the royalties roll in.

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Audrey Moore continues to create a haven for mystery writers and fans at Mysteries to Die For, 2940 Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks. Authors Janet Dawson (“Witness to Evil”) and Jonnie Jacobs (“Murder Among Us”) will sign books at noon Friday.

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Drama will be on the agenda this week at Borders Books, 125 W. Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks. The Santa Susana Repertory Theatre and the Kingsmen Shakespeare Festival will present a reading of “Hamlet” at 2 p.m. Sunday. And Pepperdine University professor Michael Collings will conduct the monthly poetry workshop at 7 p.m. Tuesday.

Plan Ahead

A three-hour workshop on “Fine Tuning the Query Letter and Book Proposal,” conducted by author-book doctor Mary Embree, begins at 9 a.m. March 28 at Ventura TowneHouse, 4900 Telegraph Road. Sponsored by Small Publishers, Artists & Writers Network, the workshop fee is $30 for nonmembers and includes continental breakfast. Call 643-2403.

In Santa Barbara

The acclaimed novelist T. Coraghessan Boyle will read from his new novel, “Riven Rock,” based on the true story of an eccentric Santa Barbara family, at 8:30 p.m. Friday at Earthling Bookshop, 1137 State St.

* Frances Halpern and Jon O’Brien are co-hosts of “Beyond Words” at 10 a.m. Sundays on KCLU-FM (88.3 Ventura and 102.3 Santa Barbara), Ventura County’s National Public Radio station.