PHILADELPHIA - The Association of Library Trustees, Advocates, Friends and Foundations (ALTAFF), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), will host the Gala Author Tea from 2 to 4 p.m. CST on Monday, Jan. 23 at the 2012 ALA Midwinter Meeting in Dallas.

The Gala Author Tea will feature Kim Edwards, Erin Duffy, Pam Houston, Taylor Stevens and Leonard Kniffel. Attendees will enjoy tea, finger sandwiches and a variety of sweet treats. Some books will be given away, while others will be available for purchase at a generous discount. This event is sponsored by ReferenceUSA.

Kim Edwards ("The Lake of Dreams," Penguin, 2011) is the author of "The Memory Keeper’s Daughter" and a collection of short stories, "The Secrets of a Fire King," which was an alternate for the 1998 PEN/Hemingway Award. She has won numerous awards, including a Whiting Award, a British Book Award and the Nelson Algren Award. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she currently teaches writing at the University of Kentucky. She lives in Lexington, Ky., with her husband and daughters.

Erin Duffy ("Bond Girl," William Morrow/HarperCollins, 2012) graduated from Georgetown University in 2000 with a B.A. in English and went on to spend more than a decade working in fixed income sales on Wall Street. "Bond Girl" is her first novel.

Pam Houston ("Contents May Have Shifted," W.W. Norton, 2012), is the author of two collections of linked short stories, "Cowboys Are My Weakness" and "Waltzing the Cat," the novel "Sight Hound" and a collection of essays called "A Little More About Me," all published by W.W. Norton. She is the director of creative writing at University of California, Davis.

Born into the Children of God, raised in communes across the globe and denied an education beyond the sixth grade, Taylor Stevens ("The Innocent", Crown/Random House, 2011) broke free of the cult in order to follow hope and a vague idea of what possibilities lay beyond. She now lives in Texas and is writing a third Vanessa Michael Munroe novel.

Leonard Kniffel ("Reading with the Stars: A Celebration of Books," ALA Editions, 2011) was editor-in-chief of American Libraries magazine from 1996 to 2011 and worked as a librarian for 18 years at the Detroit Public Library. He is also the author of "A Polish Son in the Motherland: An American’s Journey Home," a travel memoir.

Advance tickets to the Gala Author Tea cost $49 ($45 ALTAFF division members); the event code is CFL2. On-site tickets will cost $55, if seats are available. 

For more information about the Gala Author Tea and other ALTAFF events at the ALA Midwinter Meeting, visit http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/altaff/events_conferences/midwinter.

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ALTAFF is a division of the American Library Association that supports citizens who govern, promote, advocate, and fundraise for libraries. ALTAFF brings together library Trustees, advocates, Friends, and Foundations into a partnership that creates a powerful force for libraries in the 21st century. For more information, visit www.ala.org/altaff, or contact Jillian Kalonick at (312) 280-2161 or jkalonick@ala.org.

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