Great Authors at the Library

Author Suzanne Selfors on a stage talking to an audience

Suzanne Selfors, bestselling author of the “Wedgie & Gizmo” series, spoke to an excited audience of families during her visit to Champaign in April 2024 during National Library Week.

WE ARE THRILLED to announce New York Times bestselling author Shelby Van Pelt as the next speaker in our Great Authors at the Library series. When she isn’t writing, she’s herding cats and wrangling children. Her debut novel, Remarkably Bright Creatures (Ecco, 2022) was an Instant New York Times Bestseller and a Read With Jenna Today Show book club pick. In 2023, she was awarded the Heartland Prize for Fiction and the McLaughlin-Esstman-Stearns First Novel Prize from The Writer’s Center. Remarkably Bright Creatures has sold over a million copies. It has spent, in aggregate, a year-plus on the NYT Hardcover Bestseller list.

Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, she’s now missing the mountains in the Chicago area with her family.

• October 9, An Evening with Shelby Van Pelt, 7 pm

Since 2016, the Great Authors at the Library series has brought 23 award-winning, New York Times bestselling authors to Champaign, where they have been welcomed by more than 5,000 community members.

Each author presents a public talk about their writing, signs books, and meets local readers. We often set up book giveaways in advance, sharing ”Read and pass along” copies of the author’s books with community members. For authors of children’s books and teen titles, we set up school visits so that area schoolchildren can meet these literary giants. We also provide books to our partnering Champaign Unit 4 School District libraries. And for the community’s youngest readers, we give out books at storytimes to help families build home libraries.

Acclaimed speakers in the Great Authors at the Library series have included New York Times bestselling authors Doris Kearns Goodwin, Terry McMillan, Ken Liu, Lisa See, Colson Whitehead, Lisa Scottoline, Eric Litwin, Scott Turow, Jamie Ford, Nnedi Okorafor, Luis Alberto Urrea, Nikki Grimes, Elizabeth Berg, and David Sheff.

Great Authors at the Library visits are made possible with support from the Library Foundation and Library Friends.

Great Authors books in our collection »