Literary Legends 2024

10th Annual Literary Legends Gala
October 19, 2024 | Café Madison
6:00 – 9:00 p.m.
Honoring Karin Lin-Greenberg & The RED Bookshelf

SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR EVENT SPONSORS

HONORARY COMMITTEE

FFAPL is grateful to our Honorary Committee Members for their dedication to this event and to our libraries.

Literary Legends is the Friends & Foundation of Albany Public Library’s signature event.

The purpose of Literary Legends is two-fold: (1) to recognize outstanding local authors, illustrators, and publishers for their extraordinary contributions to the art of letters, and (2) to raise needed funds for special programs and services
provided by the Albany Public Library. 

Thank you for your support!

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Literary Legend:
Karin Lin-Greenberg

Her debut novel, “You Are Here,” was published by Counterpoint Press in May 2023. It was chosen as an Indie Next pick from the American Booksellers Association and was a People magazine Book of the Week. It also received recommendations by The Washington Post, Time, Oprah Daily, Elle, Shondaland, Good Morning America, CBS Mornings, Ms. magazine, and others. “You Are Here” was selected by Sarah Gelman, Amazon’s Editorial Director for Books, as her Sarah Selects Book Club pick for May 2023. This cherished book has the envied distinction of being named the 2024 One Book, One Community read for the city of Geneva, IL, and is a Women’s National Book Association Great Group Reads selection.

Lin-Greenberg’s stories have appeared in many literary journals including New England Review, The Southern Review, Story, and Virginia Quarterly Review, and she was a finalist for the Chicago Tribune’s 2018 Nelson Algren Award. Her story “Housekeeping” received a Pushcart Prize and was listed as a Distinguished Story of 2020 in Best American Short Stories 2021. She has been awarded fellowships from the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, the Wesleyan Writers Conference, the Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and MacDowell.

Lin-Greenburg lives in upstate New York and is an associate professor in the English Department at Siena College. She also teaches in Carlow University’s low-residency MFA in Creative Writing program.

Literary Legend Community Partner: The RED Bookshelf

The mission of The RED Bookshelf is to inspire children to read. Whether it is through providing books in places where children are, for them to take home and keep, or through motivating programs in their schools, camps and community centers, everything is done with the goal of making reading an easy and enjoyable activity, wherever children are.

In 2009, co-founders Rachel Eveleth and Mary Beth Fowler put the first “Bright Red Bookshelf” in the Children’s Center at Albany County Family Court, focusing on providing children the opportunity to find an enjoyable story, a book that might motivate them to read more. This was a purely volunteer effort, under the fiscal sponsorship of a local nonprofit. Over the next 6 years the program grew slowly to a point that in 2016 they incorporated, creating the nonprofit of today, The RED Bookshelf. 

With the addition of a new Executive Director in 2020, Paul Collins-Hackett (AKA Batman), has come a new energy and expanded efforts into motivational programs including superheroes, financial literacy and career exploration. With every program comes a focus on improving literacy and opportunities for children to grow their own personal libraries. All books on RED Bookshelves are free for children and families to choose and own. There are no restrictions as their goal is for children to choose to read these books at least 15 minutes each day, always improving their reading skills. 

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