By Lynne Cullinane
Featured guest on Oct. 26 is Nancy Horan, author of Loving Frank
Every autumn since 2006, the Hopewell Valley Education Foundation has sponsored a Book Lovers Luncheon as a fundraiser featuring a noted author as speaker, and this year, Nancy Horan, author of bestselling novel Loving Frank, will be the center of attention.
Proceeds from the luncheons support authors in residence in the Hopewell Valley School District, and the annual events have raised thousands of dollars each year for this purpose.
The speaker at the first luncheon in 2006 was Joyce Carol Oates, who spoke movingly about her own family history and her work as a distinguished author of fiction and nonfiction. Carol Jackson, past president of the HVEF, is the driving force behind the luncheons.
That event, held at the Hopewell Valley Country Club, was attended by 120 people, many of them members of book clubs. Since then, authors have included Lisa Scottoline — author of crime novels and a very witty and down to earth speaker — Alice Hoffman and Hilary Jordan, both novelists, and Richie Kohler and John Chatterton, divers and co-authors of The Shadow Divers, a work of nonfiction.
In 2007 the Book Lovers Luncheon moved to Greenacres Country Club in Lawrence, a larger venue. For the last two years, the luncheon has sold 250 tickets, the maximum number Greenacres can accommodate.
Jackson has been trying to bring Nancy Horan, this year’s speaker, to the luncheon since 2009. Loving Frank centers on architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s personal life and professional growth.
Through a friend who is also Wright’s grandniece, Jackson was able to begin a correspondence with Horan, which has ultimately led to this year’s luncheon. Horan might have visited the Hopewell Valley sooner, but she wanted to finish her new novel, Under the Wide and Starry Sky, before coming to speak. So last year, her agent suggested Jamie Ford, author of the bestselling novel The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, who became the speaker in 2013.
Under the Wide and Starry Sky was published in January, freeing Horan to attend the Book Lovers Luncheon on Sunday, Oct. 26 as part of her East Coast tour. Her new novel is again a fictionalized account of real life people, this time about the author Robert Louis Stevenson and his American-born wife, who also had literary and artistic aspirations.
Jackson says that the key to booking authors of the caliber she has been able to secure as speakers for the luncheon is to have well-known authors from the very beginning. National Book Award winner and long-time Princeton University creative writing professor Joyce Carol Oates set a high bar, organizers feel.
Agents and authors who followed her recognized the quality of presenters at these events and became interested. Many of the authors, in fact, have declined their stipends and asked that they be used toward funding authors in residence for Hopewell Valley students.
The Hopewell Valley Education Foundation is a nonprofit organization with the mission of serving the needs of the Hopewell Valley public schools through the development of community partnerships and resources. Using those resources, the Education Foundation provides grants to teachers throughout the Hopewell Valley school district to fund enrichment programs for all students.
As the annual event has grown, word has spread, and tickets now often sell out well before the date of the luncheon. Guests come from local book clubs, nearby cities, and even from Europe annually for this event. One guest has come several times from France specifically for the luncheon.
In addition to lunch and the speaker, there are is a sale of used “book club quality” books, a silent auction, $5 grab bags sold at the tables, and the sale of the author’s most recent book signed by the author that day. This year’s event will be held at Greenacres Country Club in Lawrenceville on Sunday, Oct. 26, from 11:30 to 3 p.m. Tickets and further information are available at the HVEF web site, hvef.org. The cost is $60 per ticket.
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