Completely Booked - Official Podcast of the Jacksonville Public Library

Are you a fan of Southern Gothic, ghost stories, speculative fiction, or horror? Do you love supporting local authors? Are you hoping to follow in their footsteps and publish your own short stories or novel? This summer, we brought two Jacksonville authors together for a "spirited" discussion at the Library. They'll talked about Daniel's writing process, what inspires him, and what he's working on next. 

Daniel Powell teaches a var...

Few people beyond South Carolina's Lowcountry knew of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston—Mother Emanuel—before the tragic events on the night of June 17, 2015. Although the shooter had targeted Mother Emanuel to agitate racial strife, he could not have anticipated the aftermath or the out­pouring of forgiveness from victims' families.

Kevin Sack is a veteran journalist and Jacksonville native who has written a...

Are you a fan of Magic: The Gathering, Dungeons & Dragons, or epic fantasy worlds? In this Lit Chat, local author Michael Regina interviews celebrated fantasy author Django Wexler, the featured guest at this year's Jax Pop Con. Django shares insights into his writing process, his love for tabletop games, and the inspiration behind his latest novel, "How To Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying."

Check out Django's books from the libr...

A Haunting Southern Story Set in the Wild Mississippi Delta

Four years after Kelly Mustian's USA Today bestselling debut novel, The Girls in the Stilt House, started appearing on "must-read" lists and earning starred reviews, the author is set to release her much-anticipated second novel on April 1, 2025. Like her first, The River K...

A Tale of Resistance... Based on a Real Story 

Hannah longs for the days when she used to be free, but now, she is a Jewish prisoner at Theresienstadt, a model ghetto where the Nazis plan to make a propaganda film to convince the world that the Jewish people are living well in the camps. But Hannah will do anything to show the world the truth. Along...

Interview with a Debut Author 

This January, we spoke with the author of Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins's Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany. Released on January 21, 2025, this new book is a fascinating portrait of the progressive female trailblazer and US Secretary for Labor who navigated the foreboding rise of Nazism in her battle to make...

Black and Brilliant Local Author

As the sixteen-year-old President of the Jacksonville Youth Council NAACP, he was one of the leaders of the 1960 sit-in demonstrations that culminated in the infamous and violent Ax Handle Saturday. Hurst's first book, the award-winning It Was Never About a Hot Dog and a Coke®!, tells that story.

Hurst's fourth book, Black and...

A First Coast Romance

Sheila Athens writes smart contemporary fiction set where the South meets the Sunshine state. Her stories are about women seeking to find the peace we all deserve. Readers are drawn to her work because they believe that everyday heroes can make a difference in our world.

Featured Book: Mae Van Dorn's Perfect Storm

All thirty-four-year-old M...

A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots

New York Times bestselling and National Magazine Award-winning author Morgan Jerkins will be at the Main Library this October to discuss Wandering in Strange Lands, the powerful story of her journey to understand her northern and southern roots, the Great Migration, and the displacement o...

Mexican Gothic Author Comes to Jacksonville

Silvia Moreno-Garcia, the New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic, is coming to Jacksonville for Hispanic Heritage Month. Her latest novel is a historical drama set in Hollywood, following three different point of view characters all tied to the production of a movie inspired by the Biblical s...

Zinester Talks Fanzines, Community

Daryl Gussin is a writer and musician who has been awkwardly standing around at punk shows for the last twenty-something years. Thankfully at some point in his late teens, he decided to become a little more productive and has been working on zines, setting up shows, and playing in bands consecutively since then. He's been i...

Chef Kenny Offers New Takes on Southern Cuisine

Chef Kenny Gilbert is best known for his appearance on "Top Chef" Season seven, where he displayed a big personality and instantly became one of the most likable "cheftestants" to date. He is also the author of the new cookbook, Southern Cooking, Global Flavors (2023), which includes tips and tech...

Dean Butler is an actor, producer, and director best known for his role as Almanzo Wilder (the man Laura Ingalls married) in Little House on the Prairie, based on the beloved Little House book series written by Laura Ingalls Wilder. He appeared in the final four seasons of the show, the spin-off show Little House: A New Beginning, and the three post-series TV movies. He was also a producer for NBC Golf's Emmy-nominated series Feher...

Nate Powell began self-publishing as an Arkansas teenager in 1992. Now, he is a National Book Award-winning cartoonist best known for his work on the ground-breaking graphic novel memoir series, March, with civil rights icon John Lewis. An inside story of the Civil Rights Movement told through the eyes of one of its most iconic figures, it was a #1 New York Times and Washington Post bestseller.

Nate Powell has received multiple Eis...

Debut Florida Author Brings the Magic City to Jacksonville

"I am, first and foremost, a Miamian. No physical location has done more to shape my personal and artistic sensibilities than the Magic City," Alejandro Nodarse said in a recent interview. "Miami is, unquestionably, very different from its neighboring Floridan cities, and I am...

You May Never See a Hot Summer Day the Same Way Again...

Jeff Goodell is a New York Times bestselling author of seven books, including The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World, which was picked as a New York Times Critics' Top Book of 2017, as well as one of Washington Post's 50 Notable Work...

Hallmarky Romance with Some Light Spice

Siera London says, "I write sassy, sensual heroines." Whether it's the Forbidden series, Fiery Fairy Tales, The Bachelors of Shell Cove, you're sure to find plenty of heat, humor, and a rollercoaster of emotions.

Dubbed a "Hallmarky romance with a little extra heat" by author Lizzie Shane, London's latest book, ...

A born-and-raised Jacksonvillian, Bethany Baptiste is a preschool inclusion specialist by day and a young adult SFF novelist by night. If she's not writing an inclusion support plan or a story, she does retail therapy in Florida bookstores and takes scheduled naps with her two chaotic evil dogs. You can visit her website at bethanybaptiste.com

Check out all of Bethany's books in our catalog: https://jkpl.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US...

Death, Love and Redemption

"In October 1997, the town of Ringgold in northwest Georgia was shaken by reports of a murder in its midst. A dead woman was found in Alvin Ridley's house..." 

Georgia attorney-turned-writer, McCracken Poston Jr., joins us live via Zoom to tell the story behind one of his most famous defense cases and his upcoming book, Zenith Man: Death,...