Aspiring authors and avid readers are invited to meet Willingboro residents who have had books published at an author luncheon on Sat., Apr. 12, from noon to 3 p.m. Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Jeff Gammage, author of China Ghosts and a Willingboro native, will be the keynote speaker for this free National Library Week event. Local authors include Michael B. Jackson, author of How to Do Good After Prison, which was featured in the Apr. 6, 2008 New York Times.

            Authors and attendees will sit together at lunch to discuss their work, their experiences, and breaking into publishing. Post-luncheon speeches by all the authors will address "My Journey to Writing and Publication." Authors will then be available to autograph their books, which will be offered for sale.

           

In 2007 Jeff Gammage was part of a team of reporters who received a national Sigma Delta Chi award for excellence in deadline reporting, for their coverage of a mass shooting at an Amish school. China Ghosts, about his family's adoption of two Chinese daughters, was published to critical acclaim the same year. Mr. Gammage was born in Trenton, raised in Willingboro, graduated from James Madison University, and currently lives in Elkins Park, Pa. His website is http://www.chinaghosts.com/.

Michael B. Jackson is the Parole Revocation Hearing Officer for the NJ Juvenile Justice System. He has previously worked for the state as Youth Counselor and Parole Supervisor. In the early 1970s he fought drug addiction and spent time in prison himself. He maintains a website, http://www.jointfx.com/, for current and former prisoners and their loved-ones, also writing a popular advice column, "Ask Shakir."

            Other featured local authors include poet Alfred Encarnacion, inspirational writer Don Paul Hicks, biographer Christine M. Hill, poet Karmaya Lewis, non-fiction writer Joan Marsteller, memoirist Margaret Hicks Morris, and children's writer Joyce C. Payne.