Chester Public Library joins more than 200 Illinois libraries participating in Season 3 of Illinois Libraries Present, a collaborative effort featuring virtual events with bestselling and award-winning authors and esteemed speakers. The season continues with Stephen Graham Jones, a New York Times bestselling author and National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) fellowship recipient, and will take place via Zoom on Wednesday, October 4, at 7 PM. Register by scanning the QR code or by clicking here.

Stephen Graham Jones is the New York Times bestselling author of The Only Good Indians and Don’t Fear the Reaper. He was awarded an NEA fellowship and received several awards including the Ray Bradbury Award from the Los Angeles Times, the Bram Stoker Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, the Jesse Jones Award for Best Work of Fiction from the Texas Institute of Letters, the Independent Publishers Award for Multicultural Fiction, and the Alex Award from the American Library Association. He is the Ivena Baldwin Professor of English at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Becky Spratford, author of The Reader’s Advisory Guide to Horror, Third Edition [ALA Editions, 2021], joins Jones in conversation. She is a proud member of the Horror Writers Association and currently serves as the Association’s secretary and organizer of their annual Librarians’ Day. 

Season 3 of Illinois Libraries Present will continue later in October with Food, Family, and Folktales: A Conversation with Grace Lin. Lin is an award-winning and New York Times bestselling author/illustrator of picture books, early readers and middle grade novels. The event will take place via Zoom on Tuesday, October 17, at 7 PM.