THOMASVILLE- The Bookshelf will host three Tallahassee authors and one illustrator for a reading and book signing during Thomasville’s First Friday on December 6th from 5-7 p.m. Each author is published by Tallahassee’s recently revived Apalachee Press, a small, independent publisher. Children and adults are invited to attend the reading free of charge.

Authors Melanie Rawls, Marda Messick, Sharon Kant-Rauch, and illustrator Lynne Knight will be featured. Each author will read for 5-7 minutes from their work and sign books afterward. The books vary in topic, from a beautifully-illustrated adult fairy tale to a tight poetry chapbook to a mystery novel set in a real Tallahassee neighborhood.

Rawls, retired Florida A&M University professor, will read from her fairytale for grown-ups After, Ever After. Knight, artist, well-published poet, and former President of Tallahassee’s Anhinga Press, is the book’s illustrator. After, Ever After addresses the question, “What becomes of The Beast when Beauty dies? What happens after ‘ever after’?”

Messick, former nurse and Lutheran minister, will read from her poetry chapbook Feral Princess. Messick’s poems trace the emotional arc of a resilient woman’s life from a baby boomer childhood to present-day reflections on aging and mortality.

Kant-Rauch, former journalist and author of Life in the Out Lane: The Bumpy Road Towards Love, Laughter and Enlightenment, will read from her mystery novel set in Tallahassee, One Precious Life. In this novel, retired journalist Maria O’Hara is itching to get out of town after a recent divorce when her friend is found dead in a park just a mile from the Florida Capitol.

For questions about the reading at The Bookshelf on Friday, December 6 from 5 – 7 p.m., please contact Caroline Weeks, The Bookshelf’s Marketing & Events Manager, at marketing@bookshelfthomasville.com or 229-228-7767.