Janis Cooke Newman

High Tea Scheduled for 2011 Missouri Literary Festival

2011 Missouri Literary Festival, Springfield, MissouriFor Immediate ReleaseJune 2, 2011 Contact: William “Bucky” Bowman, Missouri Literary Festival chair, (417) 865-0450

Since Ozarks Romance Authors is a non-profit group for the benefit of Missouri writers and a member of the Springfield Regional Arts Council, we wanted to share information with our readers about this event coming up during the Missouri Literary Festival. Sounds like fun! High Tea with author Janis Cooke Newman planned Sept. 24 During 2011 Missouri Literary Festival: The Civil War

The public is invited to a unique author event – High Tea with Janis Cooke Newman, author of “Mary: Mrs. A. Lincoln,” from 3:30-5:30 p.m. Saturday, September 24, 2011, at the Creamery Arts Center, 411 N. Sherman Parkway, in Springfield, Missouri.

The event is part of the September 23-25, 2011, Missouri Literary Festival, which has three days of stirring programs and author events devoted to the American Civil War to commemorate the war’s sesquicentennial.

Tickets to the high tea are $25 per person and are available by calling festival chairman William Bowman at (417) 865-0450. A limited number of tickets is available. Tickets to the tea also provide general admission for all three days of the festival, a $15 value.

Newman’s “Mary” is told from the perspective of Mary Todd Lincoln, whom the author calls one of the most misunderstood women in American history. “Mary” is a story filled with love and war, sex and séances, assassination, infidelity, madness and politics. The book was honored as the USA Today’s Best Historical Fiction of the Year in 2006.

Newman is one of a host of national and regional authors of Civil War-related books who will talk and read from their books during the Sept. 23-25 literary festival at the Creamery in Springfield.

Events will run 10 a.m. through 5 p.m. Friday, Sept. 23; 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 24; and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 25. Tickets are $15 for the three-day event unless attendee has purchased a ticket for the Saturday High Tea.

Activities will include dozens of authors including headliners such as historian William C. Davis, author of numerous Civil War books including “The Battle of Bull Run;” Jeff Shaara, author of “Gods and Generals;” historian Adam Arenson, of “The Great Heart of the Republic: St. Louis and the Cultural Civil War;” David Wilson Atwood, of “Where The Mockingbird Sang – A Novel of the Civil War,” and many more regional and national authors of Civil War titles.

Other activities will include storytellers, discussions of the common soldier, demonstrations of the common Civil War family tent, period photography, Civil War-era music, quilting, a medical display, cooking demonstration, a celebration of African-American Poetry, entertainment by Marideth Sisco and Blackberry Winter at a Saturday night Authors Gala, children’s games and make-and-take activities, book sales and much more.

For more details or ticket information, go to www.missouriliteraryfestival.org, or call William “Bucky” Bowman, Missouri Literary Festival chair, (417) 865-0450.