The King County Library System Foundation's annual fundraiser is the library event of the year, bringing our community together to advance literacy and learning for everyone. Join us in person for an opportunity to mix and mingle with our Literary Lions Authors! You'll be able to purchase books, meet the authors, enjoy an incredible meal, and connect with fellow library supporters. Third Place Books is proud to be this year's bookseller.
WHEN: Saturday, March 4th, 2023 from 5pm to 9pm
WHERE: Bellevue Hyatt Regency
Tickets available now
This year's Keynote speaker is Isabel Wilkerson, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Humanities Medal, and the author of the critically acclaimed, New York Times bestsellers The Warmth of Other Suns, and Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. “Wilkerson's work,” in the words of The American Prospect magazine, “is the missing puzzle piece of our country's history.”
Nancy Pearl, renowned book expert and literary speaker, will emcee the event. Pearl is a beloved Seattle celebrity and librarian who celebrates the written word with regular speaking engagements at bookstores and libraries across the country and on her monthly television program, "Book Lust with Nancy Pearl." She is a regular commentator on National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” and its NPR affiliate, KUOW Seattle. She is also the author of Book Lust, George and Lizzie, and most recently The Writer’s Library: The Authors You Love on The Books That Changed Their Lives, co-authored with Jeff Schwager.
Isabel Wilkerson will be joined by a distinguished selection of 23 Literary Lions, all outstanding authors and illustrators. Click here to learn more about this year's authors.
Isabel Wilkerson, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Humanities Medal, is the author of the critically acclaimed, New York Times bestsellers The Warmth of Other Suns and Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. “Wilkerson's work,” in the words of The American Prospect magazine, “is the missing puzzle piece of our country's history.”
The Warmth of Other Suns won the National Book Critics Circle Award, among other honors, and was named to more than 30 Best of the Year lists, including The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker and The Washington Post. TIME Magazine named it one of the “10 Best Non-Fiction Books” of the decade. The New York Times Magazine named Warmth one of the best nonfiction books of all time.
Wilkerson won the Pulitzer Prize for her deeply humane narrative writing while serving as Chicago Bureau Chief of The New York Times in 1994, making her the first black woman in the history of American journalism to win a Pulitzer Prize and the first African American to win for individual reporting. In 2016, President Barack Obama awarded Wilkerson the National Humanities Medal for "championing the stories of an unsung history."
As the historian Jill Lepore observed in The New Yorker: “What Wilkerson urges, isn’t argument at all; it’s compassion. Hush, and listen.”
