Featured Authors
Caroline Woods
Saturday
10-11:30 a.m.
Local author Caroline Woods will meet readers and sign copies of her two newest novels, The Mesmerist (a 2024 NPR Book of the Year) and The Lunar Housewife.
Caroline has taught creative writing at Loyola University Chicago, Boston University, and the Boston Conservatory. Raised in Delaware, she now lives in Riverside with her husband, Colin Kerr, and two daughters.
Instagram: @carolinewoods_books
Website: www.carolinewoodswriter.com
Marie Newman
Saturday
12-1:30 p.m.
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Marie Newman is a former congresswoman, nonprofit CEO, marketing executive, author of A Life Made from Scratch and When Your Child Is Being Bullied: Real Solutions, antibullying activist, former Moms Demand Action spokesperson and national LGBTQ+ advocate. In addition to those roles, she is a mom of two adult children, consultant and podcaster. Marie Newman is known for building movements and solving the toughest problems. Marie’s next book, her memoir, will be released March of 2025, (pre-order starts in February) A Life Made From Scratch. Her motto has always been, when you do not see the solution you desperately need, make it from scratch!
Marie has been frequently interviewed on MSNBC, CNN, Fox, NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS over the last decade for her congressional work and prior to that, her activism. She has penned multiple OpEds on hot topics over the last several years. Newman is a sought after speaker by national organizations and universities on women’s rights, gun reform, LGBTQ rights and economic equity across the nation before, during and after her time in Congress. She lives in Lagrange, Illinois with her husband and beagle, Iggy. Marie is working on a new novel, a work of fiction, likely to be released in 2026 and a new podcast launching in 2025.
Karen Doornebos
Saturday
2-4:00 p.m.
Karen Doornebos lived in Riverside for 16 years. She's a fiction author published with Penguin Random House and contributor to The New York Times with a Tiny Love Story featuring her Ukrainian grandmother. She teamed up with her mother, Judie Anderson, an illustrator, to create The Plucky Ukrainian Sunflower, a children’s picture book. Her son, Remy Doornebos, raised in Riverside, did the graphic design for the book. Kirkus Reviews says, “Our Verdict: √ GET IT.” 100% profits from the book will be donated to Save Ukraine to help children affected by war.
ROBERTA HARTLING GATES
Sunday
10:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
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Roberta Hartling Gates, a longtime Riverside resident, will be selling copies of her debut book, Number 12 Rue Sainte-Catherine and Other Stories, which is a collection of linked stories set in Vichy France during WWII. Number 12 was chosen by Friends of American Writers as one of the two best books published in 2024 by an emerging author from the Midwest. Gates also received the Dogwood Literary Prize in Fiction in 2021.
You can find her at https://rhgates.com.
Ben Sells
Sunday
1-3 p.m.
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Benjamin Sells is a past Riverside Village President, writer, psychotherapist, and attorney. He has written ten books, including Beauty Matters: Lessons from an Olmsted Village, and A History of the Chicago Portage: The Crossroads that Made Chicago and Helped to Make America. His latest book is The Lonely Mind: America and its Discontents.
My author page is benjaminsells.com (http://benjaminsells.com/)
He is planning on bringing a few copies of the Olmsted and Portage books and his latest one.