Two Special Fall Events:

Long Island LitFest Presents PBS Chef Lidia Bastianich

in conversation with Newsday food critic Erica Marcus! 

Friday, September 28, 7:30 pm at Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington

BUY TICKETS HERE — THIS EVENT IS SOLD OUT

Your ticket includes a copy of MY AMERICAN DREAM, author talk, audience Q&A and book signing reception.

Lidia Bastianich is the author of thirteen cookbooks and the Emmy award-winning host of public television’s Lidia’s Kitchen, which also airs internationally. She is also a judge on MasterChef Junior Italy and Italy’s highly rated daily program La Prova del Cuoco. Lidia owns Felidia, Becco, several other restaurants, and is a partner in the acclaimed Eataly. She lives in Douglaston, Queens.

Lidia grew up behind the Iron Curtain in Pola, a small city on the southern tip of the Istrian Peninsula.  In her new memoir, My American Dream: A Life of Love, Family, and Food, Lidia takes readers from her life under communism, a dramatic escape across the border and life as a refugee, to her journey to America – penniless – and the launch of her food business. She describes the struggle to open her flagship Manhattan restaurant, Felidia, and all the accolades that followed, including the night that Julia Child and James Beard came to dine (which later resulted in the launch of Lidia’s TV career). The rest, they say, is history.

Erica Marcus has covered food for Newsday since 1998. She regularly blogs at newsday.com/feedme and, in 2016, she took on the additional role of restaurant reviewer. After graduation from Swarthmore College, Erica worked at Crown Publishers, first in production and later in editorial. She rose to the rank of Senior Editor and worked on a wide range of books, including many award-winning cookbooks. She left book publishing for newspaper journalism the same year she left Manhattan for her ancestral home of Brooklyn where she still lives.

A special thank you to Cinema Arts Centre for hosting our event, and to Book Revue for providing the books.

Long Island LitFest Presents  New York Times Best-Seller Jodi Picoult

in conversation with critically acclaimed author Meg Wolitzer! 

Tuesday, October 2, 7:30 pm at The Landmark on Main Street in Port Washington

BUY TICKETS HERE —THIS EVENT IS SOLD OUT

Your $35 ticket includes a signed copy of A SPARK OF LIGHT, author talk, audience Q&A PLUS an individual photo op with Jodi!  Bring your friends and your book club!

Jodi Picoult is the #1 bestselling author of twenty-four novels including  My Sister’s Keeper, Nineteen Minutes, The Storyteller, Leaving Time, and her most recent, the acclaimed #1 bestseller, Small Great Things, which explored the issues of power, privilege and race, and was called “the most important novel Picoult has ever written” (Washington Post). The novel has sold over a million copies since its publication in October 2016.  Published in October 2018, A Spark of Light is her 25th novel.

Picoult’s books have translated into thirty-four languages in thirty-five countries. Four novels – The Pact, Plain Truth, The Tenth Circle, and Salem Falls – have been made into television movies. My Sister’s Keeper was a film released from New Line Cinema, with Nick Cassavetes directing and Cameron Diaz starring. Small Geat Things has been optioned for motion picture adaptation by Amblin Entertainment and is set to star Viola Davis and Julia Roberts.  Picoult’s two Young Adult novels Between the Lines and Off the Page, co-written with her daughter Samantha Van Leer, have been adapted and developed by the authors into a musical entitled Between The Lines which had its world premiere in September 2017 at the Kansas City Repertory Theater.

Picoult is the recipient of many awards, including the New England Bookseller Award for Fiction, the Alex Awards from the YALSA, a lifetime achievement award for mainstream fiction from the Romance Writers of America, and the NH Literary Award for Outstanding Literary Merit.  She holds honorary doctor of letters degrees from Dartmouth College and the University of New Haven. She is also a member of the advisory board for VIDA: Women in Literary Arts.    Picoult, who was born and raised in Nesconset, lives in New Hampshire with her husband. They have three children.

Featured at this year’s Long Island LitFest in April, New York Times best-seller Meg Wolitzer is author of The Female Persuasion, The Interestings, The Ten Year Nap, and many more. Her novel, The Wife, is now a feature film starring Glenn Close.

We look forward to seeing you on October 2nd at The LandMark on Main Street, a not-for-profit community center that enhances the spirit and enriches the lives of the communities of Port Washington and surrounding regions.

A special thank you to The Dolphin Bookshop in Port Washington for providing the books for this exciting event.