Yesterday the Sandbar was the site of an event new to us: hosting an author to talk about his book.
We opened up early around 3 p.m. for the Lawrence Public Library's event with Tim Dorsey, a Florida author who writes humorous crime stories with main character named Serge Storms. Yes, really.
How did this come about?
Well, the Raven Bookstore wanted to bring Tim in but they didn't have the space to set up an event. So they called the library, who said "sure!" Except that the library is currently located at the old Borders building (we like to call it "Free Borders") while renovations are taking place at the library building.
Turns out, the library had a storytime conflict with the time that Tim was booked…but those creative folks at the library figured out the perfect solution and called us.
We love the library and thought it would be fun to host a different kind of event. So we opened early for a crowd of around fifty people, some who even drove in from Topeka, many of whom are devoted fans of Tim and some who weren't familiar with his books but thought they sounded interesting.
Instead of just reading an excerpt from his book, Tim took questions from the crowd and performed more of a stand-up comedy routine. Afterward, he signed books and took pictures. We gave him a couple T-shirts. Tim, if you're reading this, take a Sandbar shirt with you next time you go someplace cool and take a picture with it for our wall of fame.
The event was a huge success, and we'd love to do something like this again! The library is a great partner and a wonderful resource for Lawrence, and the Raven is a fabulous local bookstore.
Here's a shot of Tim in the shark cutout, from the Library's Facebook page: