Cocktails & Conversation with Megan Abbott

On Wednesday, November 30th join the New Rochelle Public Library Foundation for Cocktails & Conversation with Megan Abbott, the New York Times bestselling author and winner of the coveted Edgar Award (among others).

After a two-year COVID hiatus (during which the Cocktails & Conversation events were held by Zoom) the event will be held in-person again at Alvin & Friends Restaurant (14 Memorial Highway, New Rochelle) from 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm. Tickets cost $60, and include delicious nibbles and two drinks; proceeds benefit the non-profit NRPL Foundation. Tickets are available at www.nrplfoundation.org or by mail with a check payable to NRPLF sent to New Rochelle Public Library Foundation, 1 Library Plaza, New Rochelle, NY 10801.

“We’re excited to be meeting in person again,” says Chris Selin, President of the NRPLF. “We kept Cocktails & Conversation going via Zoom during the COVID lockdown as a way to support the community, and we’re proud of the programs we offered,” she says, noting that NRPLF Board member Amy Bass continued her lively interviews with authors that ranged from novelists Rhiannon Navin and Jane Green, poet Rowan Ricardo Phillips, sportswriter Jeff Pearlman, and YA author Steven Salvatore, to climate scientists Lee R. Kump and Michael Mann, non-fiction writers Sara DiVello and Catherine Pearlman, Ph.D., and Sunny Hostin , the three-time Emmy Award-winning co-host of The View (and author of Summer on the Bluffs).

“The virtual C & C events were fun,” says moderator Amy Bass, adding that NRPLF Vice President Lynn Green acted as the official “cocktail expert,” choosing a complementary adult beverage for each event then emailing the recipe (and a photo) for participants to make and enjoy at home. “But it’s exciting to be able to meet face to face.”

Although she may be best known for creating the hit TV show Dare Me, based upon her novel, for the USA Network (and, internationally, Netflix), Megan Abbott’s latest book, The Turnout, has been called “a captivating thriller” and was a Today Show “Jenna’s Book Club” pick. Blogger Jamie Canaves (her “Novel Suspects” reviews the best thrillers and mysteries) calls Megan Abbott “the queen of writing crime,” saying that Abbott’s work is “just a wealth of great novels that fit many reading moods, and I recommend them all. Seriously, how many authors do you get to say, “Yeah, just read all of their work. All of it!”

Cocktails & Conversation is one of the NRPL Foundation’s signature events, designed to bring book lovers together. The evenings feature authors in a discussion moderated by Prof. Amy Bass, Ph.D., NRPL Foundation Board Member, historian and acclaimed author (One Goal: A Coach, A Team and the Game That Brought A Divided Town Together).

About Megan Abbott

Megan Abbott is the Edgar-winning author of the novels The Turnout, Give Me Your Hand, You Will Know Me, The Fever, Dare Me, The End of Everything, Bury Me Deep, Queenpin, The Song Is You and Die a Little. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Salon, the Guardian, Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, and The Believer. Her stories have appeared in multiple collections, including the Best American Mystery Stories of 2014 and 2016.

Her work has won or been nominated for the CWA Steel Dagger, the International Thriller Writers Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and five Edgar awards. Formerly a staff writer on HBO's David Simon show, The Deuce, she is now co-creator, executive producer and show-runner of Dare Me, based upon her novel, for the USA Network and, internationally, Netflix.

Born in the Detroit area, she graduated from the University of Michigan and received her Ph.D. in English and American literature from New York University. She has taught at NYU, the State University of New York and the New School University. In 2013-14, she served as the John Grisham Writer in Residence at Ole Miss.

She is also the author of a nonfiction book, The Street Was Mine: White Masculinity in Hardboiled Fiction and Film Noir, and the editor of A Hell of a Woman, an anthology of female crime fiction. She has been nominated for many awards, including three Edgar Awards, Hammett Prize, the Shirley Jackson Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Folio Prize.