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Dr. Suzanne Koven will moderate the annual CFA event Breakfast with the Authors, as we discuss the literary life with Meredith Hall, author of Beneficence, Chaney Kwak, author of The Passenger, and Shawna Kay Rodenberg, author of Kin. 

New York Times bestselling author Meredith Hall’s radiant novel Beneficence is a study of love—both its gifts and its obligations—that will stay with readers long after the last page. With a rare tenderness and compassion, Beneficence illuminates the heart's enduring covenants and compromises. Her memoir Without a Map was instantly recognized as a classic of the genre and became a New York Times bestseller. It was named a best book of the year by BookSense, and was an Elle magazine Reader’s Pick of the Year. Hall was a recipient of the 2004 Gift of Freedom Award from A Room of Her Own Foundation. Her work has appeared in Five Points, The Gettysburg Review, The Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, The New York Times, and many other publications. 

Chaney Kwak is a travel writer used to all sorts of mishaps on the road, but this is a first even for him: trapped on the battered cruise ship, he stuffs his passport into his underwear just in case his body has to be identified. As the massive cruise ship sways in surging waves, Kwak holds on and watches news of the impending disaster unfold on Twitter, where the cruise ship’s nearly 1,400 passengers are showered with “thoughts and prayers.” Kwak uses his twenty-seven hours aboard the teetering ship to examine his family history, maritime tragedies, and the failing relationship back on shore with a man he’s loved for nearly two decades: the Viking Sky, he realizes, may not be the only sinking ship he needs to escape.

Shawna Kay Rodenberg is a mother, grandmother, community college English instructor and a registered nurse. Her poetry, essays and reviews have appeared in Consequence, Elle, Salon, the Village Voice, the Bennington Review, the Crab Creek Review, Kudzu and Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel. She was a recipient of the 2016 Jean Ritchie Fellowship and a 2017 Rona Jaffe Writers' Award in creative nonfiction. Rodenberg is also a vocalist; she and her husband, David, are collaborating on an album, a mix of original Americana, vintage country and traditional mountain songs. 

This event is sponsored by the Friends of the Concord Free Public Library.