Best-selling author and syndicated columnist Ronda Rich is the keynote speaker at the inaugural Books Down South, a festival for readers and writers, Oct. 26.
Rich, whose column appears weekly in The Citizen, will speak at 1:30 p.m. and again in a writer’s workshop following the festival at 3:30 p.m. She joins more than 40 other local and regional authors who will be meeting fans and making new friends at the festival, which is presented by The Citizen and Fayette Woman.
Rich first exploded on the national stage over a decade ago with the wildly successful ”What Southern Women Know (That Every Woman Should),” a book now in its 32nd printing. The popularity of that book launched her as a storyteller who rivets audiences – both as a speaker and a writer – with tales of the South as seen through the eyes of its people.
Her latest book, ”There’s A Better Day A-Comin’,” is a personal accounting of dozens of people – famous and non-famous – who triumphed over tribulation and setbacks to push through adversity and find a better day. Uplifting and encouraging, each provocative story has a prevailing theme: No matter how hard times get, a better day always comes again. Always.
She is also the author of the best-selling “What Southern Women Know About Faith,” ”What Southern Women Know About Flirting,” ”My Life in The Pits” (a critically acclaimed memoir of her years in NASCAR racing as a reporter and publicist) and the novel, ”The Town That Came A-Courtin’,” which will be a television movie for Valentine’s, 2014. It stars Lauren Holly and the much beloved Valerie Harper.
A former award-winning sports writer, Ronda returned to her newspaper roots in 2003 with a self-syndicated column which appears in more than 50 newspapers. Alternating between humorous, sentimental and wise, she delivers a punch of Southern life weekly to over a million readers who revel in a story well told, one that often is entwined with a moral or lesson learned.
She has appeared on dozens of television shows including The View, Fox and Friends, The Other Half, Fox Sports, CNN as well as in the pages of People, USA Today, Redbook, Cosmopolitan, New York Times, Washington Post,Southern Living and Woman’s Own.
Ronda and her husband, John Tinker, an Emmy award-winning television drama producer and writer, live in the countryside outside of Atlanta.
Tickets to the keynote and the writer’s workshop are $10 each. Admission to the festival and all other associated events are free. Tickets may be purchased at the door, while they last, or reserved by emailing booksdownsouth@gmail.com.
The festival will be held at the former Rivers Elementary School, located at the intersection of Veterans Parkway and Sandy Creek Road.
