MACON — Mercer University Press will host its 34th Annual Authors Luncheon on Saturday, Dec. 14, at the InterContinental Buckhead in Atlanta, featuring book signings with several acclaimed authors. The event also features a luncheon with presentations from authors Jonathan Eig, Benjamin Gilmer, Deborah Roberts and J. Dana Trent, who will also be signing books.
Jonathan Eig is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of six books, including four New York Times best sellers. His most recent book, King: A Life, won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for biography, and the Times called it “the definitive biography” of Martin Luther King Jr. and a book “worthy of its subject.”
Benjamin Gilmer is a family physician and associate professor at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and Mountain Area Health Education Center’s Family Medicine Residency Program. He is the author of New York Times Editors’ Choice The Other Dr. Gilmer: Two Men, a Murder, and an Unlikely Fight for Justice. The powerful true story about a shocking crime and a mysterious illness will “forever change your notions of how we punish and how we heal.”
Deborah Roberts, award-winning ABC journalist, is the author of Lessons Learned and Cherished: The Teacher Who Changed My Life. The book is a giftable collection of essays and musings from celebrities and colleagues, curated by Roberts. Contributors include Oprah Winfrey, Jenna Bush Hager, Robin Roberts, Brooke Shields, Octavia Spencer, Rachael Ray, Misty Copeland, and more.
J. Dana Trent is an author, professor, speaker and minister. Her New York Times Editors’ Choice Between Two Trailers: A Memoir is described as a powerful, unforgettable memoir about a girl who escaped her childhood as a preschool drug dealer to earn a divinity degree from Duke University—and then realized she had to confront her past to truly find her way home.
The luncheon and author presentations begin at Noon.
Beginning at 10:30 a.m., authors will be available to sign their works, including:
Holly Haworth
The Way the Moon
Catherine M. Lewis
Above and Beyond: The Masons and the Transformation of Gwinnett County and the Post-war South
Donna Coffey Little
Wofford’s Blood (a novel)
Richard Rankin
Local Signs and Wonders
William Rawlings
The Garden of Earthly Delights: A John Wesley O’Toole Novel
Author of Crypto, Finalist in Detective/Mystery & Science Fiction for the 2024 Georgia Author of the Year Awards
Ronda Rich
Sapelo Island: A Stella Bankwell Mystery
Bestselling author and syndicated columnist
Francesca Rollins and Tennille D. Shuster
Toby’s Campus Tour
Virginia Willis
Bon Appetit, Y’all: Recipes and Stories from Three Generations of Southern Cooking, Revised and Updated, with New Recipes
2024 Special Mercer University Press Edition:
Mercer University Press and the University’s Marketing Communications Office have partnered to produce and publish a new coffee table book titled Mercer Illustrated: The People, Places and Experiences of a Uniquely Impactful University. A collectible showpiece folio of more than 250 photographs celebrating Georgia’s oldest private university, with a foreword by President William D. Underwood and text by Dr. Gordon Johnston
Event Details
Date & Time: Saturday, Dec. 14, from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
Where: InterContinental Buckhead, 3315 Peachtree Road NE, Atlanta
Admission: Mercer faculty, staff and students receive a discounted rate.
Registration: The last day to register is Monday, Dec. 2.
To purchase tickets: Visit mup.mercer.edu/authors-luncheon
Proceeds from the event benefit Mercer University Press.
