How to Write Compelling Nonfiction Stories with Author Kim Cross at RPL

The New York Times bestselling author of literary nonfiction, Kim Cross, will speak at Rodman Public Library on Friday, March 23, at 3:30 p.m., in the Main Auditorium. “How to Write Compelling Nonfiction Stories” is the subject Cross will address as she discusses storytelling from a written perspective. She looks to many genres such as film/screenwriting, songwriting, poetry, oral history, podcasting, and fiction for inspiration and examples of craft that can be applied to literary nonfiction or fiction. Her first book, What Stands in a Storm, is this year’s One Book One Community read that chronicles the biggest tornado outbreak in recorded weather, the April 2011 storm that unleashed 349 tornados on 21 states, killing at least 324 people. What Stands in a Storm was named the inaugural winner of the Fitzgerald Museum Literary Prize for Excellence in Writing and won the first-place Book Award for General Nonfiction from the American Society of Journalists and Authors. Her book was also named one of Amazon’s Best Books of 2015 and was a finalist in the GoodReads Choice Awards. A starred review in Publisher’s Weekly noted that its “detail-oriented reporting anchors a novelist’s flair for drama.” A contributing editor for Southern Living, Cross is a full-time freelance writer whose work has appeared in Outside, Garden & Gun, the Dallas Morning News, the Tampa Bay Times, and on CNN.com and ESPN.com. Her stories have been recognized in the Best American Sports Writing and on “Best of” lists curated by the Columbia Journalism Review and Longreads. The way Kim sees it, storytelling is alive and well, just different vehicles are used to tell the story. The program is free and open to the public. No registration is needed. For more information, call the Main Library at 330-821-2665, ext. 107.