by Timothy Rutt

Webster’s Fine Stationers (Altadenablog sponsor) — as part of their emphasis on local products and local artists — will host the “Authors Tours USA” launch and inaugural booksigning on Saturday, March 30, featuring four local authors:

ADRIANNE HALL (Monrovia native):  In her first novel, Thresholds, the underlying message is, “Everyone has a secret” and some of those secrets cross over the threshold to being outright lies. Winter Bernard and Carley DeVries are two college co-eds who, while harboring their own deep dark secrets, befriend each other and through a series of heroic events find themselves embroiled in unfolding the life-altering truth about another co-ed’s tragic death. Throughout the twists and turns that their lives take, the characters in THRESHOLDS come face to face with the realization that nobody really knows the impact that secrets and lies will have, whether or not they are discovered.  (Fiction)

KOJI STEVEN SAKAI (Pasadena native) has four screenplays, which became feature films: “Haunted Highway” (2006), “The People I’ve Slept With” (2009), “Monster & Me” (2012), and “Chink” (2012). He also served as a producer on The People I’ve Slept With and Chink . Most recently, his feature length screenplay, “Romeo, Juliet, & Rosaline,” was optioned by Amazon Studios. (Screenplay).   His project, My Imaginary Boyfriend, that he wrote with Emily Brauer Rogers was accepted to Project Catalyst at the 2013 29th Annual Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. Although he doesn’t have a book, he will be providing invaluable information about his process and success in having his screenplays produced as feature films.

CHRISTINA HAMLETT (Pasadena). Screenwriting for Teens is the second film book Hamlett has written specifically for the high school market. Her fondness for this age group, however, goes back much farther. Since 1980, she has been mentoring aspiring young writers nationwide as well as penning over 150 plays for them to perform at their schools and in community theaters. This particular book gives teens -who go to the movies more than any age group in the world – the tools to do more than just watch those movies. It gives them the tools to write their own films. Don’t let the title fool you, though – just as many young-at-heart adults have plucked it off the shelves to learn the tricks of the trade and master their own screenwriting journeys.

ELLEN SNORTLAND (Altadena).  Beauty Bites Beast is a clarion call for women and girls to learn how to physically defend themselves as a birth right or human right. Women are not biologically helpless, but just like swimming must be taught, so too can personal safety skills that can save a woman’s life.  Featured on NBC’s Dateline program, Beauty Bites Beast is considered a classic in the violence prevention field.  Snortland is currently completing her documentary, also called “Beauty Bites Beast,” which chronicles women in a Mexican factory who learn how to defend themselves. Stirring, revolutionary and controversial, it poses the question, “What happens when the sleeping giant of women in Latin America wake up and take back their power?”

Authors Tour USA™, a Pasadena-based organized, co-founded by Wendy Anderson and La Quetta Shamblee was created to provide marketing, networking and promotional support for published authors, with a focus on self-published authors small, independent publishing companies.

The book signing will be on Saturday, March 30, from 3-5 PM at Webster’s Fine Stationers, 2450 N. Lake Avenue.