Best-selling authors bringing literary talk to Berkeley County

BERKELEY COUNTY, WV (WOWK) – Libraries and independent bookstores are an important part of small towns across the country, and a pair of best-selling authors are highlighting that on a trip to Berkeley County West Virginia.

New York Times Bestselling authors Jordan Ifueko and Namina Forna will come together for a discussion on their writing craft, what has inspired them and the spellbinding fantasy worlds they have built for readers to enjoy.

The event is set to take place at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 13 through Four Seasons Books in Shepherdstown and the Martinsburg Public Library in Martinsburg. Attendees will have the chance to meet Ifueko and Forna for a Q&A session and book signing. The event location is still to be announced, and the latest details will be available on Four Seasons Book’s website.

WOWK 13 News had the chance to speak with Ifueko ahead of the event, and she says bringing book tours and author conversations to independent, or indie, bookstores and libraries because they help grow a love of reading in small communities across the country.

“As a kid, those small bookstores were such a safe place for me… even if they’re really small – especially for children, there’s always a beautifully decorated area for kids books to make stories welcoming to kids and to teenagers,” Ifueko said. “There are so many reasons why these independent bookstores are important. A lot of them are pouring money back into the community. They’re run by people from their community. Every chance I get, I’m like, you can find by book anywhere books are sold, but if you can, go online, find your nearest indie bookstore and order it from them because they’re such beautiful, valuable places in any neighborhood.”

Ifueko will be spending the entire week of the event traveling to indie bookstores in four different states for five literary conversation events with different authors. Along with her event with Forna in Shepherdstown, she will be meeting with Mark Oshiro in Decatur, Georgia; Rebecca Kim Wells in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Mellisa Caruso in Plainville, Massachusetts; and Ronni Davis in Downers Grove, Illinois.

The folks at Four Seasons Books say they’re excited to collaborate with the library to bring this event to the community. Julia Young, events manager at Four Seasons Books says their store has been a central place for the community through book clubs and other events, even for herself when she first moved to the area.

“The family the bookstore has established in the area is something special. It’s quite literally the beating heart of Shepherdstown… We’re also lucky enough to be within 90 minutes of some major cities, so we also see people out looking for a respite accidentally stumble upon Shepherdstown and stop by the bookstore,” Young says. “Overhauling the events program this year helped us offer much more well-versed and well-rounded programs… We found reaching people who need an emotional connection coming out of COVID by offering book and author-related events helps them as well as our business.”

Young says as an area with many young people, including from Shepherdstown University, offering an opportunity to meet with authors helps give children, teens and young adults a new perspective of what they can achieve.

“Having middle grade and young adult programs with authors like these two women who are friends in real life and are intelligent, well-spoken, well-written individuals allows us to give our community a more tangible vision of what they can pursue,” Young continued. “The young adult phase can be an emotional time that’s difficult to be a human, so it’s magical when you bring in someone who’s willing to discuss how they got into writing and see young aspiring writers come in taking notes and asking questions.”

Forna is a young adult novelist originally from Sierra Leone in West Africa. According to her biography, she moved to the U.S. at 9 years old. Along with writing her best-selling novels, Forna is an accomplished public speaker on the topics of “feminism, storytelling and changing dominant narratives.”

Her debut novel, “ The Gilded Ones ” was first published in 2021. The third and final book in the trilogy, “ The Eternal Ones ,” was published earlier this year. The trilogy follows Deka, a teenage girl named with golden blood given the choice to leave her home and join an army of young girls with rare abilities and training to stop their empire’s greatest threat. Along the way, she learns no one, even herself, maybe as they seem.

Ifueko is the author of the Raybearer duology and has won multiple awards for her work. She has also written “ Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur ” comics for Marvel Comics. Ifueko is the daughter of Nigerian immigrants and says her heritage has also helped to inspire her work.

“For me, fantasy has always been a place where I could be all of the things I am, comfortably. I think when you’re the child of immigrants, you have one foot in a bunch of different worlds,” Ifueko said. “My Nigerian heritage is so important and beautiful to me, but even Nigeria because it was colonized by England, you see a lot of that influence in the books even on my parent’s shelves…The Raybearer books, the world of ‘The Maid and the Crocodile,’ it’s actually a multicultural world… It’s a multicultural world because I am a multicultural person. It was really cool to have the freedom to write a world like that.”

The first book “Raybearer,” Ifueko’s debut novel, was first published in August 2020 after a publishing delay due to COVID-19. The sequel was published the following year. The duology follows the story of Tarisai, a young girl raised in isolation by her mysterious and often absent mother. When she is sent to compete to become a member of the crown prince’s council as part of her mother’s plot to kill the prince, Tarisai is faced with challenges that could change – and save or destroy – their world.

Her newest fantasy romance novel, “ The Maid and the Crocodile ,” takes place in the same world as the duology. It follows the story of a teenage domestic worker named Small Sade who has the power to change people’s lives by cleaning their homes. While looking for a job, Small accidentally binds herself to a god known as the Crocodile who takes an interest in her and in her gift.

Ifueko tells 13 News this new story is inspired by the working class and how the importance of the everyday frontline worker was highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic. She says she wanted to create a heroine who represented the working class unlike many of the wealthy, well-off, chosen one or unsuspectingly royal main characters often seen in fantasy novels.

“Writing fantasy novels, I see a lot of stories about princesses and secret royalty and chosen ones, and I really wanted a change of pace. I wanted a story that celebrates the dignity of workers and also admires the beauty in everyday labor. Because, a lot of these fantasy worlds, right, they still depend a lot on these characters. They’re just never the main character,” Ifueko said.

“I just feel like my eyes were really opened during those years. You know, I’ve always known that our societies depend on laborers. Most of us are laborers. And yet, as a big bookworm, I realized most of the books that I read, that all of us read, center the most powerful people, or at least the most privileged people in a society – especially in fantasy,” Ifueko continued.

For more information on the Ifueko’s and Forna’s speaking event in Berkeley County, visit Four Seasons Books’ website . You can also preorder Ifueko’s upcoming release or Forna’s most recent release, or see more upcoming events on the bookstore’s website.

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