Tickets to this season's Author Spotlight Series in Naples are already sold out, but two remaining talks at the Norris Center still have seats going fast — including one featuring a novelist whose witch-trial thriller shot up bestseller lists in under a month. The fifth annual series, run by the Friends of the Library of Collier County, kicked off last week with a sold-out appearance by Marie Bostwick and continues into the new year with two more nationally known authors.
Marie Bostwick, author of The Book Club for Troublesome Women, drew a packed house as the season's kickoff speaker on November 12, according to the Miami Herald. Bostwick is best known nationally for her seven-book Cobbled Court Quilts series, which launched in 2008 with A Single Thread, as Fresh Fiction notes. Her 2012 novel The Second Sister later became the basis for the 2018 Hallmark Hall of Fame television movie Christmas Everlasting, starring Patti LaBelle, according to ReadingGroupGuides.com.
A Witch Novelist Takes the Stage in January
Next up is Florida resident Madeline Martin, who speaks at 2 p.m. on January 28, 2027, at the Norris Center, per the Herald's report. Martin is the author of The Booklover's Library, set in Nottingham, England, during World War II and centered on a widow named Emma who works in a private lending library while trying to protect her daughter Olivia, and A Time of Witches, which follows two heroines across a dual timeline spanning modern-day London and the 17th-century English witch trials. According to the same report, A Time of Witches became a USA Today and New York Times bestseller in less than a month and has collected thousands of five-star reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, with at least one online reviewer recommending it as a go-to witch book for the fall.
Martin's broader body of work has already made her a national name in historical fiction. Her 2021 World War II novel The Last Bookshop in London became a New York Times and USA Today bestseller and was translated into more than 25 languages, according to Goodreads. Tickets to her January appearance are almost sold out, the Herald reports.
Naples-Based Author Closes the Season in April
Rounding out the lineup is Martinn E. Winters, a Naples-based author who speaks at 2 p.m. on April 8, 2027, also at the Norris Center. His debut novel, Harry's Gold, is based on a true story and spans the American experience from 1897 through the 1940s, following a teenager who runs away to the Great Northwest and beyond, encountering Jack London during the Klondike Gold Rush. The novel moves through the Gilded Age, the Jazz Age, World War I, Prohibition, the Roaring '20s and World War II, and online reviewers have praised its depth, authenticity and complex title character, per the Herald.
Winters spent several years researching the book and personally visited every North American location depicted in it, weaving historical figures like Wyatt Earp and Jack London into the narrative, according to Sonoma Valley Events. Tickets for his April talk are going fast, the Herald notes. Each Author Spotlight talk, including Winters's, is followed by a question-and-answer session and a book signing.
Small Venue, Big Stakes for Library Funding
All three talks are held at the Norris Center, located at 755 Eighth Ave. S. near the southern end of Cambier Park in downtown Naples. The tight turnaround from almost-sold-out to fully sold-out makes more sense given the venue's size: the Norris Community Center's auditorium theater seats just 200 people and is managed by the City of Naples Parks and Recreation Department, according to Naples Illustrated.
Current Friends members pay $60 per lecture while nonmembers pay $70, with general admission seating for all ticket holders, per the Herald's reporting. Friends memberships start at $50 per year and come with exclusive access and discounts to other programs throughout the year. Tickets and memberships are sold through collier-friends.org. Downingwn-Frye Realty agent Kelly E. Capolino sponsors the series, and operations and events manager Marlene Haywood helps run it, according to the same report.
Decades of Fundraising for Collier's Libraries
The Author Spotlight Series, now in its fifth year, raises funds for the Friends of the Library of Collier County, which donates hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to the county's public libraries, the Herald reports. That money matters because the Collier County Public Library system spans 10 branch locations, with the Friends supplying supplementary funding for e-books, homebound postage and summer reading programs, according to a 2022 charity registry published on Issuu.
The nonprofit's roots in Naples run deep. Friends of the Library of Collier County was established in 1957 after petitioning the Board of County Commissioners to convert a small book room at the Naples Woman's Club into the county's first free public library, according to the Collier County Clerk of Courts. The organization still owns the downtown Naples land at 650 Central Avenue, donated by a private benefactor decades ago, and leases it to Collier County for $1 per year so the county can operate the Naples Regional Library there.
The Author Spotlight Series isn't the Friends' only fundraising event. The group also hosts the flagship Nick Linn Lecture Series, an annual winter luncheon series founded in 2004 that has raised more than $800,000 for Collier County public libraries over the years, according to Life In Naples Magazine. Downtown Naples independent bookstore Books on Third partners with the Friends to supply books and manage sales for author signings during the series, as noted in a post on Instagram
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