Friends of the Oakland Public School Libraries (FOPSL) is excited to bring you three author chats in September to support Oakland’s underfunded public school libraries. Tickets are $30 for each chat or $75 for the 3 chat series.

Mary Roach is the author of the New York Times bestsellers STIFF, SPOOK, BONK, GULP, GRUNT, and PACKING FOR MARS. Her new book FUZZ: When Nature Breaks the Law, debuts in September 2021. Mary has written for National Geographic, Wired, and The New York Times Magazine, among others, and her TED talk made the TED 20 Most Watched list. She has been a guest editor for Best American Science and Nature Writing, a finalist for the Royal Society’s Winton Prize, and a winner of the American Engineering Societies’ journalism award, in a category for which, let’s be honest, she was the sole entrant. More at www.maryroach.net

Ali Benjamin’s books include THE SMASH-UP, her first adult novel, which the New York Times called “hilarious and uncomfortably close to home.”  She also wrote the young adult novels THE NEXT GREAT PAULIE FINK and THE THING ABOUT JELLYFISH, which was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2015. She’s also co-written memoirs for and with others. Ali lives in Massachusetts with her husband, two kids and two rescue dogs, and chooses “kindness over niceness, truth over disinformation, and democracy over whatever the heck we’ve had.” More at www.alibenjamin.com

Karla Cornejo Villavicencio is the author of THE UNDOCUMENTED AMERICANS, profiling the lives of undocumented immigrants throughout the U.S., while weaving in her own story and reflecting on her parents’ sacrifices.  THE UNDOCUMENTED AMERICANS was shortlisted for the National Book Award in 2020, named one of the best books of 2020 by the New York Times Book Review, and was listed by former President Obama as one of his favorite books from 2020. Karla is best known for her writings on immigration, music, beauty, and mental illness for The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Republic, Glamour, Elle, Vogue, n+1, and The New Inquiry, among others. She lives in New Haven with her partner and their dog. To learn more about Karla, listen to this NPR interview.