LEWISTON — Maine author Elizabeth Hand will be speaking about her forthcoming book, “Curious Toys,” at the Lewiston Public Library on Thursday, May 31, at 5:30 p.m. This free, public program will take place in the Library’s Callahan Hall and will conclude with a book sale and signing.

Elizabeth Hand is the bestselling author of 13 genre-spanning novels and four collections of short fiction. Her work has received the World Fantasy Award (four times), Nebula Award (twice), Shirley Jackson Award (three times), International Horror Guild Award (three times), the Mythopoeic Award, and the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, among others, and several of her books have been New York Times and Washington Post Notable Books.

Her recent, critically acclaimed novels featuring Cass Neary, “one of literature’s great noir anti-heroes” [Katherine Dunn] — “Generation Loss,” “Available Dark,” and “Hard Light”— have been compared to those of Patricia Highsmith and have been optioned for a TV series. She is a longtime reviewer and critic for the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and Salon, among many others, and writes a regular book review column for the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. She also teaches at the Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing. She divides her time between the Maine coast and North London.  

Hand will be speaking about the inspiration for her novel, “Curious Toys,” based on the real-life outsider artist Henry Darger, and the unsolved murder of five-year-old Elsie Paroubek in 1915 Chicago. The novel will be published next year.

Copies of the author’s previous books will be available for sale at the event and a book signing will follow her talk. For more information, contact the LPL Adult & Teen Services desk at 513-3135 or LPLReference@Gmail.com.