Actress Patty Duke to Join Western Writers of America in Book-Signing

Actress Patty Duke to Join Western Writers of America in Book-Signing

SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash., May 31 /PRNewswire/ -- Academy Award-winning actress Patty Duke plans to join more than 70 Western writers for a special book-signing event Friday, June 17, at the Mirabeau Park Hotel ballroom.

The event, scheduled for 7 to 9 p.m. and open to the public, is part of the Western Writers of America convention. The nonprofit organization, which has approximately 600 members, was founded in 1953 to promote and recognize literature of the American West. Annual conventions are held each June in a different city.

"Western Writers of America is looking forward to another successful, multiple-author signing," WWA President Rita Cleary said. "More Westerns are being printed today and selling today than ever before. Trust a good Western to trigger imagination, intellectual curiosity and entertain all at the same time."

Duke, who lives in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and has narrated audiobooks for Spokane-based Books In Motion, wrote A BRILLIANT MADNESS: LIVING WITH MANIC-DEPRESSIVE ILLNESS with medical reporter Gloria Hochman. An Oscar winner for her supporting role in 1962's THE MIRACLE WORKER, Duke was diagnosed with manic-depressive illness at age 35. She also has written an autobiography, CALL ME ANNA: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF PATTY DUKE, with Kenneth Turan.

The event features top names and rising stars of Western fiction, nonfiction and poetry such as 2005 Spur Award winners D.L. Birchfield (Best First Novel, FIELD OF HONOR) and Spokane's Mary Cronk Farrell (Best Juvenile Fiction, FIRE IN THE HOLE!); Spokane Valley resident C.K. Crigger, author of THE WINNING HAND and LIAR'S TRAIL; Wyoming's Candy Moulton, author of CHIEF JOSEPH: GUARDIAN OF THE PEOPLE; and Walla Walla's Bill Gulick, recipient of the 1983 Levi Strauss Saddleman Award for lifetime achievement in Western literature.

Others include best-selling romance writer Kat Martin; popular mystery writers Loren D. Estleman and Deborah Morgan; historians James A. Crutchfield and Leon C. Metz; and two deans of Western fiction, Don Coldsmith and Elmer Kelton.

Duke is no stranger to Westerns. She co-starred with the late Robert Preston in the made-for-television movie SEPTEMBER GUN in 1983 and is reading a Jeanne Williams Western, THE LONGEST ROAD, for Books In Motion.

Drawings for free books will be held during the event at the hotel, 1100 N. Sullivan Road.

Source: Western Writers of America

CONTACT: C.K. Crigger of Western Writers of America, +1-509-926-6793,
ckcww@aol.com

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