Category Archives: News

Award winning and bestselling author John Grisham opened the 2009 National Book Festival talking about his first years as a book writer and about publishing A Time to Kill and The Firm.

Part two of a series of conversations with John Grisham about his first collection of short stories, Ford County. Featuring a cast of characters you’ll never forget, these stories bring Ford County to vivid and colorful life. Often hilarious, frequently moving, and always entertaining, this collection makes it abundantly clear why John Grisham is our most popular storyteller.

The state of the nation’s prison system will be the topic of the Legal Aid Justice Center’s annual fundraising event. The event will be held at 7 p.m. Oct. 19 at the Paramount Theater in Charlottesville, and John Grisham will act as master of ceremonies. “Incarceration Nation” will feature a panel discussion about the prison reform movement and an episode of the documentary series “30 Days” featuring filmmaker Morgan Spurlock’s month in jail.

Best-selling author and democratic check-writer John Grisham hosted an event on Charlottesville’s downtown mall on October 6, 2009 to raise money for David Toscano’s re-election campaign.
John Grisham appeared at Siips restaurant in Charlottesville, putting his name and money behind Delegate David Toscano.

Part one of a series of conversations with John Grisham about his first collection of short stories, Ford County. Featuring a cast of characters you’ll never forget, these stories bring Ford County to vivid and colorful life. Often hilarious, frequently moving, and always entertaining, this collection makes it abundantly clear why John Grisham is our most popular storyteller.

“The good stories stick, but they’re not always long enough to become novels. To give them life, and to make sure I don’t eventually forget them, I have collected seven of my favorites, seven longer stories, which Doubleday will publish next month. The collection is titled simply Ford County: Stories.” — John Grisham

John Grisham reads about 4-5 newspapers a day, including the Washington Post. He especially appreciates the obituaries as he gets inspiration for stories and names (since they are dead, they can’t sue him, he joked). His first and only (and perhaps last, as he admitted he’s not a lover of hours of research and writing facts) non-fiction work, The Innocent Man, came as a result of an obituary he read.

During a Hay Adams Rooftop Luncheon Honoring John Grisham, the best-selling author describes his D.C. roots and how Kindle is changing the book industry.

Novelist John Grisham, a former lawyer who has written extensively about the criminal justice system, said he favors three changes to reduce the chance of wrongful convictions: require police to videotape their interrogations in serious crimes, tighten up laws and police procedures in witness identification, and provide national certification for forensic experts.

The National Book Festival was held on September 26, 2009 and started at 10 a.m. in the Fiction and Fantasy Pavilion with the official opening and presentation of the National Book Festival Creative Achievement Award to John Grisham.

John Grisham will speak at Oklahoma City University to help raise funds for a new OCU School of Law program to address wrongful convictions. “An Evening with John Grisham: The Innocent Man and Wrongful Convictions in America,” begins on October 13 at 7:30 p.m. at the Henry J. Freede Wellness and Activity Center.

Dan Brown, who was criticised by his fellow best-selling novelist Philip Pullman for his ‘flat, stunted and ugly’ prose, has won sympathy from John Grisham. “I know that what I do is not literature,” says Grisham, who has sold more than 250 million copies of his legal thrillers. “For me, the essential component of fiction is plot.”