The Friends of Little Tokyo Branch Library and the Little Tokyo Branch Library will honor Naomi Hirahara at its 29th Author Recognition Luncheon on Saturday, June 13.
The event will feature her latest book, “Grave on Grand Avenue.” Free admission.
A former editor with The Rafu Shimpo, Hirahara is the Edgar Award-winning author of two mystery series. “Summer of the Big Bachi,” the first of her Mas Arai mysteries, which featured an Altadena gardener and Hiroshima atomic-bomb survivor who solves crimes, will be published in French this summer by Editions de l’Aube.
The first in her Officer Ellie Rush bicycle cop mysteries, “Murder on Bamboo Lane,” received the T. Jefferson Parker Mystery Award. The second, “Grave on Grand Avenue,” is out now.
In addition to middle-grade fiction, she also writes nonfiction books, most recently, “Terminal Island: The Lost Communities of Los Angeles Harbor,” with Geraldine Knatz. Her short story “Jigoku” will be included in the anthology “Hanzai Japan: Fantastical, Futuristic Stories of Crime From and About Japan,” to be released by Viz Media’s Haikasoru imprint this October.
The event will be held at the Little Tokyo Branch Library, 203 S. Los Angeles St. (at Second Street) in Los Angeles. Program begins at 12:30 p.m.; doors open at 11 a.m. for those who pre-order bento lunches. A pre-program presentation of “Murder Haiku,” written for the occasion and facilitated by the Poetry and Art Group, will be featured.
Bento lunches may be ordered by June 2: $12 for members, $15 for non-members. To access the flyer/bento order form online, visit www.friendsoflittletokyobranchlibrary.org/announcements/author-luncheon2015. Or, for more information, call (818) 222-4865. For ADA accommodations, call (213) 228-7430 at least 72 hours in advance.