The Woman’s Club of Arlington hosts its 13th annual author event Sunday, April 6, 2025, at the Henrietta Benstead Senior Center, 60 Columbia Ave., Kearny, from 2 to 5 p.m.
The event features Laura Sims, who will discuss “How Can I Help You?” described as razor-sharp suspense about two local librarians whose lives become dangerously intertwined. No one knows Margo’s real name. Her colleagues and patrons at a small-town public library only know her middle-aged normalcy, congeniality and charm. They have no reason to suspect she has a past.
She has turned a new page, so to speak, and the library is her sanctuary, a place to quell old urges. That is, at least, until Patricia, a recent graduate and failed novelist, joins the library staff. Patricia quickly notices Margo’s subtly sinister edge and watches her carefully.
When a patron’s death in the library bathroom gives her a hint of Margo’s mysterious past, Patricia can’t resist digging deeper — even as this new fixation becomes all-consuming.
“How Can I Help You?” is a New York Times, Publishers Weekly, Book Riot and Crime Reads Best Book of the Year. Sims’s first novel, “Looker,” was included on “Best Books” lists in Vogue, People magazine, Real Simple, Entertainment Weekly and more, and is now in development for television Emily Mortimer’s King Bee Productions.
An award-winning poet, Sims has published four poetry collections. Her essays and poems have appeared in The New Republic, Boston Review, Lit Hub and Electric Lit. She and her family live in New Jersey, where she works part-time as a reference librarian and hosts the library’s lecture series
An afternoon luncheon will be served including mini sandwiches and salads. A dessert bar of homemade delicacies will be provided by the members of the Woman’s Club of Arlington.
The event also includes a 50/25-25 drawing and gift basket raffles. Proceeds will be donated to local charities, given as academic scholarships and gifted to New Jersey Children’s Alliance, the Special State Project for the New Jersey State Federation of Women’s Clubs.
Members and friends are welcome to attend. Tickets are $40. Checks, payable to the Woman’s Club of Arlington, may be mailed to 210 Argyle Place, Kearny, N.J. 07032, attention Patricia Sherwen. Limited seating is available.
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Kevin A. Canessa Jr. is the editor of and broadcaster at The Observer, an organization he has served since 2006. He is responsible for the editorial content of the newspaper and website, the production of the e-Newspaper, writing several stories per week (including the weekly editorial), conducting live broadcasts on social media channels such as YouTube, Facebook, and X, including a weekly recap of the news — and much more behind the scenes. Between 2006 and 2008, he introduced the newspaper to its first-ever blog — which included podcasts, audio and video. Originally from Jersey City, Kevin lived in Kearny until 2004, lived in Port St. Lucie. Florida, for four years until February 2016 and in March of that year, he moved back to Kearny to return to The Observer full time. Click Here to send Kevin an email.