A Day Of Authors - March 22, 2025

Thank you for visiting our website. We are ALPHA – the Professional Auxiliary of the Fullerton Assistance League. Fullerton is part of the National Assistance League which has over 22,000 members in 120 chapters nationwide focused on making our communities a better place to live. Our Fullerton Chapter supports the local communities of Fullerton, Brea, Placentia, Yorba Linda, La Habra and Buena Park.

Transforming Lives • Strengthening Community

We appreciate your continuing support of ALPHA and are happy to share that our annual A Day of Authors event is set for March 22, 2025. This will be our 32nd year of hosting this wonderful, local event.

We have finalized our authors for our event and know you will be as excited to hear them speak as we are to have them. Keynote speakers are NYT bestselling author, Craig Johnson who writes the acclaimed Larimore series and NYT bestselling author, Alison Espach known for both her most recent book, The Wedding People, and her acclaimed book, Notes on Her Sudden Disappearance.” Our five breakout authors from whom attendees choose two include retired LAPD detective, Detective Rick Jackson with Matthew McGough.

Rick is a decorated LAPD detective and a key inspiration in the development of Harry Bosch who has written about the one case he could never let go, Susan Meissner, USA Today bestselling historical fiction author, Nancy Cole Silverman, former radio host and current mystery writer, Jennifer Torres, award-winning chiildren’s author and Desiree Zamorano, literary fiction writer.

This will be our 32nd year of holding our A Day of Authors event. We continue to attract authors of distinction. Our past authors include Elizabeth George, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Gregg Hurwitz, Laura Lippman, Lisa See and many more. Please see the full list here.

ALPHA members both give back to our local communities and know how to have fun! We even have our own book club! We’d love to hear from you. Whether you are a supporter or would like to join us, please do not hesitate to communicate with us via email at alpha.fullerton@yahoo.com or on our Facebook pages, A Day of Authors or Alpha of Fullerton.

Stay informed on event happenings by ‘Liking’ our Facebook page.

Each spring for over 30 years, ALPHA has hosted “A Day of Authors,” where prominent authors inform and entertain more than 400 book lovers. Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, biographer A. Scott Berg, Elizabeth ... ...more

About A Day of Authors

Each spring for over 30 years, ALPHA has hosted “A Day of Authors,” where prominent authors inform and entertain more than 400 book lovers. Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, biographer A. Scott Berg, Elizabeth George, Carol Higgins Clark, Janet Fitch, Lisa See, Amy Ephron, T. Jefferson Parker and many others have spoken to “A Day of Authors” audiences.

Proceeds from this fundraising event benefit the following community groups: St. Jude Neighborhood Health Centers, with our Tiny Togs Program, providing layettes, blankets and diapers to needy newborns as well as preschool books; Operation School Bell (a national program) providing clothes, backpacks and books for school children; McKinney – Vento providing personal care kits and birthday gift books to low-income elementary school students; Tara’s Chance providing sponsorship for equine therapy for children with disabilities; and we also provide other scholarship programs. Please see our Philanthropy tab for more information.

About A Day of Authors

Our Communities are in Need and Together We Can Make a Difference! Assistance League Professional Humanitarian Auxiliary (ALPHA) is a nonprofit organization that positively impacts the communities of Fullerton, Brea, Buena Park, La Habra, ... ...more

What We Do

Our Communities are in Need and Together We Can Make a Difference!

Assistance League Professional Humanitarian Auxiliary (ALPHA) is a nonprofit organization that positively impacts the communities of Fullerton, Brea, Buena Park, La Habra, Placentia and Yorba Linda. ALPHA provides backpacks, books, and school clothing through Assistance League’s Operation School Bell©; scholarships to graduating seniors preparing to attend post-secondary schools; personal care kits and birthday gift books to low-income elementary school students; and baby clothes, layettes, diapers, blankets and preschool books in support of St. Jude Neighborhood Clinic.

Professional and Business Women Making a Difference.

ALPHA is comprised of professional or business women who wish to contribute to the community in a meaningful way. ALPHA volunteers commit to financially support and invest their time and varied talents in transforming lives through community programs that meet essential needs, especially those of children and youth. As essential needs are met, families are able to flourish.

Your Partnership Allows Us To Do More!

Financial support goes wholly towards providing less fortunate children, youth and adults in our communities with continued hope toward achieving a better quality of life even during such difficult times as these.

Donations are tax deductible.

ALPHA is a 501(c)(3) Corporation; Tax ID #95-6054959, and all contributions are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law in your particular tax situation. If you are willing, in some way to financially support our efforts to make a difference in our communities, please make your check out to ALPHA and mail it to the above address, or you may give online.

Thank you.

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What We Do

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2025 Authors

Click on an Author to Learn More About Them

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Craig Johnson - Keynote

Alison Espach - Keynote

Rick Jackson & Matthew McGough

Susan Meissner

Nancy Cole Silverman

Jennifer Torres

Désirée Zamorano

Past Guest Authors

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Craig Johnson - Keynote

Craig Johnson, creator of Sheriff Walt Longmire, has written 20 novels set in Wyoming. He has garnered countless awards including Publisher’s Weekly Best Book of the Year, a Will Rogers Award for fiction, Library Journal’s Best Mystery of the Year, and Le Prix du Polar Nouvel Observateur. The iconic sheriff is back with a newly-released adventure, Tooth and Claw. Looking for work in Alaska following service in Vietnam, a young Longmire and friend Henry Standing Bear find themselves facing off against powerful enemies who will stop at nothing to achieve their objectives.
Alison Espach - Keynote

Alison Espach’s latest book, The Wedding People, is an entertaining read while posing serious questions about life, love, and extravagant weddings. The novel was a New York Times best seller, a Barnes and Noble book club pick, an NBC TODAY’s “Read with Jenna” book club selection, and #1 Indie Next Pick for August, 2024. Prior to publication, TriStar won the bidding war to produce a movie of The Wedding People. Espach is a writing professor at Providence College in Rhode Island.
Rick Jackson & Matthew McGough

Rick Jackson and Matthew McGough’s new true crime book is Black Tunnel White Magic. Jackson, a retired decorated LAPD homicide detective and an inspiration for Michael Connelly’s character Harry Bosch, recounts the one case he was unable to put behind him. He partnered with McGough, an investigative journalist, lawyer, and author, to co-write this heinous murder case. The two writers carefully reconstruct the clues, immerse the reader in the story, and demonstrate how a murdered college student received justice.
Susan Meissner

Susan Meissner is a USA Today best-selling author of historical fiction. Her novels have received starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly, the Library Journal, and Booklist. Meissner’s newest book, A Map to Paradise, was just released on March 18, 2025. Set in 1956 Hollywood, three displaced women with no sense of belonging develop a fragile pact. A devastating wildfire threatens their alliance as one woman faces an impossible situation. Author Kate Quinn calls the tale about “complex and damaged women searching for that elusive thing called a home…both tender and touching.”
Nancy Cole Silverman

Nancy Cole Silverman’s novels have received numerous honors including the Shamus, Macavity, Anthony, Willa, Agatha, and Lefty awards. Silverman is the author of three acclaimed series—the Carol Childs, Misty Dawn, and Kat Lawson mysteries. The featured Day of Authors novel is the newest Kat Lawson mystery, Murder on the Med. Kat finds herself on a luxury cruise ship for seniors where a person is missing and presumed overboard. There is the possibility that the ship has smuggled ancient artifacts on board, and mysterious events ensue.
Jennifer Torres

Jennifer Torres, winner of the Literacy Hero Award, who writes stories for preschoolers to middle schoolers, has written a book in which “the story’s true treasures are the relationships formed along the way.” (Kirkus Reviews) Vega’s Piece of the Sky is a coming-of-age story involving three characters searching for meteorites near California’s Salton Sea. The adventurers encounter scorpions, coyotes, and flash floods as they seek to find space rocks and make it home safely. Common themes appearing throughout Torres’s writings are at the heart of this book: home, friendship, and courage.
Désirée Zamorano

Désirée Zamorano is an award-winning short story writer and Pushcart Prize nominee, whose essays on the invisibility of her demographic have appeared in Publisher’s Weekly. Her novel, Dispossessed, follows the life of Manuel, a boy separated from his family during the 1930s California expulsion of Mexican Americans and Mexican nationals. Manuel struggles to comprehend what has happened to his beloved family; he is adrift without them. Author Hector Tobar states, “Zamorano brings to light the human toll of the mass deportations…and the fortitude of those who endured them.”
Past Guest Authors

See complete list of past guest authors.