Meet local columnist and young adult author Camille Gavin at Russo's Marketplace.  She will also be signing her book of Yokut Indian tales How Roadrunner Got His Spots, as well as her book Biddy Mason: A Place of Her Own, a slave who won her freedom in a Los Angeles courtroom in 1856.

Just in time for Christmas, Camille will also sign her NEW non-fiction book Dear Cora: A Personal History of Bakerfield's Early Days.  Quaint as it may seem to us now, there was a time when famileis kept in touch by sitting down to write a letter.  To a woman like Cora, the author's grandmother, letters from her husband Phil were more than mere sheets of paper -- they were memories to be treasured forever.  The letters are linked together with explanatory text by the author.  Her grandfather, Phil Bender, was a Bakersfield businessman, invovled with the sale and transfer of real estate.  He also was a volunteer fireman and his dynamic first-hand account of the 1889 conflagration that nearly destroyed Bakersfield is as exciting to read today as it must have been for Cora when she received it.  Dear Cora is the story of one family, but it could be any family, anywhere at any time!