Catawba College News Service

Bestselling author and North Carolina native John Hart is coming to Salisbury March 19 as the featured speaker at Catawba College’s 29^th annual Brady Author’s Symposium, at the Robertson College-Community Center on campus.

Hart is the author of four New York Times bestsellers, “The King of Lies,” “Down River,” “The Last Child” and “Iron House.” The only author in history to win the best novel Edgar Award for consecutive novels, Hart has also won the Barry Award, the SIBA Book Award for Fiction and the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for best thriller of the year. A former defense attorney and stockbroker, today he is pursuing his passion as a full-time writer who spends time in North Carolina and Virginia.

Hart is the son of surgeon and a former French teacher who quit her job to raise her family. He spent a good portion of his life in Rowan County, the place that became the basis for his fictional Raven County where his first two novels are set. On his website, he declares his three great passions are “my family, my writing and the protection of North Carolina’s open spaces.”

Hart was referred to in a Providence Journal review as “This generation’s Pat Conroy” with the publication of “The Last Child.” He has a fifth book arriving in 2016. That new novel’s working title, Hart recently shared, is “Black Water.”

Author Patricia Cornwell wrote of Hart’s “Iron House”: “If you crave thrillers that are vividly beautiful, graphic, will make you bleed, try John Hart.”

Author Pat Conroy wrote of Hart’s “King of Lies,” that the novel “moves and reads like a book on fire,” and described Hart as “an amazing new talent.”

Hart will join an impressive group of authors who have spoken at previous Brady Author’s Symposia, including Reynolds Price, Josephine Humphreys, Anne Rivers Siddons, Dannye Romine Powell, Betty Adcock, Angela Davis-Gardner, Doris Betts, Lee Smith, Kay Gibbons, Fred Chappell, Robert Inman, Jan Karon, John Berendt, Pat Conroy, Terry Kay, Gail Godwin, Ann Hood, Tim McLaurin, Frances Mayes, Rick Bragg, Susan Vreeland, Jodi Picoult, Gish Jen, Joanne Harris, Chris Bohjalian, Elizabeth Berg, Colum McCann, Jane Hamilton, Sena Jeter Naslund and Meg Wolitzer.

Tickets for the symposium are available through the Catawba College Public Relations Office at 704-637-4393. Symposium events include an 11 a.m. lecture ($20), a seated luncheon to be catered by Buttercup Café of Denton ($20), book signing (free), and an exclusive writing question and answer session ($10).

Lecture, 11 a.m. Keppel Auditorium, Robertson College-Community Center; seated luncheon (reservations are limited and will be taken in the order in which they are received),  12:15 p.m.,  Peeler Crystal Lounge; book signing, 1:15 p.m.,  lobby of Keppel Auditorium; question and answer, 2 p.m., Hedrick Theatre, Robertson College-Community Center