As part of the Adams County Library System’s (ACLS) 2024 Adams County Reads One Book program, local book lovers were treated to two special evenings last week with author Peng Shepherd. The program is designed to have the whole community unite to read the same book, and the library then organizes special programs centered around themes from that book. (Read more about the program here: www.adamslibrary.org/onebook.)
Day #1: The Cartographers
During Day #1 with the author, Shepherd discussed her celebrated novel “The Cartographers,” a suspense thriller based on elements from multiple genres and described by the ACLS as “a murder mystery wrapped in a fantasy with touches of magical realism.” The story follows a young woman who discovers that a strange map in her deceased father’s belongings holds an incredible, deadly secret—one that will lead her on an extraordinary adventure and to the truth about her family’s dark history.
Peng Shepherd writes that “Maps are love letters written to times and places their makers had explored.” As part of the One Book program, the ACLS has planned several events around the subject of maps, such as classes and presentations on “Navigating the Cartographic Collections at the New York Public Library’s Map Division, “Cartographers, Who They are and What they do”, “Decoupaging with Maps”, and various other events, as can be found here: https://www.adamslibrary.org/events/upcoming.
Day #2: All This and More
The second evening with the author included a ticketed reception and discussion of Shepherd’s third book “All This and More,” a novel about a woman who gets the chance to rewrite every mistake she’s ever made. The story explores the various options she chooses to find her own “happily ever after.” The special twist in this book is that readers can decide which option and next steps the protagonist should choose to change her destiny.
Gettysburg Connection reporter Alex Hayes served as interviewer and Q&A facilitator. During the interview, the author described her journey of becoming a writer as evolving from her initial attempts to make her own books during childhood, to repeatedly being drawn back to writing over the years, even while side-tracked by different study courses and professional paths.
Asked about her writing process, Shepherd described herself as not being too organized at first, feeling that structured outlines at the onset of the process felt “engineered.” Rather, she allows herself to live the excitement of the new concept, coming up with number of possible scenarios that may at first not make coherent sense. But after exploring the story options many pages into the project, Peng begins to see the big picture and starts pulling the pieces together into the final story.
Shepherd stated that her first and second books were partially re-written multiple times and more difficult to create, but this third book was the most fun, as it was like a “kid’s version of your life, allowing you to make the choices for where your life takes you.”
Asked what advice she might have for aspiring writers, the author stressed that writing is hard work. “We are conditioned to believe that, if you are good at something, it should be easy. Many young folks give up too soon because it is hard. But finding it hard is normal – and a good thing – during the writing process. You must keep writing!”
Questions from the audience ranged from asking how ideas emerged for the author; the types of writers that had influenced her; and her opinion on how AI will alter the future of writing.
Questioned if any of her books might be autobiographical, Shepherd said that none of them were so in the beginning; however, looking back at her first book “The Book of M,” she now finds strong parallels to her own reality, as a family member recently was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. “The Book of M” takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, exploring whether survivors would still be the same person if their memories were ripped away from them completely. Who would they become, when everything they had been taught, and all the systems and inherited or acquired constraints were removed? Would they fight to gain back their memories or would they choose to experience a different self?
“It speaks to the magic and randomness of realism,” said Peng.
Shepherd’s novels have been featured in the New York Times and the LA Times and have been translated into more than ten languages. Her work has also been optioned for TV and film, and she is a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize.
Copies of “The Cartographers” are available at each Adams County Library location, in both regular and large print. eBook and eAudiobook copies are also available through cloudLibrary.
Read more about Peng Shepherd on her website: https://pengshepherd.com.
Donate Gardner is a freelance writer and journalist who came to Gettysburg in 2021 from Montgomery County, Maryland. A former linguist-turned-legal professional, Donate recently retired from the corporate world and is eager to support her new community in a variety of ways.
She currently serves as the news communicator for the Adams County migrant outreach program, Pasa La Voz.
As an immigrant born, raised, and educated in Germany, Donate still maintains a strong connection to other languages, both as a writer and translator. Donate is an active musician, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter. She and her husband have two daughters and three grandchildren.