The Friends of the Smithfield Library will host a meet and greet and book signing next month for author and Smithfield native Jeffrey Blount.

Everyone is invited to this special event at the Smithfield Center at 1 p.m. Thursday, March 7. Blount will discuss his latest book, “Mr. Jimmy from Around the Way.”  Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event.

Blount is the award-winning author of three novels — “Almost Snow White,” winner of the 2013 USA Best Book Award; “Hating Heidi Foster,” winner of the 2013 Readers Favorite Book Award for young adult literature; and “The Emancipation of Evan Walls,” winner of the 2020 National Indie Excellence Award for African American fiction.

“The Emancipation of Evan Walls” also won the 2019 Readers Favorite Book Award, the 2019 American Bookfest Best Book Award and was recognized as a Shelf Unbound 2019 Notable Book.

Blount is an Emmy award-winning television director and a 2016 inductee to the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame. During a 34-year career at NBC News, Blount directed a decade of Meet the Press, the Today Show, NBC Nightly News and major special events.

Blount is also an award-winning documentary scriptwriter for films and interactives that are now on display in the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture, The Newseum, America I AM: The African American Imprint at the National Constitution Center, and the Museum at Bethel Woods, the site of the 1969 Woodstock Music and Arts Fair and others.

In 2017 and 2018, Blount served as journalist in residence and Shapiro fellow at the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University.

Recently, Blount earned his university’s alumni achievement award — the VCU Alumni Star — for his professional achievements as a director at NBC, scriptwriter and author. He has also served as a member of the advisory board at the Richard T. Robertson School of Media and Culture at Virginia Commonwealth University, his alma mater.

 

For information, contact Terry Andrews, branch manager of Smithfield Library at 757-357-2264.