Author! Author! Book signings and author appearances in the Mid-South.

D'Army Bailey

Sam Haskell

Vampires are as common in the book and movie worlds as milk in grocery stores. This week, another contender for dark-fantasy fandom arrives at Davis-Kidd Booksellers with "Hearts at Stake" (Walker Books for Young readers, $16.99), a "riff on vampire romances for teens."

Author Alyxandra Harvey, an Ontario resident whose online profile describes her as a poet, belly dancer, jewelry-maker and owner of a hawk, will sign books at 6 p.m. Feb. 23.

Sharing the signing table with Harvey will be Carrie Jones, author of "Captivate" (Bloomsbury USA Children's Books, $16.99), a sequel to "Need." This "urban fantasy/romance" is about a pixie king seeking love while trying to prevent a war.

Maine resident Jones graduated from Vermont College's master of fine arts program for writing. Her other book titles, "Tips on Having a Gay (Ex) Boyfriend" and "Love (and Other Uses for Duct Tape)," tell us (parenthetically) a little about her sense of humor.

At 6 p.m. Feb. 24, Davis-Kidd will host a 2006 survivor of CBS-TV's "Survivor." Austin Carty, a Christian inspirational speaker will be signing "High Points and Lows: Life, Faith and Figuring It All Out" (Plume, $14).

Says one of Carty's fans on Amazon.com: "He's not preaching, he's just sharing. Someone once told me, 'I hate religion, but I love Jesus,' and I get the feeling Carty would agree."

Memphis lawyer, retired judge and sometime actor D'Army Bailey will be at Davis-Kidd at 6 p.m. Feb. 25 to sign his book "The Education of a Black Radical" (Louisiana State University Press, $28). It retraces Bailey's initiation into the civil rights movement as a student at Southern University near Baton Rouge and Clark University in Worcester, Mass.

Davis-Kidd is at 387 Perkins Ext. Call (901) 683-2032 or visit daviskidd.com.

Sam Haskell at Hilton

The former worldwide head of television for the William Morris Agency in Los Angeles, Sam Haskell now lives in Oxford, Miss., which makes him handy to tap on the Memphis speaking circuit.

He'll be talking to the Mid-South Conference on Communicative Disorders at 12:15 p.m. Feb. 26 at the Hilton Hotel, 939 Ridgeway, and signing his book "Promises I Made My Mother" (Ballantine, $24).

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