Join us on Saturday, Jan. 27 at 10:30 a.m. at Boothbay Harbor Memorial Library for a fascinating Author Talk with Boothbay Harbor native Jerry Farnham. Farnham will talk about his hit book “Red at Night,” set in Boothbay Harbor.

Farnham never in his wildest dreams imagined he would one day be an author. “It probably didn’t help that I had a fifth-grade teacher call me stupid.” he shares “My freshman English teacher said I wouldn’t get anywhere and for years I let that stand in my way.”

As Farnham writes in the dedication of his debut novel “Red at Night” released last June  “Don’t listen to the naysayers. Be brave. Step up. Be the person in the arena.” He is hopeful that his story, and subsequent success, might spur other youngsters also having a tough time at school, to follow their passion and pay less attention to the naysayers around them.

Back when he was a young 16-year-old sternman working on his father’s lobster boat, Farnham watched a group of people on the deck of a fancy yacht across the bay and began to wonder, “What if they just want to be like us? Maybe our life is their fantasy?”

He decided to take that idea and turn it into a novel, however he didn’t at the time realize what a challenge he had set for himself. “I wrote a couple chapters here and there through the years,” Farnham recalls. “And I’d get discouraged, or I’d listen to what naysayers were saying, and I’d crumple it up and throw it away.” 

Some 27 years later, Farnham finally completed his manuscript and self published the book. Its sales have continued to exceed his expectations and in the time since its release, he has completed a sequel “Red in the Morning,” which he is hoping to release this summer on the one year anniversary of the first book. Not to sit on his laurels, he is also well underway on a third book,  and shows no sign of stopping anytime soon.

Farnham manages to juggle his full time job as a C&C mechanic in Gorham, which he loves, with the newfound demands of writing, editing, book promotions, managing his website, interviews etc. He is turning into quite the cottage industry, but he wouldn’t have it any other way. “Writing books for the rest of my life would be great.”

Jerry Farnham will be discussing  his book “Red at Night” at a free Author Talk on Saturday, Jan. 27, 10:30 a.m. at Boothbay Harbor Memorial Library, 4 Oak Street, Boothbay Harbor.