Thank you for making this year's event a success!
Opus & Olives: A Benefit with Friends
Sunday, October 12, 2025
5:00 p.m. Cocktail Reception | 6:15 p.m. Dinner and Author Presentations
Saint Paul RiverCentre | 175 Kellogg Boulevard West, Saint Paul
Opus & Olives is not your average gala. This celebration includes national bestselling authors and hundreds of fellow readers, all in support of The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library. When you join us for Opus & Olives, you support early literacy and programs for children and families, digital equity and economic inclusion, and other lifelong learning opportunities for all of us. Your support is critical. And you just might have some fun, too.
Accessibility note: The event presentation will be projected onto large screens in the room with live captions. For RiverCentre accessibility information, click here.
2025 Author Lineup
Rick Atkinson
Rick Atkinson is the bestselling author of seven other works of narrative military history, including The Guns at Last Light, The Day of Battle, An Army at Dawn, The Long Gray Line, In the Company of Soldiers, and Crusade. He also was the lead essayist in Where Valor Rests: Arlington National Cemetery, published by National Geographic. He was a reporter, foreign correspondent, war correspondent, and senior editor at The Washington Post for more than twenty years. His many awards include Pulitzer Prizes for history and journalism, the George Polk Award, the George Washington Prize, and the Pritzker Military Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing. Â
About his latest work:Â
Prize-winning historian Rick Atkinson provides a riveting narrative covering the middle years of the American Revolution. Stationed in Paris, Benjamin Franklin woos the French; in Pennsylvania, George Washington pleads with Congress to deliver the money, men, and material he needs to continue the fight. In New York, General William Howe, the commander of the greatest army the British have ever sent overseas, plans a new campaign against the Americans—even as he is no longer certain that he can win this searing, bloody war. The months and years that follow bring epic battles at Brandywine, Saratoga, Monmouth, and Charleston, an infamous winter of misery in Valley Forge, and yet more appeals for sacrifice by every American committed to the struggle for freedom.Â
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Timed to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the beginning of the Revolution, Atkinson’s brilliant account of the lethal conflict between the Americans and the British offers not only deeply researched and spectacularly dramatic history, but also a fresh perspective on the demands that a democracy makes on each of its citizens.Â
Jade Chang
Jade Chang’s debut novel, The Wangs vs. the World, won the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award and has been published in a dozen countries. Her journalism and essays have recently appeared in The Best American Food Writing, and in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times magazines. She also writes for film and TV. She lives in Los Angeles.Â
About her latest work:
Lola Treasure Gold can’t figure out her life. She’s broke, unemployed, and back in her childhood home, a crumbling cottage in the Hollywood Hills. Worse—unspeakably worse—one of her closest friends has just died. So, nobody is more surprised than Lola when a jackpot falls in her lap: she stars in a Very Viral Video, opening a surprising path for her to become a self-help guru.Â
With the encouragement of her other best friend, Celi, Lola embraces the public interest in her perceived message. But is she a scammer or a sage? Just as Lola is telling others to be their own guiding lights, she can’t seem to find hers: she’s grieving; she’s accused of using the notoriety of her friend’s death to fuel her rise; and she’s full of questions about the fate of her mother, who came to America pregnant, fleeing China’s one-child policy, got deported when Lola was eight, and now has totally disappeared.Â
Driven by an exuberant, searching spirit, Jade Chang’s kaleidoscopic new novel is a deep examination of the ways we commodify belief, the power and precarity of fame, and the delicious terror of being truly seen. What a Time to Be Alive asks if we can look honestly at the world and still love it; the answer is a brilliant, resounding yes. Â
Jason Mott
Jason Mott has published four novels. His first novel, The Returned, was a New York Times bestseller and was turned into a TV series that ran for two seasons. He has a BFA in Fiction and an MFA in Poetry, both from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. His poetry and fiction have appeared in various literary journals, and his novel, Hell of a Book, was named the winner of the National Book Award for Fiction, 2021. Â
About his latest work:Â
People Like Us is not memoir, yet it has deeply personal connections to the author’s life. And while rooted in reality, it explodes with dreamlike experiences that pull a reader in and don’t let go, from the ability to time travel to sightings of sea monsters and peacocks, and feelings of love and memory so real they hurt.Â
Two Black writers are trying to find peace and belonging in a world that is riven by gun violence. One is on a global book tour after a big prize win; the other is set to give a speech at a school that has suffered a shooting. And as their two storylines merge, truths and antics abound in equal measure: characters drink booze out of an award trophy; menaces lurk in the shadows; tiny French cars putter around the countryside; handguns seem to hover in the air; and dreams endure against all odds.Â
People Like Us is wickedly funny and achingly sad all at once. It is bursting with larger-than-life characters who deliver a very real take on our world. It contains characters experiencing deep loss and longing; it also is buoyed by riotous humor and characters who share the deepest love. The novel will leave you breathless and, at the same time, utterly filled with joy for life, changed forever by characters who are people like us. Â
Nita Prose
Nita Prose is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Maid, which has sold more than two million copies worldwide; The Mystery Guest; The Maid's Secret; and The Mistletoe Mystery. A Good Morning America Book Club pick, The Maid won the Ned Kelly Award for International Crime Fiction, the Fingerprint Award for Debut Novel of the Year, the Anthony Award for Best First Novel, and the Barry Award for Best First Mystery. The Maid was also an Edgar Award finalist for Best Novel. The Mystery Guest was longlisted for a CWA Dagger Award. Â
About her latest work:Â
Molly Gray’s life is about to change in ways she could never have imagined. As the esteemed Head Maid and recently promoted Special Events Manager of the Regency Grand Hotel, good things are just around the corner, including her marriage to her beloved fiancé, Juan Manuel, only two months away.Â
But Molly’s entire existence is upended when a film crew descends upon the hotel to shoot the hit reality TV show Hidden Treasures, starring popular art appraisers Brown and Beagle. On a whim, Molly brings in a shoebox containing a few of her gran’s old things for appraisal, and much to everyone's surprise, one item turns out to be a rare and priceless treasure. Instantly, Molly is both a multi-millionaire and a media sensation—the world’s rags-to-riches darling—until the priceless piece vanishes from the hotel in the boldest, brashest antiquities heist in recent memory.Â
Together with her friends, Molly combs the past and the present to catch the thief before looming threats against her become real. A spirited heist caper and an epic love story, The Maid’s Secret is a spellbinding whodunnit that will capture and warm your heart. Â
2025 Tickets
Reading Ambassador:
$1,500/table
$150/individual ticket
Guests receive tickets (tables seat up to ten), a three-course plated dinner, complimentary valet parking, and recognition for table host(s).
Library Champion:
$3,000/table
$300/individual ticket
Guests receive premier seating tickets (tables seat up to ten), a three-course plated dinner, complimentary valet parking, and recognition for table host(s).
Because The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, all but $75 of each ticket is tax-deductible to the full extent of the law. Ticket sales are final and nonrefundable.
Sponsorship
Support Your Community.
By sponsoring Opus & Olives, our biggest, most visible fundraising event, you are helping us make an impact in your community and beyond. Your partnership supports The Friends who invests in the Library through fundraising, advocacy, and programming. With your help, Friends funding directly supports library programs, information, spaces, and staff.
Entertain and Enjoy
Opus & Olives is a celebration of the power of libraries to help communities thrive. Each year we host bestselling authors that deliver engaging presentations with personal stories about their work, their inspiration, and the importance of libraries on their journey.
Opus & Olives is recognized nationally as one of the premier literary and social events of the year. Whether you’re entertaining clients or mingling with Twin Cities leaders, you’ll find an audience of smart, savvy, influential Minnesotans.
Get Involved
If you are interested in learning more about sponsorship opportunities, contact Diana Konopka, Senior Director of Development, at 651-366-6494 or [email protected].
Presenting Sponsor:
Sponsors:
Bookseller:
Cookie Sponsor:
Hotel Sponsor:
Wine Sponsor:
Media Sponsor:
Don’t see your company’s name? Join us in promoting libraries and learning! For more information on any of The Friends’ giving opportunities, contact Diana Konopka, Senior Director of Development, at 651-366-6494 or [email protected].