Stephano’s Fine Art Gallery 5501 Kavanaugh Suite CTuesday December 1, 2009 4pm- 8pm

Three Arkansas Writers Publish First Novels after Age Fifty

Stephano’s Fine Art Gallery will host an evening of “Art, Literature and Pulp Fiction” featuring three novelists with Arkansas roots and second careers. Retired Hollywood actor B.R. (Bobby) Harwell, former attorney Dolly Kyle, and artist/writer Betty Mabry Turner will be at the Gallery from 4 to 8 p.m. on Tuesday, December 1, to greet the public and sign copies of their books.

Harwell, a native of Nashville, Arkansas, a graduate of the University of Arkansas, and a former adventurer in the Merchant Marine, spent over 20 years in Hollywood appearing in television and feature films. He played the part of TV Face in Steven Spielberg’s “A.I.,” and a complete list of his roles is online (IMDb.com) under screen name Bobby Harwell. Recently, at age 78, Harwell published his first novel, using Hollywood and rural Arkansas as backdrops. “Flawed” tells the story of a young Arkansan who, despite a disfiguring accident, goes to Hollywood to pursue his dream of becoming an actor. The fast-moving tale is filled with small-town Arkansas scandals, family secrets, incest and murder, as well as Hollywood glamour – and sleaze.

Dolly Kyle grew up in Hot Springs, graduating from Hot Springs High School in 1964. After earning a Juris Doctorate from SMU School of Law, she practiced real estate law in Dallas for 20 years before returning to Little Rock. Also a songwriter, Dolly Kyle is a member of the Country Music Association and the American Society of Composers Authors and Publishers, and has served as an Adjunct Professor of Writing at UALR. Dolly has completed the first two novels in her “Heart Trilogy.” These intimate perspectives on a covert romance unveil the gripping saga of a young southern girl and boy who fall in love on the country club golf course in 1959. Their clandestine pasts and uncertain futures entwine and finally collide as she becomes a writer and he is elected President of the United States.

Betty Mabry Turner has called Arkansas home for over 40 years. She taught English as well as French, and operated her own antique and design shop before evolving into writing and painting. Although fiction, Turner’s first novel reads as real as today’s headlines. “Retribution” is the story of one man’s quest for revenge, and the attempt of an Arkansas State Police captain to stop him. The cast of characters includes a veteran detective, a renegade FBI agent, a President back home in Arkansas for a high school reunion, a psychotic hacker, and one very foxy lady. Set in the Ozark foothills of northwest Arkansas, “Retribution” is a richly detailed narrative, evoking images of the state and its people at their best – and worst.

From its inception, Stephano’s Fine Art Gallery has focused on supporting and promoting Arkansas artists, including painters, sculptors, glass makers, and jewelry designers. This will be the gallery’s premier event featuring writers. The public is invited to enjoy complimentary hors d’oeuvres and libations. The gallery is located at 5501 Kavanaugh Boulevard in The Heights.

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