The Parkland Library program, which brings authors to the library to speak, has grown in popularity under the direction of Maryellen Kanarr, who is in charge of adult programming.

These special events are free and open to the public by contacting the library.

Popular author Jennifer Weiner recently gave a presentation at Temple Beth El, Springhouse Road, South Whitehall.

Refreshments were available for the fans who attended.

Weiner has written at least 10 books and her latest is "The Next Best Thing."

After her talk, Weiner gave out five galleys of her new book to lucky winners.

The author usually writes one book a year.

Her first book was "Good in Bed," which was a hit and the beginning of her career. Her second book, "In Her Shoes," was made into a 2005 movie starring Cameron Diaz. Toni Collette and Shirley MacLaine.

Other books include" Fly Away Home," "Best Friends Forever" and "Certain Girls."

They are all humorous and fun to read.

One story in her book of short stories called "The Guy Not Taken" is about someone possessed by a bad GPS.

The piece was written as a Halloween story called "Recalculating."

Not only a humorous writer but a funny and engaging speaker, Weiner told of her being raised by a mom and dad, their divorce, and how her mom "came out of the closet" when she was 54.

A 1991 graduate of Princeton University, Weiner was a reporter for various newspapers until 2001 when her first book was published.

She is married and has two young daughters, Lucy and Phoebe.

The family lives in Philadelphia, which serves as the setting for most of her books.

In her book of short stories, "Swim," tells the tale of an overweight girl.

The story was made into a TV series called "State of Georgia," which was televised during summer 2011.

Weiner, who had a part in making the TV show, said it was not a happy experience.

As the story was about an overweight girl, she had a vision of whom she wanted to play the leading role.

But the show's producers had other plans.

Because the producers needed to put Raven-Symone in a show, she was chosen even though she did not fit the Jewish overweight character as pictured by Weiner.

Weiner writes stories about women, and stories women to which women can relate.

She loves helping younger female writers. Her favorite writers are Susan Isaacs, especially since Isaacs endorsed her book "Good in Bed," with a blurb on the cover.

Weiner also likes Stephen King, Ann Tyler and Harlan Coben.

She says that James Patterson has set a higher standard because he can write more than one book a year, but one book a year is all she is interested in doing.

Weiner does four to five rewrites and said the quality of a book would suffer if she tried to do more.

To contact Weiner, the best way is to find her on Twitter.