TOLLAND – Young Adult author Steven Parlato will speak Jan. 7 at 6:30 p.m. at town hall as part of the Tolland Public Library Foundation’s popular Eaton-Dimock-King Authors Series.
     Parlato is a published poet, an artist, occasional actor and an award-winning assistant professor of English at Naugatuck Valley Community College in Waterbury.
     His debut novel, “The Namesake,” has been described as the searching story of a boy’s too-early coming of age. It tells the tale of 15-year-old Evan Galloway, who searches for his family’s secrets after his father commits suicide. It is intended for readers who are 14 and over.
    The novel won a 2011 Tassy Walden Award for New Voices in Children’s Literature from the Connecticut Shoreline Arts Alliance.
     Parlato, who lives in Waterbury, will speak and sell and sign copies of his book in Conference Room A at Tolland Town Hall at 21 Tolland Green.
     The free talk is open to the public, but registration is required. To register, call the library at 860-871-3620.
     The series, funded by the Phoebe Dimock King and Elizabeth C. King Eaton Endowment, has previously brought writers Dan Barry, Denis Horgan, Susan Schoenberger, Jeff Goldberg, Lucy Anne Hurston, Jane Haddam, Ken Davis, P.W. Catanese and Dawn Metcalf to town.