April 2026
Phyllis Shragge
Na’amat Hamilton’s 40th annual celebrity author event will feature New York Times bestselling author Joy Fielding as guest speaker. This year’s event will be held at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, May 11. The location will be provided upon registration. Following Fielding’s presentation, there will be a question-and-answer period and an elegant dessert evening.
Joy Fielding is a suspense novelist of more than 28 books, including See Jane Run, Mad River Road and Someone is Watching. She will speak on her latest novel, Jenny Cooper has a Secret, a psychological thriller about a woman who must decide whether she can believe a dementia patient who claims to have a dark secret: She kills people!
The protagonist, 76-year-old Linda Davidson, meets Jenny Cooper, a 92-year-old dementia patient, in a memory-care facility. Initially, Linda dismisses Jenny’s so-called secret as the confusion of an ailing mind, but Jenny seems strangely lucid over the course of their visits. She tells Linda about her many victims, mostly men who hurt her. Then a fellow patient at the facility dies. Everyone sees this as a natural death of an old, sick man, but Linda can’t help wondering: Is there any chance Jenny is telling the truth?
Fielding lives in Toronto and has a home in Palm Beach, Florida. She began her writing career at the grand old age of eight with a story she submitted to Jack and Jill magazine. Although the story wasn’t published, she continued to write through her teen years and beyond. Writing was her focus until she began university when she switched gears and decided her future lay in acting. At the University of Toronto, she acted in about 20 campus productions and in a student film, Winter Kept Us Warm, which is still a fixture on the art-house circuit. After graduating in 1966, she moved to Los Angeles where she acted full time. One of the highlights of her acting stint, she says, was playing a role that enabled her to kiss Elvis Presley.
Eventually, she returned to Toronto and went back to writing. Fielding says: “I love writing because it’s the only time in my life when I feel I have complete control. Nobody does or says anything I don’t tell them to—although even this amount of control is illusory because there comes a point where the characters take over and tell you what they think they should say and do.”
When asked where she gets her ideas, Fielding replies: “This is not an easy question to answer. For the most part, I think it has to do with the way a writer looks at the world. Everything is a potential scene for a book, everyone is a potential character ... A writer borrows a bit from here, there and everywhere, and adapts it to her own purpose. I find that the more of me I include, the more successful the book, the more readers can identify with.”
Fielding’s books are sold worldwide and printed in many languages. Reviews of her latest novel, Jenny Cooper has a Secret, include the following accolades:
Publisher’s Weekly: “Jenny Cooper has a Secret nestles a murder mystery inside a witty novel of friendship and loss…Punchy, surprising and sweet in equal measure, this tale of twisted sisterhood is a home run.”
Oprah Daily: “Jenny Cooper has a Secret is a delight, tugging at your heartstrings as it explores the A
Library Journal: “This cat and mouse game keeps readers guessing until the end.”
Na’amat Hamilton’s annual author event has featured many esteemed authors in the past, including Margaret Atwood, Pierre Berton, Anne Michaels and Miriam Toews. Na’amat is a non-profit charitable organization whose mission is to enhance and safeguard the status of women, children and families in Israel and Canada. Na’amat programs in Israel provide shelters for abused women and children, legal counselling, recreational and retraining programs, and a countrywide network of daycare centres.
Tickets for the event are $30 and are available online at http://weblink.donorperfect.com/Hamilton_40th__AnnualCelebrityAuthorEvent
