Children’s picture books and other works by Tami Whitmore, who has links with the Long Beach Peninsula, will be among those featured at the book fair.

Author Randall Beth Platt finds characters for her books in unlikely places.

“I love to eavesdrop on conversations or find a photo of a deceased person at a garage sale and buy it and create him as a character,” Platt said. “One path leads to another. I am so curious, I love to learn and have a great sense of curiosity.”

Platt, who lives in Port Orchard, Washington, will be a guest at a Pacific Northwest authors’ book fair Saturday.

The event, organized by local author Jan Bono, takes place from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Peninsula Church Center in Seaview. Some 22 authors will attend.

‘It never gets old’Platt, who spent some formative years with family on the peninsula, delights in speaking at schools and author gatherings about her middle-grade and young-adult books. “It never gets old when a kid asks for an autograph,” she said.

She recalls one of her biggest life moments was driving through Seaside years ago and stopping to see if its library had her first book, a Western romance novel called “The Four Arrows Fe-As-Ko.”

“I was blown away they had my book on the shelf — I was so proud,” Platt said.

The work was published in 1992 and later made into a movie, “Promise the Moon.” Ahead of publication, Platt collected 44 rejection letters. “Never give up,” she said.

For Platt, a dozen titles followed over three decades, most with Northwest settings. “I never thought I would have enough published novels to be held in with books ends,” she laughed. “Thirteen books — there is blood, sweat and tears in this.”

Wartime themesMuch of Platt’s historical fiction takes place during wartime. “Hellie Jondoe” features a World War I-era teenage orphan. “The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die” was inspired by a garage sale paperback about kids who survived the Nazi occupation of Warsaw, Poland, selling cigarettes to the enemy.

“Incommunicado” is set during the beginning of World War II and deals with Japanese American internment.

“In our wanting to know more about what war was like, we forget the ‘other war’ — the war at home. Not one person during, say, World War II, was unaffected by the war, from a Gold Star in the window, which meant a loved one was lost, to kids competing in a scrap-metal drive,” Platt said.

Early research meant living in libraries, although the internet has made research easier.

“Since I don’t have a lot of contact with young people in this age group, I don’t feel comfortable addressing contemporary issues,” Platt said. “But there are many issues in the past that kids might know nothing about. So I find those and put a few kids into the middle of them.”

WritersBono has recruited seven of her peninsula neighbors to take part. They are Gregory Zschomler, Pete Young, Patty Hardin, Judy Gorham, Mandy Schimelpfenig and collaborators David Campiche and Jim Tweedie.

Zschomler, of Ocean Park, Washington, will use the event to launch “Alien Ambush,” the fourth in his Bayou Boys young reader adventure series.

Others include Jennifer Nightingale, of Astoria, who wrote a coming-of-age novel “Alberta and the Spark,” and Anita Schacher, of Gearhart, who pens memoir collections.

Historical fiction is represented by Brian Ratty and Vanessa Lind, both of Warrenton (Lind writes as Debra Ferency).

Other authors from out of the area are Bill Scott, Susan Field, Elaine Cockrell, Craig Allen Heath, Tiffany Dickinson, Shelly Stryker, Kerry Blaisdell, Andy Bunch and Tami Whitmore.

Bono said the fair is an attempt to reboot a concept pioneered a few years ago by the city of Long Beach, which has stepped back from direct event sponsorship.

She and Platt met at a Cannon Beach writers’ conference and have stayed in touch. “I consider it a major coup to have an author of such status in attendance, especially in year one,” Bono said.