Young Authors Show Flair for Prose at Annual Fair : Thousands of Ventura district students write, illustrate and design books for the event.

Where will tomorrow’s literary geniuses, best-selling authors and how-to book mavens come from? Perhaps from among the thousands of Ventura Unified School District students who wrote, illustrated and designed books for the seventh annual Young Writers’ Fair.

According to Jean Eaton, first-grade teacher at Junipero Serra School and this year’s chairman, the enthusiastic response and hours of preparation of more than 5,400 students from 21 schools have resulted in a wonderful variety of handmade books. They will be on display from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday at Cabrillo Middle School, 1426 E. Santa Clara St., Ventura. Everyone is invited to attend the fair, view the work, enjoy puppet plays, theater presentations and meet children’s book authors Sneed Collard, Joel Matus and Elizabeth King.

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George Owens (“The Judas Pool”) and Linda Grant (“A Woman’s Place”) will sign their books at 1 p.m. today at Mysteries to Die For, 2940 Thousand Oaks Blvd. At 1 p.m. Sunday, Maxine O’Calloghan will sign “Trade-Off” at the Thousand Oaks bookstore.

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Linda Arnold performs at 10 a.m. Saturday at Adventures for Kids Kideos, 3455 Telegraph Road, Ventura.

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Camarillo resident Paul Bishop, a Los Angeles police detective, will sign his latest thriller, “Kill Me Again,” at 1 p.m. Saturday in the Book Mall of Ventura, 424 E. Main St. The Book Mall also hosts a story hour for children featuring “Faerie Tales From Around the World” at 10 a.m. every Saturday.

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Authors Sharan Newman and Marsha Landreth will address the Thousand Oaks Friends of the Library annual meeting and officer installation at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in the Newbury Park Library, 2331 Borchard Road. Newman’s new medieval mystery, “The Devil’s Door,” is a sequel to “Death Comes as Epiphany.” Newman also wrote a trilogy based on Guinevere and the Arthurian legend. Landreth’s latest novel, “The Healers,” is the third in her Dr. Samantha Turner mysteries. “The Holiday Murders,” the first in the series, was optioned for television. The group welcomes everyone to the event. Non-members will be charged $5. Call 498-9773.

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State park naturalist Kris Mashburn, accompanied by a couple of her live bats, will present a slide lecture about these misunderstood creatures at 7:30 p.m. Monday at Barnes & Noble Bookstore, 4360 E. Main St., Ventura. Certified financial planner Jan Nottingham will discuss women and money at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the bookstore.