Laguna Beach author Theodore Taylor will be...

Laguna Beach author Theodore Taylor will be the featured speaker at the 32nd annual Orange County Authors’ Recognition Dinner sponsored by the Friends of the UC Irvine Library on April 27.

The 6:30 p.m. dinner, which is open to the public, will be held in the University Club on campus. Author and educator Vick Knight will serve as master of ceremonies. Cost: $30. For reservations, call (714) 544-5563.

The dinner will recognize Orange County authors who have had books published last year. So far, 37 authors will be honored, but Friends of the Library board member Joyce Haman says submissions are still arriving.

“We want to encourage local authors,” Haman says of the purpose of the annual recognition dinner. “We’d like to have their names in front of the public so that when people walk into a bookstore the authors are recognized as ours.”

This week:

* Graphoanalyst Catherine C. McCandles will be guest speaker at the Orange County Sisters in Crime meeting at 2 p.m. today in the community room at Pacifica Hospital, 18800 Delaware St., Huntington Beach.

* Raleigh Pinskey, author of “You Can Hype Anything,” will sign at 2 p.m. today at Barnes & Noble in the Irvine Spectrum, 31 Fortune Drive.

* Lois-Ann Yamanaka, author of “Blu’s Hanging,” will sign at noon Monday at the UC Irvine bookstore in the student center on campus.

* G.M. Ford, author of “The Bum’s Rush,” will sign at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Coffee, Tea & Mystery, 13232 Springdale St., Westminster. Ford also will sign at 6 p.m. Thursday at Book Carnival, 348 S. Tustin St., Orange.

* Poet Jim Doan, author of “I Am a Mother and My Poems Are All Bastards,” will read at 8 p.m. Tuesday at Borders Books and Music, 429 Associated Road, Brea.

* Earlene Fowler, author of “Goose in the Pond,” will sign her new mystery at 7 p.m. Friday Borders Books, 25222 El Paseo, Mission Viejo.

* Diana James, author of “Bounce Back: Thirty-Nine Heart-Lifting, Hope-Building True Stories,” will sign at 7 p.m. Thursday at Borders Books and Music, 25222 El Paseo, Mission Viejo. James also will sign at 7 p.m. Saturday at Borders Books and Music, 429 S. Associated Road, Brea.

* Poet Lee Mallory, author of “Full Moon, Empty Hands,” will read at 7 p.m. Friday at Barnes & Noble in Fashion Island, 953 Newport Center Drive, Newport Beach.

* In celebration of National Poetry Month, an open microphone night will begin at 7 p.m. Friday at Different Drummer Books, 1294 S. Coast Highway, Laguna Beach.

* Jan Burke, author of “Hocus,” will sign at 1 p.m. Saturday at Book Carnival, 348 St. Tustin Ave., Orange.

* The Southland Fiction Writers will meet at 9 a.m. Saturday at Barnes & Noble in the Irvine Spectrum, 31 Fortune Drive. The group, open to published and non-published fiction writers, meets the second and fourth Saturday of each month. (714) 854-0493.