Every month, Oakland resident Tim McAtee wanders through the chaos of First Fridays and the Art Murmur, and every month he finds something missing: books. While music and the visual arts are well represented, only a couple of scattered authors can be found."This seems to be the case at most arts events, but with the publishing industry in the state it's in, we're ready to actually make a move to create a literary scene," says McAtee, a first-time novelist and many-time author of non-fiction educational books.

Hoping simply to find information on where to sell his book, Tim visited the weekly community meeting where First Fridays are ostensibly organized. His inquiry was interpreted as volunteering and he was immediately deputized as a literary ringleader of First Fridays. This was the beginning of what is now Oakland Authors.

Oakland Authors provides a virtual home for East Bay writers to collaborate and share publishing resources, while hosting regular events and meetups. They can be found at OaklandAuthors.com, or this Friday evening, at the corner of 26th and Telegraph.

Oakland Authors members will be selling and signing their books, reading their works and available for discussion. Please stop by, support your local novelist, and say hello. This month's featured writers will be Matt Werner, author of Oakland in Popular Memory and Tim McAtee, author of The Hipsters: A Novel.