A reception, interview and dinner with award-winning author Anita Shreve to benefit the Wareham Free Library will take place on Thursday, April 23.

Shreve, originally from Dedham, has written 17 books in her 40-year writing career, including 1975's "Past the Island, Drifting" which was a 1976 O. Henry Award winner, an annual collection of the top 20 American short stories.

Shreve won the PEN/L.L. Winship Award and the New England Book Award for Fiction in 1998. Her 1999 novel, "The Pilot's Wife" was selected for Oprah's Book Club and became an international bestseller. Two of her books have been turned into movies: "Resistance" with Bill Paxton and Julia Ormond in 2003 and "The Weight of Water" starring Elizabeth Hurley and Sean Penn in 2002.

The event will start at 5 p.m. with a reception, interview and book signing at the Wareham Free Library.

Later in the evening will be "Dinner with Anita" at the Kittansett Club at 11 Point Road in Marion. Tickets to the dinner are $100, a seat at Anita's table is $1,000. Reservations are required by April 17. Space is limited.

The event will be hosted by the Friends of the Wareham Library, the Wareham Library Foundation and the Wareham Free Library Board of Trustees. All proceeds will go to the Wareham Free Library and all donations are tax deductible.