After witnessing a hit-and-run, author and journalist Hank Phillippi Ryan appeared in court to identify the suspect. For 30 plus years, she had been the one asking the questions. This role reversal was unwelcome and frightening. Fear gripped Ryan as she wondered if the driver would retaliate because of her testimony.

She took that fear, knowing there was safety in silence, and used it as the basis of her ninth novel, “Say No More.”

“I thought, ‘What if a reporter sees an accident and her life is threatened? What if staying silent is the only thing that keeps her alive?’” Ryan said.

On Friday evening, the award-winning Boston Channel 7 reporter, who found a second act in life as an equally accomplished mystery author, spoke at the Wareham Free Library to a rapt crowd. That free event preceded a fundraising dinner held the same night at Salerno's Function Hall for the cash-strapped library. The Library Trustees, Wareham Library Foundation and Friends of the Wareham Free Library organized both events.

While Ryan promoted her new book, she shared thoughts on writing, her career in journalism and how she finally fulfilled her teenage dream of becoming an author.

At age 55, she came up with the premise of her first novel, “Prime Time,” after clicking on a spam email. In the message, there were sentences similar to something out of a Shakespeare play. It baffled Ryan.

“Maybe it’s a secret message,” she thought, leading her to a slew of questions that eventually morphed into her debut novel. The book won the Agatha Christie Award for Best First Novel and her career as an author had begun.

Her career as a journalist started in 1970 when Ryan broke into the field. As a 20-year-old college graduate who majored in Shakespeare, she got her first job as a reporter at Indianapolis’s largest radio station, despite having zero journalism experience. However, Ryan had done her research, a skill that would serve her well throughout both her careers, and learned the station’s federal license was soon up for review and it would need more women on the payroll.

Ryan got the job and eventually switched to television news, making a name for herself as an investigative journalist.

Bringing some degree of fairness to the world was something the veteran reporter wanted to do since she was 14 years old.

As a middle school student, Ryan said she was voted Most Individual, which means “we don’t want to sit with you in the lunchroom,” she joked. Ryan’s mother said that was part of life, and she had to forget about it.

Ryan responded: “No, I don’t. I’m going to try to make a difference.”

Her work in the Boston area has lead to homes in foreclosure being restored to the owners, to better 911 systems statewide, to outing corrupt politicians and bringing firehouses up to, of all things, the fire code.

But she never forgot the stories she read as a child – Sherlock Holmes tales, Nancy Drew mysteries and others – that fueled her love of storytelling.

In fact, she has no formal training in fiction writing, instead relying on her decades of experience telling stories for television audiences.

“Every day for 30 years I had to have a story on the air with a beginning, middle and end, that was compelling and promotable,” she said.

Her latest creation is the principled T.V. reporter Jane Ryland.

In “Say No More,” Ryland is working to uncover sexual assaults on a college campus, while dealing with the aftermath of a hit and run she witnessed. Boston homicide detective Jake Brogan, who is romantically involved with Ryland, is working is own case. Both plot lines are on a collision course and Ryan said the ending surprised even her as she wrote it.

At the end of the talk, she fielded questions from the audience and left them with an uplifting message, pointing to her own storied life as proof of its veracity.

“If you leave here tonight with one thing – besides one of my books – it should be to ask yourself, what is it you want to do in life? It’s never too late to follow your dreams.”

Ryan spoke more about her career with Onset resident and public radio reporter Naomi Arenberg, who displayed her professional skills and kept the tone conversational.

Ryan shared stories about her time working as a radio and television reporter in Washington D.C. early in her career. At the time, she worked for a Senate subcommittee with Ted Kennedy and now Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer as her bosses and Caroline Kennedy as an intern. While there, she covered the capital as a correspondent for Rolling Stone for a year and a half.

Ryan also spoke about bridging the gap between her careers as a reporter and novelist. She said in television, reporters know that, "If you don't have the video, you don't have the story." The challenge in writing a novel is to "make you see that video in your head," she said.

For more information on Hank Phillippi Ryan, visit www.HankPhillippiRyan.com.