GREENVILLE - Greenville has another nationally published author. Native Kate Betterton will sign her debut novel, “Where the Lake Becomes the River” Friday at McCormick Book Inn.

Published by Novello, Betterton's book is a girl's coming of age story in a town much like Greenville in the early days of the Civil Rights era. Artistic teenager Parrish McCullough is desperate to attend college and escape her hometown of Athena in the Mississippi Delta. Tuition is a problem and more conflict arises when she fears abandoning her mother after her father's death. Seeing his ghost sitting beside his casket is only the first of many extraordinary events Parrish experiences as she stumbles to her goal.

"Where the Lake Becomes the River," won the 2008 Novello Literary Award, sponsored by Charles and Katherine Frazier's Cold Mountain Foundation.

Betterton now makes her home in Chapel Hill, NC, where she is a practicing psychotherapist.

Her McCormick Book Inn event begins with a reading at 4 p.m., and a signing will follow at 5 p.m.