The 2024 Clinton County Reads dinner is set for 6:30 p.m., Thursday, April 18, in the Wilmington Municipal Building Community Room, and will feature storyteller Nicole Ruttencutter, R.N., B.S.N.-B.C., whose keynote address will be “Storytelling’s Connection to Healthcare.”

Olde Town Tavern, 26 N. South Street, will host a pre-dinner social hour at 5 p.m.

A nurse in the Dayton area for more than 13 years and currently a hospital inpatient nurse professional development specialist and educator, Ruttencutter founded The Lamp Storytelling LLC, in 2019, to uplift and unite her fellow nurses through the art and craft of storytelling.

Ruttencutter says, “I’m passionate about healing the healers through storytelling and would love to be known one day as the ‘nurse story archivist for the 21st Century.’”

She has appeared in the Moth Story Slam, in Detroit, Dayton Art Fest, Lore Main Stage, the American Nurses Association, and a number of other nursing conferences, and has been published in the Dayton Daily News.

Local chef Jen Purkey has created the three-course dinner menu, which will include a signature CCReads salad and cheese scone, vegetarian lasagne, apple crisp with vanilla ice cream, and beverage.

Cost of the dinner is $20, gratuity included, and reservations can be made at thekavahaus.com or by calling 937-763-4287 by April 15.

This year’s Clinton County Reads book is Tracy Kidder’s nonfiction bestseller, “Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O’Connell’s Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People.” Copies are available at public libraries in the county and from Books ’n’ More at www.booksnmore.indielite.org.