Chocolate, Chocolate and More Chocolate Dominate Downtown Glendale February 5-7

The weekend before Valentine’s Day, Feb. 5-7, is a delicious delight for the senses as the
15th Annual Glendale Chocolate Affaire takes over downtown Glendale to create a chocolate-lover’s dream!

Chocolate purveyors from Arizona and around the nation gather in Glendale for this award-winning festival, which celebrates not only chocolate, but romance and the arts as well. Chocolate confections will include everything from chocolate truffles, sweet potato fries with chocolate and brown sugar glaze and tropical hot chocolate, to deep-fried chocolate bars and organic dark chocolate.

The Chocolate Affaire is sponsored by Arizona’s famous candy makers, Cerreta’s. The candy factory will offer tours all weekend, so visitors can get a behind-the-scenes look at how the chocolatiers create everyone’s favorite candy. Shuttles will be available to the tours; there is a no-animal policy on shuttles with the exception of service dogs and service dogs in training.

In addition, the festival has become the largest gathering of national romance novelists in the Southwest. This symposium of literary romantics offers fans the opportunity to get up close and personal with authors, as well as the chance to attend free writing workshops given by the experts.

Families with children will enjoy myriad activities, including hands-on arts and crafts, face-painting and a rock-climbing wall. Horse-drawn carriage rides will be available throughout the weekend to take couples or families on a scenic, charming ride through the historic Catlin Court district. 

Event hours are Friday 5 - 10 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Sunday noon to 5 p.m. The event is located in the heart of Historic Downtown Glendale, in Murphy Park, located at 58th and Glendale avenues.

The Horse & Carriage will run all event hours. Mini Pony Rides available Friday from 6-10 p.m., Saturday from 6-10 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m.

The Glendale Chocolate Affaire festival was named one of the Top 100 Events in North America by the Washington Post, the Seattle Times and the American Bus Association. The event also was bestowed with the 2003 Governor’s Tourism Award for the Best Special Event in Arizona.

The Glendale Chocolate Affaire is sponsored by Cerreta’s Candy Company, Kokopelli Winery, 3-TV KTVK, The Arizona Republic, YooHoo, KMLE, KOOL and JAMZ.

For more information on the Glendale Chocolate Affaire, call our special events hotline at 623-930-2299.

2010 Glendale Centennial Plein Air Painting Event at the Glendale Chocolate Affaire

The city’s Library & Arts Department, in collaboration with the Marketing/Communications Department, is sponsoring the 2010 Glendale Centennial Plein Air Painting Event at the Glendale Chocolate Affaire. The art competition will be held Saturday, Feb. 6, between 8 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. Click here to read more about the plein air event (pdf).

Author Notes

• Donna Hatch, best selling author at Wild Rose Press for two consecutive months for her Regency romance, The Stranger She Married, she also was a finalist in the Golden Quill Contest, recognizing outstanding published authors.  Her current novel and upcoming novella, Trouble Hearts have both received four and five star reviews, and will be available at the Chocolate Affaire.
• Multi-published author, Judi McCoy is donating all her book royalties for Hounding the Pavement, the first in this series, to Best Friends, the largest no-kill shelter in the United States located in Kanab, UT.  Because Hounding the Pavement is so popular, she recently landed a three-book contract
• Hounding the Pavement is currently available, and will be on sale during the Chocolate Affair.  This novel is a true testament to McCoy's love of man's four-legged pals.
• This year, multi-published author, Judy Duarte’s Mulberry Park, a women's fiction novel, was a finalist in the RITA, a prestigious award promoting excellence in the romance genre, as well as a Golden Quill finalist, and recently won the Maggie Award.
• Award winning author, Vijaya Schartz’s, A DESPERADO FOR CHRISTMAS received a Preditors and Editors Readers Poll Award 2009 in the Short Romance category.
• ANAZ-VOOHRI received a Cameo Award for the cover in 2007, was a finalist in the Golden Quill 2007, and nominated for the Reviewers' Choice Award by Ecataromance as an eBook in 2006, and for the Best Science-Fiction Fantasy Novel in the 2006 Preditors and Editors Readers Poll.
• RELICS and WHITE TIGER were finalists in the Golden Quill contest
• ASHES FOR THE ELEPHANT GOD won the Independent Publisher Book Award in Visionary Fiction in 2001.
• Multi-published author, Valerie King was the recipient of the 2005 Romantic Times Career Achievement Award for Regency Romance.
• Pam Tracy, a multi-published author, received a first place award for Broken Lullaby, a romantic suspense in the American Christian Fiction Writers' Book of the Year contest.
• Debut novelist, Kelly Hanzlik, and author of Nana’s Girl is donating all the proceeds from her book to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation in loving memory of her grandmother, Katherine Mahan.

Author Signing Schedule

Entertainment Line-up