A Certain Way of Living
In her debut novel, Hothouse Bloom, Atlanta native Austyn Wohlers tells the story of a young painter, Anna, who leaves everything behind to care for the orchard she inherits when her estranged grandfather passes away.
A Sense of Place
Carrie R. Moore’s Make Your Way Home is a collection of 11 stories that are deeply researched and deeply rooted in both the American South and the Black experience there. Moore will appear at the 2025 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 18-19.
A Dazzling Writer of Flawed People
Lorrie Moore’s work has been celebrated since her 1985 debut, the short story collection Self-Help. Her 1994 novel, Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?, had Nick Hornby naming her “the best American writer of her generation,” and her latest, I Am Homeless if This Is Not My Home, won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Moore will be the featured author for this year’s Writers@Work in Chattanooga, April 22-24.
A Mother’s Whisper
In Dolen Perkins-Valdez’s new novel Happy Land, Black mothers and daughters reconnect with each other and the land that shaped them. Perkins-Valdez will discuss Happy Land at Novel in Memphis on April 11.
The Humanity in Every Person
FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: In Paper Bullets: Two Women Who Risked Their Lives to Defy the Nazis, Rhodes College historian Jeffrey H. Jackson has captured one of those stories from the edges of World War II, and the result is a fascinating examination of community and resistance, gender and sexuality, and what it means to recognize the humanity in every person.
Laughter in the Face of Despair
Steve Stern’s A Fool’s Kabbalah affirms the power of stories — and a dose of humor — to protect a people and its history. Stern will discuss the novel at Burke’s Book Store in Memphis on March 13.
