In Alice Randall’s fifth novel, Black Bottom Saints, a terminally ill columnist, club impresario, and dance school founder dictates tender hagiographies of the Black creatives who built and nurtured a thriving community in mid-20th-century Detroit. Randall will take part in the presentation of the 2021 John Egerton Prize, awarded by the Southern Foodways Alliance at an online session of the 2021 Southern Festival of Books on October 7.
The Ballad of Laurel Springs, the new novel from East Tennessee native Janet Beard, follows nine generations of women in a fictional town at the base of the Smoky Mountains, weaving murder, tragedy, and heartbreak into a singular tale bound together by the power of music.
The winner of the 2020 C. Michael Curtis Short Story Book Prize, We Imagined It Was Rain is an immersive debut collection of loosely connected short stories from Tennessee native Andrew Siegrist, who will discuss the book at a virtual session of the 2021 Southern Festival of Books on October 10.
In her vibrant new novel, Dear Ann, Bobbie Ann Mason imagines the life that might have been for Ann Workman, a graduate student who pursues love and English literature against the turbulent backdrop of the 1960s. Bobbie Ann Mason will appear at the online 2021 Southern Festival of Books on October 9.
In Bluebird, New York Times bestselling author Sharon Cameron gives her young readers a glimpse of the shocking treatment of innocent men, women, and children during World War II, contrasted with seemingly peaceful post-war New York City — but looks can be deceiving. Cameron will discuss Bluebird at an in-person session of the 2021 Southern Festival of Books held at Parnassus Books in Nashville on October 2.
The plantation at the center of Robert Jones Jr.’s The Prophets is called Empty, but this bold and poetic slave story is replete with passionate characters and disturbing events. Jones will discuss The Prophets at a 2021 Southern Festival of Books virtual event on September 30.
