In this generous and thoughtful interview, Lee Smith reflects further on her writing life, the way her stories have been shaped by certain books, and the significance of place in her work, among other subjects. Smith will appear at the 2018 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 12-14.
In Let the People See, Elliott Gorn combines a gripping narrative of American tragedy with a clear-eyed, sensitive reading of the way the Emmett Till story has acquired different meanings over time. Gorn will appear at the 2018 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 12-14. Festival events are free and open to the public.
In Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, fugitive slaves are spirited away to freedom by an actual network of trains. The Underground Railroad is the 2018 Memphis Reads selection. Whitehead will discuss the novel at Christian Brothers University on September 5 and at Rhodes College on September 6. Both events are free and open to the public.
Tayari Jones, who will talk about her novel An American Marriage during the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville October 12-14, sets her fiction in Atlanta because the urban South is “a microcosm of all the issues facing the country.”
A prolific writer known for exploring multiculturalism with keen intelligence, grace, and humor, Gish Jen is the author of four novels, a short-story volume, and, most recently, a nonfiction book created from the talks she gave at Harvard University in 2012 as part of the William E. Massey Sr. Lectures in the History of American Civilization.
Nearly twenty years have passed since the publication of James McBride’s first book, The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother. The memoir spent two years on the New York Times bestseller list and continues to be a regular selection for city-wide programs.
