November 20, 2012 In 1999, the award-winning, bestselling novelist Barbara Kingsolver founded The Bellwether Prize, an award given biennially to an unpublished debut novel that addresses matters of social justice and responsibility. Carrying a $25,000 prize—funded entirely by Kingsolver herself—and a publishing contract, the Bellwether is “designed to be a career-founding event for writers with outstanding literary skills, moral passion, and the courage to combine these strengths in unusually powerful fiction,” as Kingsolver’s website puts it. Susannah Felts will interview Naomi Benaron and Hillary Jordan, two Bellwether winners, at Parnassus Books in Nashville on November 29 at 6:30 pm. The event is free and open to the public.

September 25, 2012 The Cutting Season, the second literary thriller from Attica Locke, opens with a murder: the body of a sugarcane field worker, her throat slit, is found in a shallow grave on the grounds of Belle Vie, an antebellum plantation that’s now a tourist attraction and event site. Belle Vie’s manager, Caren Grey, grew up on the plantation grounds. But as clues about the murder begin to surface, Caren sees her vision of Belle Vie’s future, and her own shaky sense of security, begin to crumble. Attica Locke will discuss The Cutting Season at Nashville’s Southern Festival of Books on October 12 at 2 p.m. in Conference Room 1A of the Nashville Public Library. All festival events are free and open to the public.