November 9, 2015 In 2010, rock icon Patti Smith won a National Book Award for her memoir Just Kids, a chronicle of her early years in New York City and her relationship with fine-art photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Now Smith returns with M Train, a haunting, elegiac meditation on the challenges of translating memory into art. Smith will appear at OZ Arts Nashville on November 13, 2015, at 7 p.m.
October 13, 2015 Joy Williams is regarded by much of the literary world as the most dangerously gifted American short-story writer alive. With The Visiting Privilege, Williams delivers both a fine brace of new tales and a hefty career retrospective. Williams will discuss and sign The Visiting Privilege at Parnassus Books in Nashville on October 20, 2015, at 6:30 p.m.
September 4, 2015 Celebrated Southern poet and novelist Ron Rash returns with Above the Waterfall, a taut tale of mountain intrigue that combines Rash’s elegiac lyricism with his gift for fast-paced, suspenseful plotting and his rage at the continuing exploitation of Appalachia. Rash will discuss Above the Waterfall at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 9-11, 2015.
August 10, 2015 In the late 1980s, when New Yorker writer William Finnegan started filing dispatches from the hottest conflict zones in the world, few readers could have guessed that the seasoned war correspondent had honed his reportorial skills by travelling the globe in search of the perfect wave. Finnegan will read from his new memoir, Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 9-11, 2015. All festival events are free and open to the public.
July 29, 2015 How does one survive the unthinkable? How does a parent live without knowing what’s become of a missing child? How long can a person go on without abandoning hope? These are the questions that frame Descent, the new literary thriller by Memphis novelist Tim Johnston. He will appear at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 9-11, 2015. All festival events are free and open to the public.
July 23, 2015 “In the odd, bewildered world of children, we knew we were in the presence of a fabulous, overwhelming personality, but we had no idea we were being raised by a genius of his own mythmaking,” write Pat Conroy in his new memoir. With The Death of Santini, the beloved author of runaway bestsellers like The Prince of Tides, Beach Music, and, of course, The Great Santini, lays bare the origin of his storytelling impulse. Conroy will appear at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 9-11, 2015. All festival events are free and open to the public.
