The meaning of the Southern Festival of Books in a season of loss
We often conceive of loss only as a falling away, but it is also a binding. Think of the groups whose only purpose is to bring together people who have lost the same thing.
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Lisa Donovan’s memoir is never short of passion
As much a manifesto as a memoir, Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger by Nashville writer and pastry chef Lisa Donovan is beautifully written, fresh, and powerful — in the tradition of Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential. Donovan will appear at the 2020 Southern Festival of Books, held online October 1-11.
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Connor Towne O’Neill grapples with America’s legacy of white supremacy
In Down Along with That Devil’s Bones, Connor Towne O’Neill explores the battles over Nathan Bedford Forrest monuments in Nashville, Murfreesboro, Memphis, and Selma, Alabama, in a quest to understand how white supremacy continues to shape American society. O’Neill will appear at a virtual event hosted by Novel in Memphis on September 29 and at the 2020 Southern Festival of Books, held online October 1-11.
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Greetings from New Nashville considers the city’s transformation and its future
In Greetings from New Nashville, a collection of essays edited by Steve Haruch, contributors grapple with the rise of the city as a tourist destination and the municipal issues that have arisen as a result. Haruch will discuss Greetings from New Nashville at the 2020 Southern Festival of Books, held online October 1-11.
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Michael Ian Black makes the case for a new masculinity in A Better Man
Michael Ian Black’s A Better Man is a tender, funny, hopeful book, conceived as a letter to his 18-year-old son. Through a mix of memoir, comic commentary, and fatherly advice, Black makes the case against the cultural pressures that harm men, from impossible ideals of strength and independence to damaging rhetoric about toxic masculinity. Black will appear at the 2020 Southern Festival of Books, held online October 1-11.
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A new memoir by Lawrence Wells pulls back the curtain on a Southern literary community
Lawrence Wells and his wife, the late Dean Faulkner Wells, had a rare view into the literary community of Oxford, Mississippi, during their nearly 40 years together. Wells recounts it all in his engaging memoir, In Faulkner’s Shadow. He’ll discuss the book at an online event hosted by Novel in Memphis on September 28.
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