Southern Writers on Writing is not the first attempt to ask what it means to tell about the South, but it is distinguished by the presence of diverse voices, from sage elders like Clyde Edgerton and Lee Smith to rising stars like Julie Cantrell, M.O. Walsh, and Michael Farris Smith. Cushman will join several contributors for a panel discussion at Novel in Memphis on May 5.

To the family she destroyed, Suzanne was the vixen homewrecker. To Dorothy Marcic, she may have been a serial killer. Marcic will discuss With One Shot: Family Murder and a Search for Justice at Parnassus Books in Nashville on May 3.

In Grown-Up Anger, Daniel Wolff looks at the rise and fall of organized labor and folk music’s role in speaking truth to power. Wolff will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on May 2. Joining him will be musicians Rayna Gellert and Abigail Washburn.

In Imitation Nation: Red, White, and Blackface in Early and Antebellum US Literature, Rhodes College professor Jason Richards brings theoretical sophistication to close readings of some well-known and not so well-known texts in American literature, showing the complexities of cultural imitation before the Civil War.