August 13, 2015 David Payne has always written about his family’s adversities, though only through the veil of fiction. In his new memoir, Barefoot to Avalon, he steps around the curtain to tell the real story of his brother’s death and his family’s history of self-destruction. Payne 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.

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.

August 7, 2015 Azar Nafisi is a devout believer, to put it mildly, in the transformative power of literature. In her 2003 bestseller, Reading Lolita in Tehran, books are a spiritual lifeline amid the horrific violence and repression of post-revolutionary Iran. In The Republic of Imagination: A Life in Books she considers whether they can serve a similarly critical purpose here. Nafisi 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.