Steve Stern’s The Village Idiot, a fictionalized account of the life of painter Chaim Soutine, dives into the relationships, politics, and context that shaped his often overlooked masterworks. Stern will appear at Burke’s Book Store in Memphis on October 13.
FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: With her latest novel, I Must Betray You, award-winning YA author Ruta Sepetys returns to the difficult task of telling an unfamiliar story from history: the struggles of people living under the brutal Ceaușescu regime in Romania in the late 1980s. Sepetys will appear at the 2022 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 14-16.
Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s debut novel, Woman of Light, is about stories — who gets to tell them and which ones survive. Fajardo-Anstine will appear in conversation with Destiny O. Birdsong at Parnassus Books in Nashville on June 6.
Inspired by true events in 1970s Alabama, Dolen Perkins-Valdez’s third novel, Take My Hand, gives voice to a Black physician at the end of her career who can’t be at peace until she shares the story of two girls victimized by racism and the arrogance of good intentions. Perkins-Valdez will discuss Take My Hand at Novel in Memphis on May 7.
Tara M. Stringfellow’s debut novel Memphis opens with the North family tree, simply but beautifully designed. We can’t know where this family is going to take us, but we know there will be complexity and depth. A family tree contains multitudes. Stringfellow will celebrate the book’s release at Novel in Memphis on April 5.
In Madrigalia, poet Lisa Russ Spaar demonstrates a deft hand and a careful eye as she combines selections from an oeuvre spanning more than 20 years. Spaar will read from her work at Vanderbilt University’s Buttrick Hall on February 17.
