“Peter was a prankster,” says Ann Beattie, who knew Peter Taylor as a reader and as a friend. Editor of the Library of America’s new edition of Taylor’s complete stories and author of The Accomplished Guest, a new story collection of her own, Beattie will appear at the 2017 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville October 13-15.
As a teenager, Maeve Donnelly was bitten by a shark only moments after her first kiss. Fifteen years later, she returns to Florida to face two dangerous passions—sharks and first love. Ann Kidd Taylor will discuss her new novel, The Shark Club, at Parnassus Books in Nashville on June 14 at 6:30 p.m.
Best known for his debut novel, Big Fish, Daniel Wallace is a master of wit and whimsy, gleaning both wonder and absurdity from the commonplace. In Extraordinary Adventures, Wallace delivers a modern variation on the picaresque, replete with madcap hijinks. He will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on June 7 at 6:30 p.m.
Long considered one of American literature’s most accomplished writers of short fiction, Richard Bausch returns with a collection of misbegotten protagonists navigating the travails of the modern malaise.
The subtle elegance and beauty of Anything is Possible, Elizabeth Strout’s new collection of linked stories, will further cement the author as one of her era’s most gifted and compassionate chroniclers of human frailty. Strout will discuss Anything is Possible at Parnassus Books in Nashville on April 27 at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are required to join the signing line and are available with purchase of the book from Parnassus.
“To tell you the God’s honest truth, I don’t know what the hell is going on,” says Russell Gaines, the reckless but noble protagonist of Michael Farris Smith’s Desperation Road. Smith is a Southern master in the tradition of Larry Brown and Daniel Woodrell, but with a soulful, generous voice that’s all his own. He will discuss Desperation Road at Parnassus Books in Nashville on March 20 at 6:30 p.m.
