Every year, I’m reminded of how refreshing it is to be among folks who love the sorcery of the written word. The Southern Festival of Books draws a diverse crowd, a vast spectrum of ages and ethnicities. Some gobble up mysteries; some nip at the syllables of poetry. Some are there to share their work, some are there to support those who share their work, and all of us are there because we have fallen under the spell of what can be done with words on a page.
The cursed characters in Anna-Marie McLemore’s magical-realist novel, Wild Beauty, have the power to bring plants into bloom, but the people they love are doomed to vanish. McLemore will appear at the 2017 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 13-15.
Rodney Jones’s powerful novel in verse picks through the memories of six young men from a small Southern town. Jones will discuss Village Prodigies at the 2017 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville October 13-15.
Two of Clyde Edgerton’s beloved early novels, Raney and The Floatplane Notebooks, have been reissued by the University of South Carolina Press in its Southern Revivals series. Edgerton will appear at the 2017 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville October 13-15.
In 2011, still recovering from the loss of her twin sisters (to suicide) and her beloved father (to leukemia), Anne Gisleson helped form the Existential Crisis Reading Group: a book club bent on exploring the big questions through reading and discussion. Gisleson will discuss The Futilitarians at the 2017 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 13-15.
Philip Jett’s The Death of an Heir: Adolph Coors III and the Murder that Rocked an American Brewing Dynasty is a gripping tale in which wealth and privilege fail to shield a family from suffering. Jett will appear at the 2017 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 13-15, and at Novel in Memphis on October 25.
