Ron Rash’s In the Valley displays his masterful command of short fiction
From haunting, short-form meditations on loss to a thrilling, suspenseful novella that revives an indelible antihero, In the Valley offers a distillation of Ron Rash’s storytelling mastery at its best. Rash will discuss In the Valley at the online 2021 Southern Festival of Books on October 9.
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In David James Poissant’s Lake Life, a family’s farewell to their summer home leads to traumatic reckoning
In David James Poissant’s first novel, Lake Life, the Starling family gathers in their crumbling vacation home for one last weekend. Over 48 hours, long-buried secrets are revealed and lives are overturned. Poissant will discuss Lake Life at the 2020 Southern Festival of Books, held online October 1-11.
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Sarah Smarsh’s She Come by It Natural pays unique tribute to Dolly Parton
Sarah Smarsh mixes music journalism and memoir in She Come by It Natural, which chronicles the life, career, and evolving cultural impact of Dolly Parton. Smarsh will discuss She Come by It Natural at the 2020 Southern Festival of Books, held online Oct. 1-11.
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Chris Hamby recounts miners’ fight for health benefits in Soul Full of Coal Dust
Soul Full of Coal Dust by Nashville native Chris Hamby exposes the coal industry’s machinations to keep miners with black lung disease from getting modest compensation. Hamby, an investigative reporter for The New York Times, will appear at the 2020 Southern Festival of Books, held online October 1-11.
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Writers of color consider what it means to belong in the South
A Measure of Belonging: Twenty-One Writers of Color on the New American South considers the varying societal access points for people of color below the Mason-Dixon line. From a broad range of perspectives, the book takes on an essential question: What does it mean to “get into” the modern South, rather than remaining an eternal tourist? Editor Cinelle Barnes, along with contributors Jennifer Hope Choi and Minda Honey, will appear at the 2020 Southern Festival of Books, held online October 1-11.
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The meaning of the Southern Festival of Books in a season of loss
We often conceive of loss only as a falling away, but it is also a binding. Think of the groups whose only purpose is to bring together people who have lost the same thing.
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