2023 Southern Festival of Books

FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: In I’ve Had to Think Up a Way to Survive: On Trauma, Persistence, and Dolly Parton, New York poet Lynn Melnick blends her personal story with cultural critique to explore Dolly Parton and her work. Most of all, she credits Parton with helping her turn her life around. Melnick will appear at the 2023 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 21-22.

FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: In All That Moves Us, pediatric neurosurgeon Jay Wellons recounts some of the most memorable moments of his career as a children’s doctor. Wellons will discuss the book at the 2023 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 21-22.

Timothy Egan’s A Fever in the Heartland is a true tale of bigotry, cruelty, and the lust for power in 1920s Indiana. Egan will appear at the 2023 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 21-22.

In Everything/Nothing/Someone, Alice Carrière mines her strange childhood — seemingly privileged yet violently neglected — as she traces the roots of her dissociative disorder. Carrière will discuss the memoir at Parnassus Books in Nashville on September 6 and the 2023 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 21-22.

Nyani Nkrumah’s debut, Wade in the Water, is a Southern coming-of-age tale that poses deep questions about race, reconciliation, history, and remembrance. Nkrumah will appear at the 2023 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 21-22.

In The Foxfire Book of Appalachian Women, editor Kami Ahrens curates a collection of voices that subvert the pastoral image of mountain living. Ahrens will appear at the 2023 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 21-22.