In his latest Southern crime novel, award-winning author Henry Wise grapples with the violent history of an impoverished small town. Wise will appear at at Trezevant Manor in Memphis on September 8 and the 2026 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 17-18.
Emilee Hackney’s debut All That’s Unseen: An Appalachian Memoir traces her journey from Virginia’s coal country to Harvard, intertwining her own story with those of people and places often overlooked by the powerful. Hackney will appear at the 2026 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 17-18.
In All the Sunshine in the World, her third middle-grade novel in verse, Nashville poet and educator Caroline Brooks Dubois once again examines the aftermath of tragedy in the life of a young girl. This time, her subject is the sudden, shocking loss of a sibling. The author will appear at the 2026 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 17-18.
The Foursome, the latest novel by Christina Baker Kline, illuminates a striking piece of American history that requires a bold but deft hand in retelling: the double marriage of two sisters from North Carolina to conjoined brothers Eng and Chang Bunker. Kline will appear at the 2026 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 17-18.
In The Apostle of Tennessee, Joe Pagetta chronicles the work of a 19th-century Catholic priest who spent 25 years traveling Middle and West Tennessee, building churches and serving the state’s growing Catholic population. Joe Pagetta will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on August 19, the Tennessee State Museum on September 12, and the 2026 Southern Festival of Books on October 17-18.
More than 36% of Tennessee families experience food insecurity, yet only a handful of picture books center the issue, and few, if any, depict joy in the same way Savannah Allen’s newest book, The Yellow Postcard, does. Allen will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on August 21. Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee will be accepting donations at this event.
