Lydia Mathis’ debut story collection, Desperate Bodies, lives at the perilous fault lines of contemporary girls’ and women’s lives, particularly those of Black girls and women. Mathis will discuss Desperate Bodies at the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 17-18.
In her latest book, Triage, poet, essayist, and playwright Claudia Rankine explores the devastation in Gaza, Afro-Caribbean womanhood, whiteness, and other themes through the turbulent relationship of the narrator and a nonbinary character called “the theorist.” Rankine will appear at the 2026 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 17-18.
The Midnight Special: The Secret Prison History of American Music sets the stories of Lead Belly, Johnny Cash, and Tupac Shakur free from the myths that surround them. Author Colin Asher will appear at the 2026 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 17-18.
With her sophomore novel, Clutch, Emily Nemens joins the ranks of creatives dissecting the challenges of womanhood and motherhood. The novel begins and ends with the reunion of five women who were once college roommates and are now long-distance best friends all turning 40. Nemens will appear at the 2026 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 17-18.
Octopus is popular in cuisines around the world, creating a level of demand that naturally inspires interest in farming it — but that’s easier said than done, as Richard Schweid explains in Life on the Octopus Farm. Schweid will appear at the 2026 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 17-18.
Melissa Range’s poetry collection Printer’s Fist, awarded the 2025 Vanderbilt University Literary Prize, draws on archival research into 19th-century antislavery newspapers, pamphlets, and broadsides. Range will appear at the 2026 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 17-18.
