In Moving Toward Freedom, Susan O’Donovan invites a more complex understanding of how enslaved Black people defined their freedom, based on their surprisingly mobile lives. O’Donovan will be in conversation with Charles McKinney at Novel in Memphis on August 25.
With Maybe the Body, a delightfully ambitious and formally adventurous poetry collection, Asa Drake urges readers toward liminal spaces. Drake will appear at the 2026 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 17-18.
In Backstory: A Literary Life on the Run, Lawrence Wells and Dean Faulkner Wells offer readers an enjoyable ride of their own through a collaborative collection of short pieces written between 1978 and Dean’s death in 2011. Lawrence Wells will discuss the book at Novel in Memphis on August 22 and the 2026 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 17-18.
In her new thriller, Indie Darling, Nashville author Lauren Nossett plumbs a dark side of Music City. Told from the perspective of a badass female private detective investigating the disappearance of a popular singer-songwriter, the story is rife with plot twists, parallel mysteries, and Dolly Parton songs. Nossett will appear at a book launch party at The Sun Room in Nashville on July 27 and at the 2026 Southern Festival of Books on October 17-18.
The Southern Festival of Books, one of the oldest and largest literary events in the country, expects to welcome more than 25,000 attendees for panel discussions, book signings, and readings. In addition to 100 sessions over two days, the festival features more than 100 vendors, as well as food trucks and three performance stages for music, theater, spoken word, and poetry, as well as programming for children.
In The Kennedys and the Windsors, Caroline Hallemann details how the lives of the two families have intertwined for the past eight decades. Hallemann will discuss the book at Harpeth Hall School in Nashville on June 24.
