Award-winning writer Karen Salyer McElmurray’s collection of essays, I Could Name God in Twelve Ways, is many things at once: memoir, travelogue, and prayer. McElmurray reflects on her upbringing in rural Kentucky, her adventurous youth traveling the world, and her career as a writer and professor.
In his debut story collection, There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven, Ruben Reyes Jr. uses a broad array of literary styles and emotional registers to capture the breadth of the immigrant experience. He will discuss the book at the 2024 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 26-27.
Set on and around Lookout Mountain, Jamie Quatro’s Two-Step Devil is a sharp-edged, tangy novel, layered with the region’s mysteries. Quatro will appear at The Granfalloon in Chattanooga on September 10, The Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Knoxville on September 20, and the 2024 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 26-27.
The Kingdom of the Poor, Charles Strobel’s posthumous memoir, is a story-rich portrait of his life of service to Nashville’s poor and disenfranchised. Editors Katie Seigenthaler and Amy Frogge, along with Room in the Inn executive director Rachel Hester and journalist Kay West, will discuss the book at the Tennessee State Museum in Nashville on September 14.
In The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War, bestselling author Erik Larson offers a compelling and sobering account of the months between the 1860 presidential election and the attack on Fort Sumter. Larson will appear at Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville on October 24 as part of the 2024 Southern Festival of Books.
A missing 13-year-old girl at an Adirondack summer camp spurs an exploration of family dysfunction in Liz Moore’s The God of the Woods. Moore will appear at the 2024 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 26-27.
