A staggering memoir from New York Times-bestselling author Ada Calhoun traces her fraught relationship with her father and their shared obsession with a great poet.
Scholars and activists discuss the fight for racial equality in the South, both in the past and the present.
Join Josh Floyd from Ingram Spark to learn about opportunities for independent publishing.
Dr. Alex Jahangir and Emily Mendenhall have the inside scoop on the coronavirus pandemic. Join them as they reveal their unique perspectives and careers.
Popular writers Austin and Bell as discuss power, intrigue, and the supernatural in new novels.
Writers explore themes of feminism, community and healing.
Thirty stories, collected in one volume for the very first time, from one of the South's best known and most acclaimed short story writers.
(Poetry / Music) Nashville-based poet and singer-songwriter known worldwide for his unique recordings and performances. His poetry has a “rough” edge that remains true to the character and situation of the narrative.
Poets discuss the art and science of poetry. Explore with them themes of love, nature, life, and human connection.
In this sweeping tale from award-winning author Kimberly Brock, the answers to a real-life mystery may be found in the pages of a story that was always waiting to be written.
Novelists explore coming-of-age in the midst of racist institutions. Join them and learn their perspectives on racism, healing, and the effects of oppression.
The hours spent visiting, in intimate closeness, are still cherished by Wayne Flynt. They yielded revelations large and small, which have been shaped into Afternoons with Harper Lee.
Charting the gender, race, and class constructions at work in regional aesthetics, The Tacky South explores what shifting notions of tackiness reveal about US culture as a whole and the role that region plays in addressing national and global issues of culture and identity.
Join two novelists in a conversation about pursuing a dream while dealing with family myths and inheritances.
Find the freedom from regret, hurt, and fear that God wants for you while discovering joy, relief, and hope as you become the beautiful human he created you to be.
This is a fearless and darkly comic essay collection about race, justice, and the limits of good intentions.
This is a lyrical exploration of the diverse sounds of our planet, the creative processes that produced these marvels, and the perils that sonic diversity now faces.
An in-depth look at the legacy of Roe v. Wade, and on-the-ground reporting from the front lines of the battle to protect the right to choose.
Instrumental music spanning noir, free jazz, bluegrass and even the Grateful Dead. All these ingredients run through the Jack Silverman lens to create a conduit into a supernatural feeling and a reminder of the allure of the unknown. Silverman’s body of work has run a wide gamut over the years — learning jazz guitar from Emily Remler, playing weekly in the Afro Cleveland Orchestra and burning the AM hours with Lord Demos and the Gangster Rock Nation. His mad guitar playing skills and love of improvisation will be on full display!
In this collection of essays, interviews, and notes, Major Jackson revels in the work of poetry not only to limn and assess the intellectual and spiritual dimensions of poets, but to amplify the controversies and inner conflicts that define our age.
Savannah may appear to be “some town out of a fable,” with its vine flowers, turreted mansions, and ghost tours that romanticize the city’s history. But look deeper and you’ll uncover secrets, past and present, that tell a more sinister tale.
Two novelists share their new works on loss and desire amidst personal upheaval.
Hear two novelists speak about the beauties and charms of southern adventures.
New collections from Tennessee poets explore love, faith and our place in the world.
A clever, richly evocative tale for lovers of medieval and Renaissance mysteries everywhere, The Hearts of All on Fire is a timeless story of family relationships coupled with themes of love, loss, betrayal and, above all, hope in a challenging world.
Andee Rudloff is an artist and muralist in Nashville. Join her for an interactive, word-based art project.
Captain Tom Mason's "young pirates" show is full of humor, harmonies, stories, and solos, featuring sing-alongs and dance moves, songs about a kraken, a parrot, and an invisible crew (everyone needs one!) along with fun insight about keeping the ocean and land clean.
Life on the Mississippi is an epic, enchanting blend of history and adventure in which Buck builds a wooden flatboat from the grand “flatboat era” of the 1800s and sails it down the Mississippi River, illuminating the forgotten past of America’s first western frontier.
These two novels serve as searing meditations on grief, female strength, and self‑discovery set against a backdrop of complicated social and racial histories.
The host of the podcast "Terrible, Thanks for Asking" turns her eye on our aggressively, oppressively optimistic culture, our obsession with self-improvement, and what it really means to live authentically in the online age.
Exploring the diverse landscape of American life, the stories in Blues and Trouble: Twelve Stories capture the lives of people caught between circumstance and their own natures or on the run from fate.
Michael & Nell are a Nashville-based folk whose album Welcome Home was #5 on the August 2020 Folk Alliance Chart. They were finalists in Renaissance Artists and Writers Association (RAWA) 2021 Songs For Social Change Contest. They created the acclaimed multimedia Joe Hill Road Show and released their companion CD, Joe Hill Roadshow, in 2016. They have performed the Show live 29 times and virtually 8 times for colleges, unions and community groups.
Dan and Faith are an award-winning, New England-based husband and wife singer-songwriter duo who describe their music as dream-inspired folk. Daniel Senie (guitar, banjo, harmonica, vocals) and Faith Senie (mandolin, bass guitar, dulcimer, ukulele, vocals) tap into dreams and everyday life in crafting their original songs. The duo has released five albums. The most recent three are available: Simple Grace (2014), Seeking (2016) and Then and Now (2020
Complimentary coffee and refreshments will be served prior to the 10:00 am event!
Sometimes we choose our families, and sometimes they choose us. These two young adult novels face adolescent upheaval with courage and wit.
Bragg's warmhearted and hilarious story of how his life was transformed by his love for a poorly behaved, half-blind stray dog.
Domine and Gilmore share mesmerizing true tales of crime, punishment, and American prisons.
Complimentary coffee and refreshments will be served at 9:30 am with session start time at 10:00 am. Join host Mary Laura Philpott in conversation with four authors of bestselling new novels and memoirs.
British Columbia Entertainment Hall of Fame “Pioneer” Inductee and a Boston Family Folk Chorale Songwriting Competition winner. McRae plays banjo, guitar and accordion in an unflaggingly authentic, deeply satisfying, and refreshingly acoustic style with a big dose of soul and skilled musicality, unforgettable melodies and thought-provoking lyrics
Discover World War II stories for young readers that keep history alive.
Explore the legacy of slavery through a song with its roots in slave society, and the story of the slaves that built the White House.
A spellbinding debut novel tracing three generations of a Southern Black family and one daughter’s discovery that she has the power to change her family’s legacy.
Barrett shares recipes, stories, and plans for making Southern holiday meals memorable.
A character study of Robin Goodfellow from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” with all-original music celebrating the jazz and soul of New Orleans.
Ann Hite takes her readers back to Black Mountain with this haunted short story collection.
Two blistering critiques of America’s assembly-line approach to criminal justice and the shameful practice at its core: the plea bargain
Simple, subtle, and drolly funny, the Pumphrey brothers’ newest picture book is a layered exploration of the foolishness of making assumptions and the virtue of curiosity.
Vocalist, Songwriter/Arranger, Jannelle Means is also the creator and founder of Soul Vibes Collective, now Soul Vibes G.L.O.B.A.L., a structured jam for musicians currently held in Nashville, TN.
Two young adult novels filled with secrets, deception, romance, and twists worthy of the darkest thrillers,
Giddings' newest is a piercing dystopian novel about the unbreakable bond between a young woman and her mysterious mother, set in a world in which witches are real and single women are closely monitored.
House tells a riveting story of survival and hope, set in the not-too-distant future, about a young man forced to flee the United States and seek refuge across the Atlantic.
Prize-winning reporters reflect in a powerful series of essays on the role of the South in America’s changing political landscape.
Authors Jami Attenberg, Isaac Fitzgerald & Maud Newton come together to speak about their memoirs and embracing truth, grace, and identity.
From actress and mom Diane Kruger comes an enchanting story about how learning the meaning of her name changed her life—and how our names can help us find our own special powers.
Farmer Jason is the brainchild of rock music legend Jason Ringenberg of Jason and the Scorchers. The highly acclaimed live show features sing-alongs, dancing, and discussions about nature appreciation, ecology, and farm animals supported by folk, country, and rock ‘n’ roll with a dash of DIY punk rock music.
Introducing Tayari Jones on a personal, social, and intellectual self-portrait of the beloved and enormously influential late Randall Kenan, a master of both fiction and nonfiction.
Bring your little ones for two adorable picture books, featuring penguins!
Last Night at the Telegraph Club author Malinda Lo returns to the Bay Area with another masterful queer coming-of-age story, this time set against the backdrop of the first major Supreme Court decisions legalizing gay marriage.
All is not always well. A new novel show the dark side of belonging and adolescent life.
The Edge Of Your Seat Just Got A Little Closer! Americana Music informed by 1920's Berlin cabaret and the traveling medicine shows of the rural south. Rags, Ballads, Waltzes and Laments as well as Magical sleight of hand and musings on the state of our lives in these modern times.
Winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction! Mixing fiction with nonfiction, the campus novel with the lecture, The Netanyahus is a wildly inventive, genre-bending comedy of blending, identity, and politics that finds Joshua Cohen at the height of his powers.
Rosen provides a panoramic revisionist portrait of the nineteenth-century invention that is transforming the twenty-first-century world.
#1 New York Times bestselling author Alan Gratz (Refugee; Ground Zero) is back, tackling the urgent topic of climate change in this breathtaking, action-packed novel that will keep readers turning pages while making their own plans to better the world.
From the bestselling author of I Miss You When I Blink comes a poignant and powerful new memoir that tackles the big questions of life, death, and existential fear with humor and hope.
These middle grade books share inspirational true tales of the first women's Olympic basketball team and a disability rights advocate.
In the follow-up to the “bedazzling, bewitching, and be-wonderful” (New York Times) best-selling and Pulitzer Prize-winning Less: A Novel, the awkward and lovable Arthur Less returns in an unforgettable road trip across America.
Children will love the rhythm and rhyme that are hallmarks of the beloved author duo of Chicka Chicka 1, 2, 3 as they follow the adventurous armadillo through nighttime fun as dawn approaches.
A different kind of Americana – storytelling by a swampy pair of retro raconteurs spinning blues arias with soul, intrigue and power.
Historical fiction novels take us to the United States as a young nation and a coastal village where past and present collide.
This extraordinary book is a search for those quieter spaces, over centuries and across continents, and a warning that—in a world dominated by social media—they might soon go extinct.
Title IX would serve as the tipping point for the modern era of women’s sport. Slowly but surely, women’s athletics at the high school and collegiate levels grew to prominence, and Tennessee fast emerged as a national leader.
Join author Silas House and activist Imani Black in a conversation celebrating Black's work as an activist in aquaculture in the tradition established by the late John Egerton.
From a writer celebrated for her “chops, ambition, and killer instinct” (John Powers, Fresh Air), a career-spanning collection of spectacular essays about politics and culture. Kushner will be in conversation with musician Kevin Morby.
Authors Janet Key & Sarah Mlynowski join to speak upon their joyful reads in accepting others and defining yourself.
Maps open into secret worlds and thriller and fantasy meet in these new novels.
Rock ‘n’ Blues at its BEST! Comprised of top Nashville side-players and studio musicians who want YOU to dance.
From the prize-winning, New York Times bestselling author of Empire of Pain and Say Nothing—and one of the most decorated journalists of our time—twelve enthralling stories of skulduggery and intrigue
Nashville authors R.J. Jacobs & Steven Womack share the stage with new thrillers.
Spoken Word
Join the authors as they discuss their powerful new memoirs.
Join Anna Badkhen,Ken Kalfus & Malaka Gharib in unraveling the unjust consequences of feeling displaced in a new place.
Margaret Burnham & Imani Perry speak about their investigative work exploring Jim Crow laws and the devastating stories of those who lived it.
Join Lee Cole & Victoria Shorr in incredible love stories that explore the possibilities of fate.
Three authors share works in different genres on the duties, chores, and daily life with the acceptance of loss.
Join three poets for a reading and conversation on loss, hardship and dilemmas.
Waa-waa quirk-n-roll.
Join Sean Dietrich in a laugh-out-loud funny true story of a loving relationship, a grand adventure, and a promise kept.
Take a lively tour through the history of the US cemeteries that explores how, where, and why the dead are buried; especially in Tennessee.
Author Richard Manning in this book follows where his guitar leads. Ultimately, it sings to the American body.
GALVEZTON is Robert Kuhn, an artist offering a voice charged with the present tense urgency, inspired by new landscapes, wild experiences and the fleeting visions of freedom he unapologetically chases in his poetry, writings and music.
Michael & Nell are a Nashville-based folk whose album Welcome Home was #5 on the August 2020 Folk Alliance Chart. They were finalists in Renaissance Artists and Writers Association (RAWA) 2021 Songs For Social Change Contest. They created the acclaimed multimedia Joe Hill Road Show and released their companion CD, Joe Hill Roadshow, in 2016. They have performed the Show live 29 times and virtually 8 times for colleges, unions and community groups.
Dan and Faith are an award-winning, New England-based husband and wife singer-songwriter duo who describe their music as dream-inspired folk. Daniel Senie (guitar, banjo, harmonica, vocals) and Faith Senie (mandolin, bass guitar, dulcimer, ukulele, vocals) tap into dreams and everyday life in crafting their original songs. The duo has released five albums. The most recent three are available: Simple Grace (2014), Seeking (2016) and Then and Now (2020
Andee Rudloff is an artist and muralist in Nashville. Join her for an interactive, word-based art project.
History is being properly re-written through stories of women who freed slave jails and the discovery of the last slave ship bound for North America.
Poetry is the work of keen observation, as these two master poets demonstrate.
Neo-Acoustic Soul Music. "... Utterly superb songwriting. Uplifting, soulful, though provoking and always eloquent.” - Ellen Pryor, Director of Communications, Frist Art Museum
Short story masters share work of full of intricate beauty and the capability of rescuing yourself when at your breaking points.
These middle grade books help young readers with tales of how to summon the courage to fight and cope.
Maybe We’ll Make It is a memoir of loss, motherhood, and the search for artistic freedom in the midst of the agony experienced by so many aspiring musicians: bad gigs and long tours, rejection and sexual harassment, too much drinking and barely enough money to live on.
A wonderfully imaginative, wholly enchanting novel of witness, survival, memory, and family that reads like a fairy tale godfathered by Neil Gaiman and Tim Burton in a wild America alive with wonders and devils alike.
Susanna Chapman & Thyra Heder's books share with children the joy of encouraging creativity and seeing the beauty around us.
“Sepetys brilliantly blends a staggering amount of research with heart, craft, and insight in a way very few writers can. Compulsively readable and brilliant.” –Kirkus Reviews, starred review
Writers and scholars share the geography and history of Nashville.
These young adult novels are twisted thrillers on the darkness hiding within all of us.
Tennessee politicians share tales of politics, congress, and leadership.
These memoirs explore the world in ways that engage in meaningful and universal significance.
Les Kerr is a songwriter, recording artist, performer and author who, with his Bayou Band, brings blues, New Orleans music, Zydeco, rock and bluegrass together to create his “Hillbilly Blues Caribbean Rock & Roll.” A Nashville resident since 1987, Kerr was born in Louisiana and raised in Mississippi. Les has recorded eleven albums, including his latest, Part of the Show, and his music is peppered with stories and literary references. National music publication No Depression’s Lee Zimmerman wrote, “Nashville’s Les Kerr creates a sound that’s both jovial and cerebral all at the same time…Kerr takes his stylistic additives from a variety of genres -- reggae, country, folk, blues and rock ‘n’ roll -- and meshes them into a hybrid that’s philosophical [and] sunny.”
Corey Webb, editor of Nashville Experience, wrote, “He takes you on a journey with lyrics that tell tales of places you'll want to see and people you'll want to meet. It's a good mix of the exotic and familiar.”
Writer Amy Lyles Wilson states, “Les Kerr’s music is full southern richness: from food to people, places to legends. Listen for a bit and you’ll feel right at home.”
In memoir, fiction, and essays, three authors explore identity and acceptance of the LGBTQ communities in the South.
Silly Grandpa is the brainchild of two-time, Grammy nominated writer and artist, and founding/current member of the Ozark Mtn. Daredevils Michael 'Supe’ Granda.
Original Poetry
Awarded the Pulitzer Prize for photography while a newspaper photojournalist in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Hood shares his new work on the dioceses of Tennessee.
Middle grade books address breaking limits and taking on the world in a different way, refusing to let obstacles stop them.
This is the gripping narrative of a fearless paleontologist, the founding of America’s most loved museums, and the race to find the largest dinosaurs on record.
New works explore the cultural impact of feminism and people of color in country music.
The most famous dog in America has a book!
This new middle-grade graphic novel stars Miles Morales.
Poetic Pop. Winner of BMI’s John Lennon Award for her song “LaZboys”. As featured on Season 15 of NBC's THE VOICE as a Comeback Artist with Coach Kelsea Ballerini.
As the "youngest ever" Bo Young has recorded his adventure chronicles of his odyssey through a series of captivating events.
Puppet show [not intended for children]
Hear the inspiring dramatic stories of civil rights hero, congressman, ambassador, mayor, and American icon Andrew Young.
These young adult novels explore grief, family, and being the victim of a crime.
This collection of columns chronicles the work of self-care, and a sneaky thread of moral thoughts.
As the Founder of Yoknapatawpha Press, Wells shares the life and the Nobel literary work of William Faulkner.
Singer-Songwriter Derek Hoke mixes Country, Blues, Tex-Mex, Bluegrass, and Swing that is both powerful and effortless in its delivery.
A brilliant debut by lawyer and critic Hawa Allan on the paradoxical state of black citizenship in the United States.
A Fat Chance Belly Dance Style performance troupe based in Nashville, TN.