Meet the new star of Southern letters!

The format for this event is interview: Jon Sealy, author of The Whiskey Baron, will be interviewing Taylor Brown.

TAYLOR BROWN grew up on the Georgia coast. His fiction has appeared in a wide range of publications, including The North Carolina Literary Review, The Southwest Review, The Baltimore Review, Chautauqua, The New Guard, CutBank, storySouth, and many others. He is the recipient of a Montana Prize in Fiction, and he's been a finalist for the Press 53 Open Awards, Machigonne Fiction Contest, Wabash Prize in Fiction, and Doris Betts Fiction Prize. His short story collection, In the Season of Blood and Gold, was published by Press 53 in May of 2014, and his debut novel, Fallen Land, will be published by St. Martin's Press in 2016. Taylor, an Eagle Scout, graduated from the University of Georgia in 2005. He settled in Wilmington, NC, after long stints in Buenos Aires, San Francisco, and the mountains of North Carolina. He enjoys old cars and motorcycles, Justified, and bourbon.

Wednesday, February 3, 6:30pm

Fountain Bookstore

More praise for Fallen Land:

We are very excited to host this C-SPAN regular and most famous of George Washington scholars!

Edward G. Lengel is an American military historian and professor at the University of Virginia.

Lengel is the editor-in-chief of The Papers of George Washington documentary editing project in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is the author of General George Washington: A Military Life, which was a finalist for the 2006 George Washington Book Prize, and of Inventing George Washington: America's Founder, in Myth and Memory.

You do not want to miss this event!

Mary Frances Berry (PhD and JD) is the Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought and professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of eleven books and the recipient of thirty-five honorary degrees. She has been the chair of the US Commission on Civil Rights and has appeared on "Real Time with Bill Maher," "The Daily Show," "Tavis Smiley," "PBS NewsHour," "CBS Evening News," "Al Jazeera America News," and various MSNBC and CNN shows.

If all these people want her on their shows, don't you think it's going to be an awesome event?!?

I do!

Thursday, February 11, 6:30pm

Fountain Bookstore

LOCATION CHANGE! EVENT WILL NOW BE AT THE LAPRADE BRANCH. 

What is the secret behind the most popular genre in the world? 

New York Times best-selling author Cathy Maxwell leads a panel discussion, including romantic suspense novelist Mary Burton, P.J. Ausdenmore of The Romance Dish blog, and NPR book editor Petra Mayer.

Light refreshments will be served. Panelists' books will be available for sale and a book signing follows the discussion. Registration is free and required and begins Jan. 19.

In a review titled "Tales Not to be Forsaken," the Greensboro News & Record praises a forthcoming work of historical fiction from NewSouth Books, saying "There's nothing like a good read to bring calm to a long day. Forsaken by Ross Howell, Jr. is such a book." 

That seems like an odd thing to say about such a horrific story, but at least we know the reviewer liked it.

Forsaken recounts the factual tale of Virginia Christian, a teenage African-American girl executed by the state of Virginia in 1912 - a powerful story. But the reviewer observes that Forsaken delivers another good story in then tracking the horrific fate of the real-life white reporter whose sympathies for Virginia Christian also make him a victim of Jim Crow. Forsaken is more than one book - it's a book and a half. 

Since 1992, Harry Kollatz Jr. has been recording the lesser-known heritage of Virginia's Holy City in his "Flashbacks" column in Richmond magazine. From the inauguration of the world's first practical electric trolley system an early Civil Rights activists, to a psychic horse and a wild ride on a sturgeon, he has covered it all, which makes him uniquely perfect for this in-conversation event.

Thursday, February 23, 6:30pm

Fountain Bookstore