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2012 SFB Authors

Below is the list of authors scheduled to appear at this year's Southern Festival of Books. This list is sorted alphabetically and then is broken into multiple pages. If you would like a one-page version of this list (in order to print the entire list, for example), please click here.

Rachel Swarns

has been a reporter for the New York Times since 1995. She has written about domestic policy and national politics reporting on immigration, the presidential campaigns of 2004 and 2008, and First Lady Michelle Obama and her role in the Obama White House. She has also worked overseas for the New York Times, reporting from Russia, Cuba, and southern Africa, where she served as Johannesburg bureau chief. She lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband and two children.

Friday, October 12
1:00-2:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 12
American Tapestry: The Story of the Black, White and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obam
American Tapestry: The Story of the Black, White and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama
Jaden Terrell

is the author of the Jared McKean mysteries and a contributor to Now Write! Mysteries, a collection of exercises published by Tarcher/Penguin for writers of crime fiction. Terrell is the executive director of the Killer Nashville Thriller, Mystery, and Crime Literature Conference and a recipient of the 2009 Magnolia Award for service to the Southeastern Chapter of Mystery Writers of America.
A Cup Full of Midnight
Fred Thompson

 

is a food, wine and travel writer and is publisher of  Edible Piedmont. He is author of ten cookbooks and the Weekend Gourmet columnist for the Raleigh News and Observer.

Saturday, October 13
12:00-1:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 30
Everything but the Main: Sides and Desserts for All Occasions
Fred Thompson, Patsy Caldwell, Amy Lyles Wilson                 

 
Fred Thompson's Southern Sides: 250 Dishes that Really Make the Plate
Chuck Thompson

 

is the author of several books, including the comic travel memoirs Smile When You're Lying and To Hellholes and Back. His writing and photography have appeared in numerous publications, including Outside, Men's Journal, Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, and Maxim.  

Saturday, October 13
11:00-12:00 noon, Legislative Plaza, Room 31
Leave it on the Field: Culture, Politics, and SEC Football
Inman Majors, Chuck Thompson   

                                                                    

 
Better Off Without 'Em: A Northern Manifesto for Southern Secession
Christopher Tilghman

is the author of two short-story collections, In a Father's Place and The Way People Run, and two novels, Mason's Retreat and Roads of the Heart. Currently the director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Virginia, he and his wife, the writer Caroline Preston, live in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Saturday, October 13
9:30-11:00 am, Nashville Public Library, Library Auditorium
Women's National Book Association presents "Coffee with Authors"
Gail Tsukiyama, Christopher Tilghman, Karen Thompson Walker, Ben Fountain

Sunday, October 14
3:30-4:30 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 12
Bound to the Land: Two Novels
Leonard Pitts, JR., Christopher Tilghman
 
The Right-Hand Shore: A Novel
Gail Tsukiyama

is the bestselling author of six previous novels, including "The Street of a Thousand Blossoms," "Women of the Silk," and "The Samurai's Garden," as well as the recipient of the American Academy of Poets Award and the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award. She lives in El Cerrito, California.

Saturday, October 13
9:30-11:00 am, Nashville Public Library, Library Auditorium
Women's National Book Association presents "Coffee with Authors"
Gail Tsukiyama, Christopher Tilghman, Karen Thompson Walker, Ben Fountain

1:00-2:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 12
A Hundred Flowers
A Hundred Flowers
Catherynne M. Valente

began September's adventures in installments on the Web; the project won legions of fans and also the CultureGeek Best Web Fiction of the Decade award. She lives with her husband off the coast of Maine.

Saturday, October 13
3:30-4:30 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 29
Coming of Age in Hidden Worlds - Victorian Novels for T(w)eens
Catherynne M. Valente, Sharon Cameron
The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There
Carroll Van West

 

, PhD, is director of the Center for Historic Preservation and the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area at Middle Tennessee State University. He received the PhD in history from the College of William and Mary. Editor of the Tennessee Historical Society’s journal, the Tennessee Historical Quarterly from 1993-2010, he is   

editor-in-chief of the Society’s Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture. West currently co-chairs the Tennessee Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission. He is series editor of Tennessee in the Civil War. 

Sunday, October 14
3:00-4:30 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 31
Tennessee in the Civil War
Carroll Van West, Spurgeon King, Timothy Johnson

 
Tennessee in the Civil War: Volume 1
Maggi Britton Vaughn

Maggi Britton Vaughn has been Poet Laureate of Tennessee for 18 years and received the Governor’s Award for Outstanding Tennessean in 2003. Country music lured her to Nashville in the 1960s, and she soon had songs recorded by Loretta Lynn, Conway Twitty, Ernest Tubb, Charlie Louvin and others. Maggi’s first book, 50 Years of Saturday Nights, was a tribute to the Grand Ole Opry published by The Tennessean in 1975. She has since authored eighteen books and credits country music for her poetic voice. Her poems have been widely published and appeared on National Public Radio and public television.

Sunday, October 14
12:00-1:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 30
Creator Behind the Creation: Writers Respond to Artist Walter Anderson and Poet James Weldon Johnson
Maggi Britton Vaughn, Kory Wells, Carole Brown Knuth

 
Don't Forget This Song: Four Writers Celebrate the Carter Family and Other Roots Musicians
Maggi Vaughn

 

has been Poet Laureate of Tennessee for more than 15 years. She is the author of 11 books, and has received among other honors the Mark Twain Fellowship from Elmira College and the Literary Award from the Germantown Arts Alliance. She received the Governor's Award as Outstanding Tennessean in 2003. Her poems have been widely published and appeared on National Public Radio and public television. She    

devotes much of her time to traveling across the state, sharing her 

poetry with students.                                               

 
Shades of Walter Inglis Anderson