Print Authors

is an author, editor, and spokesperson. She conducts cooking schools at various Tennessee wineries and has been published in numerous magazines and newspapers. She is a weekly food personality on Nashville's local ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox affiliates as well as statewide on PBS. She has appeared nationally on the HGTV and DIY networks. The author of The Complete Southern Cookbook, Tammy is married and lives in Nashville.

Saturday, October 13
9:30-11:00 am, Nashville Public Library, Conf. Room IA
Getting Fresh - Cook Your Best Southern Food
Tammy Algood, Debbie Moose, Kathleen Purvis

was born in 1944 in Kingsport, Tennessee. She has published six novels, one novella, a memoir, and a new narrative history of the Hatfields and the McCoys, entitled Blood Feud (2012). Alther has taught at St. Michael's College in Vermont and at East Tennessee State University. She divides her time among Tennessee, Vermont, and New York City.

Saturday, October 13
3:30-5:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 12
Honey, That's Just How It Is: Stories of Appalachian Realism
Lisa Alther, Mark Powell, Charles Dodd White

Sunday, October 14
2:00-3:00 pm, Nashville Public Library, Special Collections Room
Blood Feud: The Hatfields and McCoys
 

is the author of The Wide Awake Princess, Fairy Lies, Fairy Wings, and the (eight) Tales of the Frog Princess including The Frog Princess, which was the inspiration for Disney's hit movie The Princess and the Frog. She lives with her family and their horses in rural Maryland.

Saturday, October 13
4:00-5:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 30
Independent Princesses - Enchanting Novels for Tweens
Caroline Randall Williams, E.D. Baker, Alice Randall

's first novel, You Lost Me There, was named one of NPR's Best Books of 2010, a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice, and a Time and Entertainment Weekly Best Book of Summer 2010. He is a cofounder of the online magazine The Morning News. He and his wife live on the rural fringe of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He currently teaches in the writing program at Duke University's Center for Documentary Studies.

Saturday, October 13
3:00-4:00 pm, Nashville Public Library, Conf. Room IA
Our Jaded Optimism: Comedic Takes on the American Character
Rosecrans Baldwin, Jack Hitt

is a poet and writer. The Mostly True Story of Jack, her debut novel, received four starred reviews. Kelly lives in Minnesota with her husband and three children.

Sunday, October 14
12:00-1:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 29
Saving the World When Grown-Ups Can't - Fantasy Adventure for Middle Grade
Kelly Barnhill, A.J. Hartley

fought his way from Depression-era poverty to found and lead one of the nation’s premiere insurance companies.  But he didn’t stop there.  As one of the nation’s leading philanthropists, he has given millions to people and institutions in need.  His story of triumphs and tragedies will touch your heart and inspire you to achieve.  And even more helpful, Randall Baskin provides practical ideas for bettering yourself, in business and in life.

Friday, October 12
12:00-1:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 16
Growing Rich
Randall Baskin

is the author of fifteen previous works of fiction, including All Souls' Rising (a National Book Award finalist), Soldier's Joy and Anything Goes. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland, where he teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Goucher College.

Saturday, October 13
1:30-3:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 16
Histories of Freedom: People and Politics in the Atlantic World
Madison Smartt Bell, Jane Landers, Laurent Dubois

's debut novel, Running the Rift, is the winner of the 2010 Bellwether prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. She was born and raised in Boston Massachusetts and is a graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Before she lost her mind and decided to devote her life to writing, she worked for many years as a geophysicist and seismologist. She has lived on a sailboat, worked on a Kibbutz, and traveled extensively. She works with Afghan Women through the Afghan Women's Writing Project, an online space where the women of Afghanistan can write in safety and freedom.

Friday, October 12
1:00-2:00 pm, Nashville Public Library, Conf. Room IA
In Spite of Violence: Novels of Turmoil and Tenacity
Naomi Benaron, Christopher Hebert

is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of four books, including the New York Times bestseller 3 Nights in August and Friday Night Lights, which has sold two million copies and spawned a film and TV franchise. He is a contributing editor for Vanity Fair and a sports columnist for The Daily Beast. He has written for the New York Times, The New Republic, Time and many other publications.

Saturday, October 13
1:30-2:30 pm, War Memorial Auditorium
Father's Day: A Journey Into the Heart and Mind of My Extraordinary Son

is Class of 1954 Professor of History at Yale University.

Saturday, October 13
10:00-11:00 am, Legislative Plaza, Room 16
American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era

is the author of several books, among them Washington: The Making of the American Capital and Bound for Canaan, a national history of the Underground Railroad. As a journalist he has written widely on political and cultural subjects in Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Smithsonian, American Heritage, The Atlantic, and many other publications. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Friday, October 12
1:00-2:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 31
America's Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise that Preserved the Union

is a native Southerner, a former actor and special needs educator. Her work has appeared in anthologies and magazines. She lives with her husband and three children north of Atlanta, Georgia. The River Witch is her first novel.

Saturday, October 13
9:30-11:00 am, Nashville Public Library, Conf. Room II
Body and Spirit: New Voices in Women's Fiction
Pamela King Cable, Kimberly Babb Brock, Ginger Moran

is the author of the picture book Soar, Elinor!, illustrated by François Roca. She holds an MFA in writing for children from Vermont College and lives in Washington, D.C. The Map of Me is her first novel.

Saturday, October 13
10:00-11:00 am, Legislative Plaza, Room 31
Tween Life - Writing Characters With a Sense of Self
Gitty Daneshvari, Tami Lewis Brown

grew up in Georgia and was educated at Vanderbilt University and Brooklyn College. His writing has appeared in Men's Journal, Oxford American, National Geographic Adventure, Paste, Travel + Leisure, Budget Travel, and Coastal Living. Taylor worked for three years as a travel editor for Southern Living, where his stories were recognized by Foilio and the Society of American Travel Writers. He is the founding editor of the Wildsam Field Guides, an American city series debuting in October 2012 with Nashville.

Friday, October 12
2:00-3:00 pm, Nashville Public Library, Conf. Room II
Wildsam Field Guides: Nashville
 

's poems have appeared in Bellingham Review, The Cafe Review, North American Review, Shenandoah, Slipstream and numerous anthologies. She holds an MFA from Spalding University and is the author of A Wild Region (Moon Tide Press, 2008). A three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, her awards include a Gabeheart Prize and the North American Review's James Hearst Poetry Prize. She is a ninth-generation Kentuckian who makes her home in Laguna Beach, California.

Saturday, October 13
12:00-1:30 pm, Nashville Public Library, Special Collections Room
Zooming In: Poems of Seeing the Eternal in the Everday
Kate Buckley, Charlotte Pence, Adam Vines

's work has appeared in such publications as Dark Dreams I, II and III: Suspense by Black Writers published by Kensington Publishing Corp.; the historical, science and speculative fiction mag.; Would that It Were and many more.  She received the Twilight Tales award for fiction and an honorable mention in the Year's Best Fantasy.    

Several of her articles appeared in the African American National Biography published by Harvard and Oxford University Press. Currently, Chesya attends Agnes Scott College and assistant teaches.  

Friday, October 12
4:00-5:30 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 16
The Writing Life and the Craft of Short Stories
George Singleton, Chesya Burke, Stephanie Powell Watts                                 

 is the author of the highly acclaimed collection of short stories, Southern Fried Women. Born a coal miner's granddaughter and raised by a tribe of wild Pentecostals and storytellers, she is an award-winning writer who has taught at many writing conferences, and speaks to book clubs, women's groups, national and local civic organizations, and at churches throughout the country. Televenge is her debut novel. A Southerner at heart, she now lives in Ohio with her husband, Michael.

Saturday, October 13
9:30-11:00 am, Nashville Public Library, Conf. Room II
Body and Spirit: New Voices in Women's Fiction
Pamela King Cable, Kimberly Babb Brock, Ginger Moran
 

was awarded the 2009 Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators' Sue Alexander Award for Most Promising New Work for The Dark Unwinding, her debut novel. When not writing, Sharon can be found thumbing through dusty tomes, shooting a longbow, or indulging her lifelong search for secret passages. She lives in Nashville with her family.

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

is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. She was editor-in-chief of the Southern Literary Review. She has been a freelance writer for a decade and has contributed to more than a dozen books. Julie and her family now live in Oxford, Mississippi,  where they operate Valley House Farm. A speech-language pathologist and literacy advocate, Julie was honored to receive the 2012 Mississippi Arts Commission Literary Fellowship and is working on a book about her family's adventures as first-generation farmers.

Friday, October 12
4:00-5:30 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 31
Heroines in Pursuit: Novels of Discovery and Faith
Julie Cannon, Krista Phillips, Julie Cantrell   

is a graduate of Centre College and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His articles on the South have appeared in Southern Cultures, Southern Literary Journal, Southern Review, The Companion to Southern Literature, and the anthology Cornbread Nation 1: The Best Southern Food Writing.

Saturday, October 13
12:00-1:30 pm, War Memorial Auditorium
Grit Lit: A Rough South Reader
Brian Carpenter, Chris Offutt, Tom Franklin, George Singleton

is the Alice Mary Baldwin Professor of History at Duke University. He is the author of many books on race, gender, and politics, including, most recently, The Rise and Fall of the American Century: The United States from 1890 to 2008, The Unfinished Journey: America Since World War II, and Private Lives/Public Consequences: Personality and Politics in Modern America.

Sunday, October 14
2:30-3:30 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 16
Bill and Hillary: The Politics of the Personal

is the acclaimed author of Among the Missing, which was a finalist for the National Book Award; You Remind Me of Me, which was named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, and Entertainment Weekly, among other publications; and Await Your Reply, which was a New York Times Notable Book and appeared on more than a dozen "Best of the Year" lists. Chaon's fiction has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including The Best American Short Stories, Pushcart Prize, and The O. Henry Prize Stories. He has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award in Fiction, and he was the recipient of the 2006 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Chaon lives in Cleveland, Ohio, and teaches at Oberlin College, where he is the Pauline M. Delaney Professor of Creative Writing.

Saturday, October 13
11:00-12:00 noon, Nashville Public Library, Conf. Room IA
Stay Awake: Stories

is a senior editor for The Atlantic and blogs on its website. Coates has worked for The Village Voice, Washington City Paper, and Time. He has contributed to The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, The Washington Monthly, O, and other publications. In 2008 he published a memoir, The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood.

Saturday, October 13
12:00-1:00 pm, Nashville Public Library, Library Auditorium
Why Do So Few Blacks Study the Civil War?

is an author and journalist living in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He is the author of two books and is working on a third on south Louisiana restaurants, forthcoming in 2014. He is a member of the faculty of the Manship School of Mass Communications at Louisiana State University.

Saturday, October 13
3:00-4:00 pm, Nashville Public Library, Special Collections Room
Me-Oh My-Oh From K-Doe to Bayou: People and Place in Louisiana Music
Alex Cook, Ben Sandmel

was director of photography for The University of Alabama for thirty-three years and is now artist-in-residence in the Honors College and faculty member in Arts and Sciences. While working for the university, he has published the following books: Hunting: The Southern Tradition, Alabama Memories, Silent in the Land, Common Threads, Crimson: The University of Alabama, and recently Tin Man. He has shown his work nationally and internationally, and his photographs are in many museums, as well as private and corporate collections.

Sunday, October 14
12:00-1:00 pm, Nashville Public Library, Conf. Room IB
Identity into Image: Photography of Place
Chip Cooper, Bruce Meisterman

is an associate professor of history at Emory University. He is the author of In Search of Another Country: Mississippi and the Conservative Counterrevolution and the coeditor of The Myth of Southern Exceptionalism.

Saturday, October 13
4:00-5:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 31
Riots and Their Cause: A Soldier's Story of the Ole Miss Riot and Strom Thurmond's America
Joseph Crespino, Henry Gallagher

 was director of the 2011 Memphis Creative Nonfiction Workshop, co-director of the 2010 Oxford Creative Nonfiction Conference, a colonist at the 2011 Fairhope Writers Colony, and a presenter at the 2009 Southern Women Writers Conference (Berry College, Rome, GA). Susan is currently finishing revisions on her first novel, Cherry Bomb,which made the short list for the 2011 Faulkner-Wisdom Novel-in-Progress award. A native of Jackson, Mississippi, Susan lives in Memphis.

Sunday, October 14
12:00-1:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 31
Circling Faith: Southern Women on Spirituality
Susan Cushman, Jennifer Horne, Wendy Reed

grew up on a farm in West Tennessee. He retired in 2000 after working with various branches of the federal government in Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Texas, Colorado, and New Mexico. He is an avid whitewater rafter and lives with his wife, Jayne, in historic Franklin, Tennessee.

Saturday, October 13
12:00-1:00 pm, Nashville Public Library, Conf. Room II
House Upon the Sand: Novels of Secrets and Reconciliations
John Neely Davis, A.J. Scudiere                           

is Vanderbilt University's 1992 recipient of the Fred Russell-Grantland Rica TRA Sportswriting Scholarship. A part-time freelance journalist since graduating in 1996, he lives in Maryland with his wife Molly and four children, Michael, Hannah, Isabella, and Lukas. His full-time career is with Deloitte Consulting, where he has been since 2004.

Friday, October 12
1:00-2:00 pm, Nashville Public Library, Conf. Room II
Life of Dreams: The Good Times of Sportswriter Fred Russell

is a writer and elementary school teacher. His articles have been published in the Hartford Courant and he has been a featured author at the Books on the Nightstand retreat. He is the author of two previous novels, Something Missing and Unexpectedly Milo. Dicks lives in Newington, Connecticut, with his wife, Elysha, and their daughter, Clara. 

is a recent graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and is currently completing a Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University. Originally from western Massachusetts, she lives in Northern California.

Sunday, October 14
2:00-3:30 pm, Nashville Public Library, Library Auditorium
Brainy, Brawny and Brilliantly Reviewed: Debut Novels
Jennifer DuBois, Peter Heller, Ben Fountain

grew up in the petro-chemical area of the Gulf Coast and the pine barrens of Deep East Texas. He worked as a hand in the oil fields and the cotton fields, as a janitor, as a TV camera man, as a professor of English, as a college dean, and as a bit actor in television drama. Blue Sabine is his seventh novel. His other titles include Indian Giver, That's All Right, Mama: the Unauthorized Life of Elvis's Twin, Memphis Ribs, and Coasters.

Saturday, October 13
4:00-5:30 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 16
For Land & Family - Novels of Place and Perseverance
Courtney Miller Santo, Tatjana Soli, Gerald Duff

spent much of her childhood on the Greer, South Carolina farm that has been in her family since 1791; seven generations. Her music has been honored by numerous publications and organizations, and featured in commercials and on the series "Horsepower" on Animal Planet. Her latest album, Mon Secret, is her first to be entirely in French. 

Saturday, October 13
10:00-11:00 am, Cafe Stage

was born in 1974 and grew up in Mississippi, Tennessee, Maryland, Oregon, and Arkansas. At age eighteen, he was arrested along with Jason Baldwin and Jessie Miskelley and charged with the deaths of three boys, now known as the Robin Hood Hill murders, in West Memphis, Arkansas. Echols received a death sentence and spent almost eighteen years on Death Row, until he, Baldwin, and Misskelley were released in 2011. The West Memphis Three have been the subject of Paradise Lost, a three-part documentary series produced by HBO, and West of Memphis, a documentary produced by Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh. Echols is the author of a self-published memoir titled Almost Home. He and his wife, Lorri Davis, live in New York City.

Sunday, October 14
1:00-2:00 pm, War Memorial Auditorium
Life After Death
 

is the author of In a Heartbeat, The Shrouding Woman, and In Search of Mockingbird, which was a Midwest Bookseller's spring/summer pick and won the 2007 Midwest Bookseller's Choice Award Honor Book for Children's Literature.

Sunday, October 14
12:00-1:30 pm, Nashville Public Library, Grand Reading Room
Creating Our Own Realities - Young People Making Sense of Their World
John Corey Whaley, George Ella Lyon, Loretta Ellsworth

received an MA in creative writing from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop and is the author of the novels Lily Beach, Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, and The Middle Ages. An Illinois native, she spent twenty-five years as an advertising creative director in New York and currently lives with her husband in Nashville, Tennessee.

Saturday, October 13
2:30-4:00 pm, Nashville Public Library, Conf. Room IB
A Storied Past: Riveting Historical Fiction
Da Chen, Jennie Fields, David Madden

is senior fellow at the Ocean Foundation and executive director of the Mobile Botanical Gardens.    

Saturday, October 13
12:00-1:00 pm, Nashville Public Library, Conf. Room IA
Speaking for the Trees: Old-Growth Forests in North Carolina and Tennessee
Bill Finch, David Haskell                               

has lived nearly his whole life south of the Mason-Dixon line. After working as a newspaper reporter, editorial writer, and columnist for over twenty-five years--ten of them at the Commercial Appeal in Memphis--he is now a recovering journalist. His bill-paying job is serving as communications director for three departments of Tennessee state government. He and his wife, Lynn, live in Old Hickory, Tennessee. The Politics of Barbecue is his first novel.

Saturday, October 13
12:00-1:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 31
Bowling Avenue to Beale Street: Tennessee novels
Blake Fontenay, Ann Shayne

is the author of Poachers: Stories and Hell at the Breech. Winner of a 2001 Guggenheim Fellowship, he teaches in the University of Mississippi's MFA program and lives in Oxford, Mississippi, with his wife, the poet Beth Ann Fennelly, and their children, Claire and Thomas.

Saturday, October 13
12:00-1:30 pm, War Memorial Auditorium
Grit Lit: A Rough South Reader
Brian Carpenter, Chris Offutt, Tom Franklin, George Singleton

is a graduate of the University of Maryland and NYU School of Law. He lives in New York City.

Friday, October 12
3:30-4:30 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 30
Secrets & Lies - Debut Mysteries
Daniel Friedman, Sara J. Henry

is writer in residence at the University of South Alabama and author of more than twenty books, including Cradle of Freedom: Alabama and the Movement That Changed America, which won the Lillian Smith Award for non-fiction, and Watermelon Wine: The Spirit of Country Music, also published by NewSouth Books. Gaillard has also received the Clarence Cason Award for Non-Fiction and the Alabama Library Association Book of the Year Award. He lives just south of Mobile, Alabama with his wife, Nancy.

Friday, October 12
3:00-4:00 pm, Nashville Public Library, Conf. Room IA
The Books That Mattered: A Reader's Memoir

is a practicing attorney. During the 1962 Oxford, Mississippi, riot, his military police battalion from New Jersey deployed, without the benefit of riot-control practice or advance briefing, into a deadly civil rights confrontation. He was thereafter assigned as the officer-in-charge of Meredith's security detail at a time when Meredith faced very real threats to his life.            

Saturday, October 13
4:00-5:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 31
Riots and Their Cause: A Soldier's Story of the Ole Miss Riot and Strom Thurmond's America
Joseph Crespino, Henry Gallagher         

is known as the Ambassador of Attractions for the super duo Big and Rich due to his infamous stage presence and promotional work with the multi-platinum act. Along with appearing in the Big & Rich live show and in Big & Rich and other music videos, Fred believes in giving back; he participates in numerous charitable events in Nashville and beyond.

Saturday, October 13
2:00-3:00 pm, Nashville Public Library, Conf. Room IA
Two Foot Fred: How My Life Has Come Full Circle

is the author of two novels, Early Leaving and The Slow Way Back, and two books of poetry. Her work has been published in Real Simple magazine, and in many literary journals and anthologies. Her commentaries have aired on public radio and she teaches at writers' conferences throughout the country. She received the Fortner Writer and Community Award for "outstanding generosity to other writers and the larger community." She is also the recipient of many other accolades, including the Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction and the Gerald Cable Poetry Prize. Judy lives with her husband in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Friday, October 12
2:00-3:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 29
The Ambiguity of Memory: Memoirs of Families in Turmoil
Angela Fordice Jordan, Judy Goldman

is a historian, essayist, and journalist. His articles have appeared in National Geographic, Outside, Smithsonian, The Atlantic, and The New York Times Magazine, among others, and he is a regular columnist for The New York Times's acclaimed online Civil War series, Disunion. He lives in Washington, D.C., and on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where he is the Hodson Trust-Griswold Director of Washington College's C. V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience.

Sunday, October 14
1:30-2:30 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 12
1861: The Civil War Awakening

has always admired Edgar Allan Poe's short stories. She is a high school English teacher who prides herself on attracting creative misfits to elective classes like Young Adult Literature, Creative Writing, and Speculative Literature. She lives with her family in Kentucky.

Saturday, October 13
1:00-2:00 pm, Nashville Public Library, Conf. Room II
To Fight and To Live - Paranormal and Steampunk Novels
Bethany Griffin, Amanda Havard

has been Middle Tennessee's most enduringly popular Celtic band since their inception in 1993. Influenced by The Pogues, The Chieftains, and traditional Irish pub bands, TSC's music mixes original material with traditional music and many styles of American and European folk. Secret Commonwealth is currently recording its third album, due for release in early 2012.

graduated with a B.S. in Communications from Southern Illinois University and has spent the past two decades employed as a marketing director in the Nashville music industry. She regularly interviews literary and music guests on her blog at www.DivineDetour.com.

Saturday, October 13
9:30-11:00 am, Legislative Plaza, Room 30
Jesus Take The Wheel - Novels of Family & Faith
Christa Allan, Kelli Coates Gilbert, Kathy Harris

is the bestselling author of mystery/thriller, fantasy, historical fiction, and young adult novels. He was born in northern England, but has lived in many places including Japan, and is currently the Robinson Professor of Shakespeare studies at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, where he specializes in the performance history, theory, and criticism of Renaissance English drama, and works as a director and dramaturg. 

Sunday, October 14
12:00-1:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 29
Saving the World When Grown-Ups Can't - Fantasy Adventure for Middle Grade
Kelly Barnhill, A.J. Hartley                              

graduated from Columbia's MFA program. Her writing has been published in The Portland Review Literary Journal, Paper Street Press, Tantalum, We Still Like, and Zyzzyva, and by Invisible City Audio Tours.

Saturday, October 13
2:00-3:30 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 12
Boom Goes The Dynamite - Debut Novels of Modern Families
Tupelo Hassman, Lydia Netzer, Adam Wilson

is a former journalist and the author or coauthor of seven nonfiction books, including Having Our Say: The Delaney Sisters’ First 100 Years, the New York Times bestseller-turned-Broadway play. She met her future husband, Blair, who was raised in Collier County, while she was working as a reporter in Daytona Beach, Florida, in 1983. She is a graduate of the University of Tampa.   

Saturday, October 13
11:00-12:30 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 16
The Pulpwood Queens Presents Authors that are Royal Southern READS!
Kathy Patrick, Amy Hill Hearth, Robert LeLeux, Lynda Rutledge, Jenny Wingfield

 holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop in both fiction and  poetry. An award-winning adventure writer and longtime contributor to NPR, Heller is a contributing editor at Outside magazine, Men's Journal, and National Geographic Adventure, and a regular contributor to Bloomberg Businessweek. He is also the author of  several nonfiction books.            

Sunday, October 14
2:00-3:30 pm, Nashville Public Library, Library Auditorium
Brainy, Brawny and Brilliantly Reviewed: Debut Novels
Jennifer DuBois, Peter Heller, Ben Fountain

is a best-selling children's book author and an Emmy Award-winning musician. She is the author of the original Beginner's Bible, which sold more than five million copies and was translated into more than fifteen languages, and Breath of Angel, the first novel in the Angelaeon Circle series. An accomplished songwriter, Karyn has been a Dove Award nominee and received a regional Emmy Award as music composer for a Christmas television special. She lives in Nashville.

Saturday, October 13
10:00-11:30 am, Legislative Plaza, Room 29
The Hero, The Heroine, and the Assassin - YA Fantasy Novels
Karyn Henley, Sarah Maas, CJ Redwine

is the author of three previous novels, The House of Gentle Men (a Los Angeles Times bestseller), The Absence of Nectar (a national bestseller), and The Prince of Lost Places. She is an award-winning creative director and advertising writer, whose clients have included top brands in American business. She grew up in Texas. www.kathyhepinstall.com

Sunday, October 14
1:00-2:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 31
Standing Up: The Southern Belle Rewritten
Taylor Polites, Kathy Hepinstall

teaches at Vanderbilt University and is the author of Brother Salvage, recipient of the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize from the University of Pittsburgh Press. His poems appear in Columbia, The Hudson Review, The New Republic, Paris Review, and Poetry.         

Sunday, October 14
1:00-2:00 pm, Nashville Public Library, Special Collections Room
The Art to Being and Having Been: Salient Voices in Modern Poetry
Rick Hilles, Ellen Watson

is a contributing editor to The New York Times Magazine, Harper's, and public radio's This American Life. He also writes for Rolling Stone, GQ, Wired, and, of course, Garden & Gun. He has won the Peabody Award, as well as the Livingston and Pope Foundation Awards. His stories can be heard on This American Life's greatest hits CD, Lies, Sissies & Fiascoes, and The Best Crimes and Misdemeanors: Stories from The Moth. He is the author of a solo theater performance, currently touring, entitled Making Up the Truth.

Saturday, October 13
3:00-4:00 pm, Nashville Public Library, Conf. Room IA
Our Jaded Optimism: Comedic Takes on the American Character
Rosecrans Baldwin, Jack Hitt

is one of the country's leading authorities on Abraham Lincoln and the political culture of the Civil War era. A prolific writer and lecturer, and frequent guest on television, Holzer serves as chairman of The Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation, successor organization to the U. S. Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission (ALBC), to which he was appointed by President Clinton in 2000, and co-chaired from 2001-2010. President Bush, in turn, awarded Holzer the National Humanities Medal in 2008. www.haroldholzer.com

Friday, October 12
12:00-1:00 pm, Nashville Public Library, Library Auditorium
Emancipating Lincoln: The Proclamation in Text, Context and Memory

 is an American journalist and writer. His works include Blue Latitudes or Into the Blue, One for the Road, Confederates In The Attic, Baghdad Without A Map, and A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World.

Sunday, October 14
12:00-1:00 pm, Nashville Public Library, Library Auditorium
Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War
 

 is the coauthor of Something's Rising: Appalachians Fighting Mountaintop Removal, which was hailed by the late historian Studs Terkel as "a revelatory work." His features, essays and reviews have appeared in publications such as the New York Times, the Nation, Sojourners, Equal Justice Magazine, Paste, the Louisville Review, and on NPR. He is a recipient of the 2013 Al Smith Individual Artist Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council and a 2010-2012 James Still Fellowship from the University of Kentucky.

Friday, October 12
3:00-4:00 pm, Nashville Public Library, Library Auditorium
A Few Honest Words: The Kentucky Roots of Popular Music
Jason Howard, Naomi Judd

is director of the Neighborhood Justice Center in Nashville and a well-known activist, working to abolish the dealth penalty in Tennessee.

Friday, October 12
3:00-4:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 16
"An Affront to the Gospel of Jesus Christ" -- America's Prisons and Executions
Richard Goode, Joseph B. Ingle

is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Know-It-All, The Year of Living Biblically, and The Guinea Pig Diaries. He is the editor at large of Esquire magazine, a contributor to NPR, and has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Entertainment Weekly. He lives in New York City with his wife and kids.

Sunday, October 14
1:30-2:30 pm, Nashville Public Library, Grand Reading Room
Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection

is associate professor of American Studies and African American  Studies at the University of Kansas.        

Sunday, October 14
2:00-3:00 pm, Nashville Public Library, Conf. Room IB
Reconciling Faith and the World: Biographies of Spiritual Journeys
Randal Maurice Jelks, Diane Sasson                   

, who received an MFA in Writing from Vermont College, has published stories and essays in numerous literary journals, including The Louisville Review, Other Voices, and Northwest Review. She was awarded an Artist Enrichment Grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women and an Al Smith Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council, and she teaches English at Eastern Kentucky University. The Sisters, her first novel, was named one of the Best Fiction Books of 2011 by Kirkus Reviews.

Sunday, October 14
2:00-3:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 31
Navigating the Past and Finding Forgiveness: Two Novels
Nancy Jensen, Sarah McCoy

was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland and educated at Grosvenor High, Belfast, and Trinity College, Dublin. He immigrated to Canada in 1974 and moved to the United States in 1984. He currently resides in Knoxville, Tennessee with his wife, Ann. The Price of Peace is Johnston's debut novel. His collection of poems, Exile: Poems of an Irish Immigrant, was published in 1997 and has been reissued in a revised and expanded edition.

Sunday, October 14
1:00-2:00 pm, Nashville Public Library, Conf. Room II
Celtic Memories: Novels of Historic Ireland
Jim Johnston, Kathleen Fearing                                     

is a freelance writer and the daughter of former Mississippi governor Kirk Fordice. Mother of three grown daughters, she lives in the mountains with her husband, Bob.                                

Friday, October 12
2:00-3:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 29
The Ambiguity of Memory: Memoirs of Families in Turmoil
Angela Fordice Jordan, Judy Goldman

was born and raised in West Virginia, and now lives in Chicago and Ohio. In her career as a journalist, she won the Pulitzer Prize for a three-part series she wrote for the Chicago Tribune about a small town in Illinois rocked by a deadly tornado. A Killing in the Hills is her first mystery.

Friday, October 12
2:00-3:00 pm, Nashville Public Library, Conf. Room IA
The Killer Beside You: Murder Mysteries with Deep Roots
Julia Keller, Attica Locke

is the author of two award-winning novels, Divining Rod and The Typist, and two story collections, Dogfight and Other Stories and Goodnight, Nobody. An Alabama native, Knight directs the creative writing program at the University of Tennessee.  

Sunday, October 14
12:00-1:30 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 16
Authors and Social Media
Julianna Baggott, Ron Hogan, Michael Knight, Julie Schoerke                                       

, a native of Memphis, is a freelance food writer and longtime member of the Southern Foodways Alliance.    

Saturday, October 13
11:00-12:00 noon, Legislative Plaza, Room 12
Tradition and Evolution in Today's Southern Kitchens
Chris Chamberlain, Paul Knipple, Angela Knipple                

is a native of South Carolina; she holds a PhD in English literature and taught at Buffalo State College for over thirty years.  Now retired from academe, she is a Reiki Master Teacher and Practitioner who works primarily with cancer patients.  She resides in Buffalo, New York, and is the author of  When the Morning Breaks: Joy for the Journey. 

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

is Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of History at Vanderbilt University and is the director of the Ecclesiastical and Secular Sources for Slave Societies project.

Saturday, October 13
1:30-3:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 16
Histories of Freedom: People and Politics in the Atlantic World
Madison Smartt Bell, Jane Landers, Laurent Dubois

teaches creative writing in the New York city schools.  His nonfiction pieces have appeared in The New York Times Magazine,Texas Observer, and elsewhere. He is features editor of LONNY Magazine in New York and columnist for The Texas Observor's "Tex in the City".  He lives with his husband, Michael Leleux, in Manhattan.

Saturday, October 13
11:00-12:30 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 16
The Pulpwood Queens Presents Authors that are Royal Southern READS!
Kathy Patrick, Amy Hill Hearth, Robert LeLeux, Lynda Rutledge, Jenny Wingfield

is a writer whose first novel, Black Water Rising, was nominated for a 2010 Edgar Award, a 2010 NAACP Image Award, as well as a Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was longlisted for an Orange Prize in the UK. Attica is also a screenwriter who has written movie and television scripts for Paramount, Warner Bros, Disney, Twentieth Century Fox, Jerry Bruckheimer Films, HBO, Dreamworks and Silver Pictures. She was also a fellow at the Sundance Institute's Feature Filmmakers Lab and is a graduate of Northwestern University.

Friday, October 12
2:00-3:00 pm, Nashville Public Library, Conf. Room IA
The Killer Beside You: Murder Mysteries with Deep Roots
Julia Keller, Attica Locke

is a New York native who currently lives in the California desert. This is her first novel, though she has a large on-line fanbase who eagerly support her writing.

Saturday, October 13
10:00-11:30 am, Legislative Plaza, Room 29
The Hero, The Heroine, and the Assassin - YA Fantasy Novels
Karyn Henley, Sarah Maas, CJ Redwine

teaches fiction writing at James Madison University. He is the author of Wonderdog, Swimming in Sky, and The Millionaires. He lives in Waynesboro, Virginia.

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

is a Nashville award-winning author/co-songwriter of the Billboard 5 week #1 smash hit, "Austin" performed by Warner Brothers recording artist, Blake Shelton. She is an actress with numerous credits that include creating and starring in her own national children's TV show, "Kirsti's Manor", viewed by over 34 million children. As Tina Tickle-ini, she delivers her powerful and fun songs, never failing to move, inspire and creat an uplifting experience.                 

is the author of three books of fiction--Notable American Women, The Father Costume, and The Age of Wire and String--and he is the editor of The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories. His stories have appeared in Harper's Magazine, the New Yorker, the Paris Review, McSweeney's, Tin House, and Conjunctions. He is the recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction, and awards from the Creative Capital Foundation and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in New York City and Maine. www.benmarcus.com

Saturday, October 13
3:00-4:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 16
Answering the Apocalypse: Stories of Families in the Aftermath
Ben Marcus, Karen Thompson Walker

has published two previous full-length collections: Superfecta (Ghost Road Press, 2008) and Runoff (BlazeVox Books, 2009). He has also been published in journals such as The American Poetry Review, Willow Springs, Black Warrior Review, Gulf Coast, New Orleans Review, and elsewhere. He completed his Ph.D. in creative writing at Oklahoma State in 2008, and is now teaching at Tusculum College outside of Greeneville, TN, where he also edits poetry for The Tusculum Review.

Saturday, October 13
1:30-2:30 pm, Nashville Public Library, Special Collections Room
Common Miracles and Everyday Revelations: Three Poets
Sandy Coomer, Clay Matthews

lives with his wife of 23 years, Jeanne Coffman McCollum, and their two teenagers, Christopher and Madilynn, in Franklin, Tennessee. A longtime fan of J.R.R.Tolkien, C.S Lewis, Lennon/McCartney, Clive Cussler and many more wordsmiths, he has spent the better part of  his life crafting words into some form or another whether it be short stories, bedtime stories, anecdotes, poems or songs. Originally from Memphis, TN, he graduated from Milan High School - Milan, Tennessee. He studied Music Business at Belmont University until the music business took him out of college and placed him in the real world. He has made his home in middle Tennessee for the last 31 years of his life.                                         

Sunday, October 14
2:00-3:30 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 29
Survival Stories of Different Stripes - Middle TN Authors Discuss Their Work
Donn Sierra, Kimberly Dana, Chris McCollum

is author of the novel The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico. She has taught at Old Dominion University and at the University of Texas at El Paso. The daughter of an Army officer, McCoy spent her childhood in Germany. She currently lives with her husband in El Paso, Texas. wwww.SarahMcCoy.com

Sunday, October 14
2:00-3:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 31
Navigating the Past and Finding Forgiveness: Two Novels
Nancy Jensen, Sarah McCoy

is Associate Professor of History at the University of Virginia's College at Wise. His book, Contested Borderland: The Civil War in Appalachian Kentucky and Virginia, won the James I. Robertson Literary Prize in 2007.

Saturday, October 13
9:00-10:00 am, Legislative Plaza, Room 31
Rebel Soldiers and Citizens: Examining the Personal Motives of Confederates
Brian McKnight, Gordon Belt, Traci Nichols-Belt

 is an author, entrepreneur,Veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps and Army Reserve, founder of and Chief Veteran Officer at Heroes Vodka. McVey currently serves as the official spokesperson for the Tennessee's chapter of the National Veteran-Owned Business Association (NaVOBA) and the BUY VETERAN Campaign. Mr. McVey is also a member of the American Legion and the VFW as well as the Military Writers Society of America. 

Friday, October 12
1:00-2:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 30
Heroes of the Stage/Country Serving Country
 

 is a widely published and exhibited photographer. Though his photography has been featured in a number of books and publications, "Arn? Narn." is his first book. While the book took  several years to complete, the story it portrays took over 500 years to complete. Details of the story producing  "Arn? Narn." are chronicled on arnnarn.com    

Sunday, October 14
12:00-1:00 pm, Nashville Public Library, Conf. Room IB
Identity into Image: Photography of Place
Chip Cooper, Bruce Meisterman                                    

manages the Tennessee Department of Transportation's Geotechnical Engineering office in Knoxville.                                  

Friday, October 12
12:00-1:00 pm, Nashville Public Library, Conf. Room II
The Lonely Road: Ultimate Sacrifices
Harry L. Moore, Alice Ann Moore

is an award-winning food writer and author of five cookbooks. 
 

Saturday, October 13
9:30-11:00 am, Nashville Public Library, Conf. Room IA
Getting Fresh - Cook Your Best Southern Food
Tammy Algood, Debbie Moose, Kathleen Purvis

,a former landscaper and horticulturist, is the author of Waxwings and Capturing the Dead, which won the Stevens Prize, and a chapbook, Days of Dark Miracles. His poetry has appeared, or is forthcoming, in many journals and anthologies, including New South, Poet Lore, Assaracus, Chautauga, and Collective Brightness. He serves on the advisory board of One Pause Poetry and teaches English at the University of North Carolina in Wilmington, where he lives with his husband, painter and printmaker, Benjamin Billingsley.

Friday, October 12
4:30-5:30 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 30
Observation, Meditation, and Memory: Two Poets
Clifford Brooks, Daniel Nathan Terry

is an ordained and licensed minister and holds a master's degree in history from Middle Tennessee State University and a bachelor's degree in political science from Anderson University. She recently published an article on The New York Times "Disunion" Civil War blog, and has appeared on NPT's Civil War documentary, "A Crisis of Faith."

Saturday, October 139:00-10:00 am,
Legislative Plaza, Room 31
Rebel Soldiers and Citizens: Examining the Personal Motives of Confederates
Brian McKnight, Gordon Belt, Traci Nichols-Belt

is a member of the band Daddy and performs regularly with Tommy Womack, Will Kimbrough, and others. Her first CD, "Dedicated to Love", was released in 2011.

Friday, October 12
12:00-1:00pm Cafe Stage

is an Assistant Professor of English at Washington College in Maryland. In his teaching website, The Tolkien Professor, Professor Olsen brings his scholarship on Tolkien to the public, seeking to engage a wide and diverse audience in serious intellectual and literary conversation. He is currently posting a series of in-depth lectures on The Hobbit, as well as recorded discussions with students and listeners, and more informal Q&A sessions. www.tolkeinprofessor.com

Sunday, October 14
12:00-1:00 pm, Nashville Public Library, Conf. Room IA
Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit

is a former investment banker at Morgan Stanley and a practicing corporate lawyer. He is one of the world's leading experts on market regulation and is a frequent commentator for The Financial Times, the New York Times, NPR and 60 Minutes. He is a graduate of Yale Law School and is the George E. Barrett Professor of Law and Finance and the founding director of the Center for Corporate and Securities Law at the University of San Diego.

Friday, October 12
12:00-1:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 31
Why Do Today What You Can Artfully Postpone: The Art of Waiting
Frank Partnoy, John R. Perry

is a former National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. Her international fame rests not only on her widely acclaimed novels but also on her efforts to promote literacy in the United States and abroad. She is a two-time winner of the Newbery Medal and the National Book Award, and she has received many other accolades for her works, including the Hans Christian Andersen Medal, the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, and the Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts, given by her home state of Vermont. She was also named a Living Legend by the Library of Congress in 2000. She lives in Barre, Vermont, with her husband, John. www.terabithia.com

Saturday, October 13
10:00-11:00 am, War Memorial Auditorium
The Flint Heart
Katherine Paterson, John Paterson

has served the state of Tennessee most recently as one of the 2008-2011 Sergeant-At-Arms for the Tennessee House of Representatives. He has served as a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives and as an administrative assistant to the Secretary of State of Tennessee. He has taught and chaired the Department of Health Education at East Tennessee State University and has published three textbooks.
current book: Tennessee Political Fireworks

Sunday, October 14
3:00-4:00pm Conference Room 1B
Tennessee Political Fireworks
 

Pence's poetry has received the Discovered Voices award, an individual artist commission from Tennessee, and three Pushcart nominations. She has been published in North American Review, Prairie Schooner, Denver Quarterly, Kenyon Review Online and many other journals. In this past year, she received her Ph.D. in English and published Weaves a Clear Night, which won the Flying Trout chapbook prize, and The Poetics of American Song Lyrics, an essay collection that features work by prominent poets on the similarities and differences between poetry and songs. She is married to the fiction writer Adam Prince and currently lives in Knoxville, Tennessee. www.charlottepence.com

Saturday, October 13
12:00-1:30 pm, Nashville Public Library, Special Collections Room
Zooming In: Poems of Seeing the Eternal in the Everday
Kate Buckley, Charlotte Pence, Adam Vines

is a debut author and owner of the popular blog One Woman's Dream at reflectionsbykrista.blogspot.com. She lives with her husband and four daughters in Cool Springs, Tennessee.

Friday, October 12
4:00-5:30 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 31
Heroines in Pursuit: Novels of Discovery and Faith
Julie Cannon, Krista Phillips, Julie Cantrell

is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Miami Herald. He is the author of a novel and a memoir as well as a collection of his columns.    

Sunday, October 14
3:30-4:30 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 12
Bound to the Land: Two Novels
Leonard Pitts, JR., Christopher Tilghman                                                    

holds the James H. Clark Endowed Chair in American Civilization and is Director of the New Orleans Center for the Gulf South at Tulane University.

Sunday, October 14
2:30-3:30 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 12
Growing the Crescent City: The History of New Orleans
Lawrence Powell, John Shelton Reed

has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Breadloaf Wriers' Conference. He is the recipient of the 2005 Peter Taylor Prize for Fiction from the University of Tennessee Press for this novel.

Saturday, October 13
3:30-5:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 12
Honey, That's Just How It Is: Stories of Appalachian Realism
Lisa Alther, Mark Powell, Charles Dodd White

is food editor of the Charlotte Observer and a member of the Southern Foodways Alliance, the Association of Food Journalists, and the James Beard Foundation.            

Saturday, October 13
9:30-11:00 am, Nashville Public Library, Conf. Room IA
Getting Fresh - Cook Your Best Southern Food
Tammy Algood, Debbie Moose, Kathleen Purvis                           

is the author of the 2009 PEN/Faulkner finalist and New York Times bestselling novel Serena, in addition to three other prizewinning novels, One Foot in Eden, Saints at the River, and The World Made Straight; four collections of poems; and four collections of stories, among them Burning Bright, which won the 2010 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, and Chemistry and Other Stories, which was a finalist for the 2007 PEN/Faulkner Award. Twice the recipient of the O. Henry Prize, he teaches at Western Carolina University.

Saturday, October 13
10:00-11:00 am, Legislative Plaza, Room 12
The Cove

2:30-3:30 pm, Nashville Public Library, Grand Reading Room
Soldier Home: Stories of War and Homecoming 
Ron Rash, Ben Fountain

*Note: This session originally included Daniel Woodrell, who regrets he is unable to attend. 

worked as a registered nurse for forty years before she wrote her first novel at the age of sixty. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee with her husband and her dog, Red. She is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels Julie and Romeo, Julie and Romeo Get Lucky, Eat Cake, and Step-Ball-Change.

Friday, October 12
2:00-3:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 16
Seen & Unseen - Novels of Experiencing Womanhood
Jeanne Ray, Charity Shumway

is William Rand Kenan, Jr. Professor Emeritus of sociology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he was director of the Howard Odum Institute for Research in Social Science for twelve years and helped to found the university's Center for the Study of the American South. He has written or edited eighteen books, four of them with his wife, Dale Volberg Reed.

Sunday, October 14
2:30-3:30 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 12
Growing the Crescent City: The History of New Orleans
Lawrence Powell, John Shelton Reed

joined the Tennessean in 1974 as the first female photographer in  the newspaper’s history and continued her work there for nearly thirty years. Rhoda has won the National Press Photographers’ “Pictures of the Year” contest, a National Headliner Award, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She also became the first woman photojournalist to receive a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University. Rhoda served as the photo editor for the book Nashville: An American Self-Portrait.

Saturday, October 13
11:00-12:00 pm, Nashville Public Library, Special Collections Room
Home to Us: Six Stories of Saving the Land
John Egerton, Nancy Rhoda, Varina Willse

lives in Nashville with his wife and two daughters. His debut novel, Mr. Peanut (Knopf), a 2010 New York Times Notable Book, was also named one of the best books of the year by the New Yorker, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the New Republic, and the Economist. Ladies and Gentlemen (Knopf), his short story collection, was included in Kirkus Reviews’ Best Fiction of 2011. His non­fic­tion has been pub­lished in the New York Times Book Review, the Daily Beast, the Wall Street Jour­nal, Poets & Writers, GQ, and the Nashville Scene. His fic­tion has appeared in the Car­olina Quar­terly and FiveChap­ters.

Saturday, October 13
3:00-4:30 pm, Nashville Public Library, Library Auditorium
Ladies, Gentlemen, Losers and Loners: Three Story Collections
Adam Ross, Adam Prince, Claire Vaye Watkins

received her MFA from Columbia University. er work is frequently broadcast on BBC radio, and translated internationally. A recipient of a Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors, she has received grants from the Arts Council of Great Britain and won second prize in the National Poetry Competition. She has also held fellowships at Wesleyan Writers' Conference and at Villa Mont Noir in France. She is co-writer of Start Writing Poetry for the Open University and teaches extensively within academia at graduate and undergraduate level and for all ages and levels: in schools, prisons and as part of adult education programs and community projects. Cassandra, a mini-opera written with her composer father, Eric Salzman, has been widely performed in Europe. 

Saturday, October 13
3:00-4:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 30
By the Sweat of Her Brow: Modern Women Poets
George Ella Lyon, Eva Salzman

is a New Orleans-based journalist, folklorist, drummer, and producer. His published work includes some one-hundred sets of liner notes and hundreds of articles for a multitude of publications including The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, and Esquire. His work has also been anthologized in books such as DaCapo Best Music Writing 2000. He is also the author of Zydeco! (University Press of Mississippi, 1999). Sandmel works for the Louisiana Folklife Program as a field researcher and writer and produces the Music Heritage Stage at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. He has produced and played on albums including the Grammy-nominated Deep Water by The Hackberry Ramblers, has performed with numerous blues artists, and is currently pursuing a Masters Degree in Musicology at Tulane.

Saturday, October 13
3:00-4:00 pm, Nashville Public Library, Special Collections Room
Me-Oh My-Oh From K-Doe to Bayou: People and Place in Louisiana Music
Alex Cook, Ben Sandmel

received her doctorate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the author of The Shaker Spiritual Narrative (1983) and articles on American folklore and communal societies. She was Director of the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies Program at Duke University, and serves as President of the National Association of Graduate Liberal Studies. For the last decade, she has been on the faculty at Vanderbilt University.

Sunday, October 14
2:00-3:00 pm, Nashville Public Library, Conf. Room IB
Reconciling Faith and the World: Biographies of Spiritual Journeys
Randal Maurice Jelks, Diane Sasson

founded JKSCommunications more than a dozen years ago. It has grown to become a full-service literary publicity firm with a presence in New York, Chicago, Nashville and Denver. The firm represents titles published by major houses including Random House, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, Penguin and Harper Collins as well as mid-size and independent publishers. A Southerner at heart, Schoerke now lives in Chicago with her daughter. She is a champion of independent bookstores. Authors are her rock stars.

Sunday, October 14
12:00-1:30 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 16
Authors and Social Media
Julianna Baggott, Ron Hogan, Michael Knight, Julie Schoerke

is a teacher with two science degrees. She lives in Nashville. This is her fourth book.

Saturday, October 13
12:00-1:00 pm, Nashville Public Library, Conf. Room II
House Upon the Sand: Novels of Secrets and Reconciliations
John Neely Davis, A.J. Scudiere

was born and raised in Michigan in a family of artists, readers, and music lovers. Between Shades of Gray is her first novel and was inspired by her family's history. "It's a story of extreme suffering, tremendous hope, and how sometimes love reveals the miraculous nature of the human spirit," says Sepetys. Ruta now lives with her family in Tennessee.

Sunday, October 14
12:00-1:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 12
An Artist and a Blue Beret: Young Heroines in War Zones
Bobbie Ann Mason, Ruta Sepetys

runs the successful website www.masondixonknitting.com. She lives in Nashville. annshayne.com

Saturday, October 13
12:00-1:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 31
Bowling Avenue to Beale Street: Tennessee novels
Blake Fontenay, Ann Shayne

received an MFA in Creative Writing from Oregon State University and a BA in English from Harvard University. Her writing has appeared in Glamour, where she reported on the fiftieth anniversary of the magazine's Top Ten College Women contest, Ladies Home Journal, and Fitness, among others. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.  

Friday,  October 12
2:00-3:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 16
Seen & Unseen - Novels of Experiencing Womanhood
Jeanne Ray, Charity Shumway         

has published short stories in a variety of magazines and journals including The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, and Playboy, as well as four full short story collections and two novels. www.georgesingleton.com

Friday, October 12
4:00-5:30 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 16
The Writing Life and the Craft of Short Stories
George Singleton, Chesya Burke, Stephanie Powell Watts

Saturday, October 13
12:00-1:30 pm, War Memorial Auditorium
Grit Lit: A Rough South Reader
Brian Carpenter, Chris Offutt, Tom Franklin, George Singleton
 

first worked with animals at the Portland Zoo, and he has been involved in animal rescues and conservation work around the world for more than twenty years. He is the author of Jack's Run, Zach's Lie, Cryptid Hunters, Peak, and most recently Tentacles. He is also the co-author of numerous picture books with his wife, Marie. Roland lives with Marie on a farm south of Portland, OR, and he enjoys writing, traveling, and visiting schools.

Saturday, October 13
1:30-2:30 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 29
Wacky Hotels & Wily Heists - Middle Grade Adventure Series
Roland Smith, Patrick Carman

lives with her husband in Southern California. Her New York Times bestselling debut novel, The Lotus Eaters, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, a New York Times Notable Book, and won the 2011 James Tait Black Prize. www.tatjanasoli.com

Saturday, October 13
4:00-5:30 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 16
For Land & Family - Novels of Place and Perseverance
Courtney Miller Santo, Tatjana Soli, Gerald Duff

's books have sold more than 300 million copies, making him one of the most popular children's authors in history. Besides Goosebumps, R.L. Stine has written series including: Fear Street, Rotten School, Mostly Ghostly, The Nightmare Room, and Dangerous Girls. R.L. Stine lives in New York with his wife, Jane, and his King Charles spaniel, Minnie. 

Sunday, October 14
12:00-1:00 pm, War Memorial Auditorium
Red Rain: A Novel

has published more than a dozen stories and essays in journals, magazines, and books. Her work has appeared numerous times in the Raleigh News and Observer's emerging Southern writers series. She is a 2011 recipient of the South Carolina Fiction Project Award, given by the South Carolina Arts Commission, and an alumna of the Sewanee Writers' Conference. She lives in Spartanburg, South Carolina. www.michelstone.com

Sunday, October 14
1:00-2:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 30
The Haves and Have-Nots: Debut Novels Exploring Two Americas
Amber Dermont, Michel Stone

a graduate of Peabody College’s Community Research and Action doctoral program, is a Lead Program Evaluator at Centerstone Research Institute. Her book, Magdalene House: A Place About Mercy, is an inside account of the history of a remarkable Nashville community, made up of women who have left the street to heal from what are often lifelong experiences with suffering. Magdalene House was the subject of a multiple-part documentary on National Public Radio.

Saturday, October 13
4:00-5:00 pm, Nashville Public Library, Conf. Room IB
Magdalene House: A Place About Mercy

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

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                 

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
 

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

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

is an assistant professor of English at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and editor of Birmingham Poetry Review. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in journals such as Poetry, Cincinnati Review, Greensboro Review, Barrow Street, and others. This book was a finalist for the 2012 Miller Williams Arkansas Poetry Prize. He also serves on the staff of the Sewanee Writers' Conference.

Saturday, October 13
12:00-1:30 pm, Nashville Public Library, Special Collections Room
Zooming In: Poems of Seeing the Eternal in the Everday
Kate Buckley, Charlotte Pence, Adam Vines

's name is pronounced SHOVE-ON. She was born in NYC and grew up in Rutherford, NJ. She attended The University of the Arts, where she graduated with a degree in Writing for Film and Television. She received her MFA in Creative Writing: Children's Literature from The New School University. Siobhan has worked as an editor of several New York Times best-selling novels at Alloy Entertainment, a scriptwriter for The Disney Channel, and she currently teaches Writing Youth Literature at the University of Pittsburgh. She is the author of the young adult novel The List, as well as Not That Kind of Girl, Same Difference, and A Little Friendly Advice.

Saturday, October 13
11:30-12:30 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 29
Burn For Burn
Jenny Han, Siobhan Vivian

is a graduate of UCLA and the Columbia MFA program and a recipient of the 2011 Sirenland Fellowship as well as a Bomb magazine fiction prize. A former editor at Simon & Schuster, she wrote The Age of Miracles in the mornings before work. Born and raised in San Diego, she now lives in Brooklyn with her husband. The Age of Miracles is her first book.

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

3:00-4:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 16
Answering the Apocalypse: Stories of Families in the Aftermath
Ben Marcus, Karen Thompson Walker

 has written extensively on the art of Tennessee.  With Susan Knowles, she curated a series of exhibitions across the state that led to an exhibition of art at The National Museum of Women in the Arts.  Celia is currently the Director of Special Projects at Vanderbilt University Library, supervising exhibits in the camps libraries.  She and Susan Knowles recently completed a Sesquicentennial project to develop an educational website on the art and material culture of Civil War Tennessee. Celia contributes regularly to publications about the art of the Volunteer state.

Sunday, October 14
2:00-3:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 30
By Means of Matter: Capturing Community Through Art
Susan W. Knowles, Art Shiver, Celia S. Walker
 

is the author of the national bestseller The Financial Lives of the Poets, the National Book Award finalist The Zero, the Edgar Award-winning Citizen Vince, Land of the Blind, and the New York Times Notable Book Over Tumbled Graves. He lives in Spokane, Washington, with his family. www.jesswalter.com

Saturday, October 13
11:00-12:00 noon, Nashville Public Library, Library Auditorium
Beautiful Ruins

’s most recent volume of poems is Dogged Hearts (Tupelo Press, 2010). Her journal appearances include The American Poetry Review, Tin House, Orion, and The New Yorker. Among her honors are a Rona Jaffe Writers Award, fellowships to the MacDowell Colony and to Yaddo, and a NEA Translation Fellowship. She has translated a dozen books from the Brazilian Portuguese, including the work of poet Adélia Prado. Watson serves as poetry editor of The Massachusetts Review, director of the Poetry Center at Smith College, and treaches in the Drew University Low-Residency MFA program in poetry and translation.  

Sunday, October 14
1:00-2:00 pm, Nashville Public Library, Special Collections Room
The Art to Being and Having Been: Salient Voices in Modern Poetry
Rick Hilles, Ellen Watson 

received her BA from New College at The University of Alabama. She and her husband, Paul, live in Northport, Alabama. Darkroom is her first book. www.lilaqweaver.com

Saturday, October 13
1:00-2:30 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 31
The Silence of Collective Memory: Stories of Racism in the South
Pam Durban, Molly Walling, Lila Weaver

came into the world with her feet still, her mouth shut, and her eyes wide open. Since then, she has discovered the joys of old-time fiddling, Appalachian dancing, storytelling, and various other traditional arts. Currently a junior Buchanan Fellow at Middle Tennessee State University, she is an alumna of the Tennessee Governor's School for the Arts and a former Uncle Dave Macon Days Scholarship recipient. Kelsey performs roots music on fiddle, banjo and cello.

Saturday, October 13
2:30-3:30 pm, Cafe Stage
CD Release Party "Decent Pan of Cornbread"
Kory Wells
Kelsey Wells

is an American Young Adult author from Louisiana. His first novel, Where Things Come Back is the winner of the 2012 Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature and the 2012 William C. Morris Debut Fiction Award. He was recently selected by the National Book Foundation as a Top 5 Under 35 author, making him the first YA author to be awarded the honor.

Sunday, October 14
12:00-1:30 pm, Nashville Public Library, Grand Reading Room
Creating Our Own Realities - Young People Making Sense of Their World
John Corey Whaley, George Ella Lyon, Loretta Ellsworth

's historical mystery, The Sign of the Weeping Virgin, will be released by Five Star in December 2012.  Set in 1400s Italy, the novel features real-life lawyer Guid'Antonio Vespucci as he investigates crime with the help of his nephew, Amerigo, at the height of the Italian Renaissance.  Alana's first short story featuring Guid'Antonio and Amerigo was a Macavity Award finalist.  She is a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery  Writers of America, and the Historical Novel Society, among others, and she reviews books for The Historical Novels Review and Renaissance Magazine.  She lives in Nashville.

Saturday, October 13
1:00-2:30 pm, Nashville Public Library, Conf. Room IB
Faraway Times, Faraway Places: Bringing the Past -- and the Future -- to Life
Jennie Bentley, Dewey Lambdin, Alana White, Jane Sevier
 

is the author of the young adult novels The Debutante, The Lost Summer, and Pizza, Love, and Other Stuff that Made Me Famous, as well as the humor/advice book Roomies: Sharing Your Home with Friends, Strangers, and Total Freaks. She is a strong believer in the healing power of butter, bacon, and Southern rock, and she lives in Nashville.

Saturday, October 13
4:30-5:30 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 29
Matters of the Heart - Writing Romance Novels for Teens
Kathryn Williams, Melissa Walker

Caroline Randall Williams is an award-winning published poet, currently pursuing her MFA at the University of Mississippi. Prior to matriculating at Ole Miss the 2010 Harvard graduate spent one year as a 1st grade teacher and another teaching 9th grade English. Williams is a third generation children's book writer. She is the great-granddaughter of Arna Bontemps who wrote several critically praised children's books including Popo and Fifina and The Fast Sooner Hound.  Like her great-grandfather who co-wrote (often with Langston Hughes), Williams enjoys collaboration. Her debut novel, The Diary of B.B. Bright, Possible Princess, is co-written with her mother. Williams first attended the southern festival of book as a three-year old. Interviewed by a reporter, she was quoted in the Tennessean as saying that she “likes to write". Twenty-two years later she's back to see what a new generation of young Southern Festival of Books readers makes of what she has written.

Saturday, October 13
4:00-5:00 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 30
Independent Princesses - Enchanting Novels for Tweens
Caroline Randall Williams, E.D. Baker, Alice Randall

 is the author of the novel Flatscreen (Harper Perennial, 2012), which was both an Indie Next Pick and an Amazon Book of the Month. His work has appeared in many publications including The Paris Review, Tin House, The Literary Review, Bookforum, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The New York Times, and Best American Short Stories. He is the 2012 recipient of the Terry Southern Prize for Humor for his short story “What’s Important is Feeling.” He teaches creative writing at NYU, and lives in Brooklyn. 

Saturday, October 13
2:00-3:30 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 12
Boom Goes The Dynamite - Debut Novels of Modern Families
Tupelo Hassman, Lydia Netzer, Adam Wilson
 

lives in Texas with her rescued dogs, cats, and horses. Her screenplay credits include The Man in the Moon and The Outsider. The Homecoming of Samuel Lake is her first novel.

Saturday, October 13
11:00-12:30 pm, Legislative Plaza, Room 16
The Pulpwood Queens Presents Authors that are Royal Southern READS!
Kathy Patrick, Amy Hill Hearth, Robert LeLeux, Lynda Rutledge, Jenny Wingfield

is a successful singer-songwriter with songs recorded by Jimmy Buffett, Todd Snider, Jason Ringenberg, Dan Baird, Scott Kempner and others. Womack is the author of the rock memoir cult classic "Cheese Chronicles: The True Story of a Rock n Roll Band You've Never Heard Of" and the recording artist behind 2007's career-defining "There, I Said It!" album, as well as founding member of the band DADDY with the Americana Music Association's instrumentalist of the year Will Kimbrough. A two-time winner of "Best Song" in the Nashville Scene's annual "Best of Nashville" poll, Tommy’s new studio album - "Now What!" - was released to even more critical acclaim earlier this year. He is always writing towards his next book.

Perform: Saturday, 11:30 a.m.-12:30 pm, Cafe Stage 

's first book, Cheese Chronicles: The True Story of Rock and Roll You've Never Heard Of, has become a cult classic since its publication in 1995, considered required reading by countless musicians who have passed dog-eared copies back and forth in vans and tour buses. He is a two-time winner of the Nashville Scene "Best Song" award. His most recent CD release, "There, I Said It!" won a place on the 2007 year-end best of lists of USA Today and No Depression magazine, among many other outlets and blogs. He has also recorded with the indie bands Government Cheese, the bis-quits, and Daddy. He lives in Nashville, Tennesse with his wife Beth and son Nathan. The Lavendar Boys and Elsie is his first novel.

Saturday, October 13
11:30 am - 12:30 pm- Cafe Stage

is the illustrator of more than 80 books for children, including the Caldecott Medal-winning Lon Po Po, the New York Times bestseller Wabi Sabi by Mark Reibstein, and The House Baba Built. He lives in New York State.

Saturday, October 13
9:00-10:00 am, Legislative Plaza, Room 29
Nighttime Ninja