Call & Response is an annual exhibit of collaborations between writers and visual artists in which one calls and one responds. The result is a set of paired works, resonating with each other, demonstrating the interplay of artistic media, and speaking of our times. This year’s theme is Currents. Call & Response is a collaboration between the School of Art and the English Department’s MFA program in Creative Writing.

Alice Chen is the author of the picture book Centipede Dragon: A Benevolent Creature, the story of a kind-hearted magical creature who helps nearby villagers with his magical scales. Trained as a medical illustrator, Chen uses unique and imaginative illustrations to captivate readers of all ages. Join her for a reading of her book as well as for interactive children’s activities.

The Reston Multicultural Festival Children’s Book Fair features the fables, myths, and folklore from more than 40 cultures. Author Alice Y. Chen will read from her book The Centipede Dragon, and lead fun activities based on the story at 2:00 p.m. Buying a book for a child is a great enhancement to a day filled with music, art, dance, theater and great food from around the world. For more information, go to http://www.restoncommunitycenter.com/attend-shows-events-exhibits/reston-multicultural-festival

In Memory of Water: a collaborative project
GMU Professor Sue Wrbican’s Documentary Photography class featuring the poet Silvana Straw

We examined lantern slides illustrating various components of steam powered electricity plants at the turn of the century. In relation to today’s water crisis we considered the words “water” and “power.” Discussions ranged from the diversion of poisonous water into the faucets of citizens of Flint, Michigan to questioning romantic notions of nature. This collection of historic and contemporary images assembled in light boxes incorporate a broad awareness of this ubiquitous, fragile and finite resource. To further the dialogue we extended our collaboration with poet Silvana Straw who responded with musings that recall water as an underlying force running through distance, memory and loss. This exhibition is in response to The 100th Meridian Project: Exploring Contemporary Water Issues in Historical Perspective. Envisioned by Rick Davis, Dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts at George Mason University, the 100th Meridian Project is funded through a George Mason University Provost Multidisciplinary Grant.

Bill Backus is the Historic Site Manager at Bristoe Station Battlefield Heritage Park and Brentsville Courthouse Historic Centre.  He has also worked for the National Park Service at Vicksburg National Military Park and Petersburg National Battlefield. Robert Orrison has worked in the history field for more than 20 years and currently serves as the Historic Site Operations Supervisor for Prince William County. Together, Backus and Orrison have co-authored A Want of Vigilance: The Bristoe Station Campaign. The book traces the campaign from the armies’ camps around Orange and Culpeper northwest through the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and along the vital railroad―to Centreville and back―in a back-and-forth game of cat and mouse. Sponsored by the Civil War Interpretive Center at Historic Blenheim.

Agatha Award-nominated mystery writer Edith Maxwell is known for her Local Foods Mystery series and the Country Store Mysteries. Her newest title is the debut in the Quaker Midwife Mysteries series: Delivering the Truth, which follows Rose Carroll, an unconventional 1880s midwife. Library Journals calls Carroll “a strong and appealing heroine,” while Catriona McPherson praises the historical setting as “redolent and delicious.” Sponsored by the Loudoun County Public Library.

Writing students from Colgan High School host an open mic. Bring an original poem, story, or essay to share.

The annual Falling for the Story event features the literary stars of tomorrow– student writers sharing original works published in Falling for the Story, Northern Virginia Writing Project’s yearly anthology of exemplary work from local elementary, middle, and high schools, published by Fall for the Book. Sponsored by the Northern Virginia Writing Project.

Join four acclaimed YA authors as they discuss the hazards of being a teenage protagonist. Hannah Barnaby’s second novel, Some of the Parts was called  “a deeply affecting depiction of moving on after a great loss” by Publisher’s Weekly. M-E Girard’s debut novel, Girl Mans Up, follows Pen, a gender non-conforming teen struggling to own her identity and stand up for herself in the face of her old-world parents and disintegrating friendships. Author Lauren Myracle calls the book, “Fierce. Tender. Unstoppable.” Kate Hattemar is the author of The Land of 10,000 Madonnas, a book filled with the European backpacking adventures of five friends sent to fulfil a dying friend’s mysterious last wish. Shaun David Hutchinson’s We Are the Ants follows a boy abducted time and time again by aliens who offer him the chance to save the world or let it end–a question complicated by love, loss and the chaos of growing up.

Thinking of self-publishing your novel, poetry collection or memoir? Join self-published authors and business owners for a panel on the decision to– and benefits of being self published. S. Jane Scheyder is the author of the novella Done with Men Forever. She also co-owns Andres & Blanton Publishing, which publishes her Clairmont series as well as several other authors’ books. Carolyn O’Neal, in her dystopian eco-thriller, Kingsley, follows one mother’s quest to lie, cheat and steal a way to help her son survive the onslaught of Colony Collapse Disorder. The Midwest Book Review calls O’Neal “a master of the genre.” John Kolm’s book, Crocodile Charlie & The Holy Grail: How to Find Your Own Answers at Work & in Life, was originally published by Penguin but Kolm decided to self-publish a new edition. Mike Thompson is the author of World of the Orb, a YA sci-fi/fantasy book where two friends find themselves lost in the hidden world a museum desperately tried to keep secret.

Bill Beverly’s debut novel, Dodgers, is a dark, unforgettable tale about a young L.A. gang member named East. Publisher’s Weekly called it, “A dazzling crime novel that’s equal parts coming-of-age tale à la Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and travelogue à la Kerouac,” while The Wall Street Journal says the book is “Vastly impressive.” Dodgers was chosen as an Amazon’s Best Book of April 2016. Beverly’s research on criminal fugitives and the stories surrounding them became his first nonfiction book, On the Lam: Narratives of Flight in J. Edgar Hoover’s America. Sponsored by the Loudoun County Public Library.

Poet Martha Collins is the author most recently of Admit One: An American Scrapbook, which traces the history of scientific racism from the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair through the eugenics movement of the 1920s. The Washington Post calls it “a strikingly original collection that combines brilliant storytelling and compelling commentary on ethics and race.” Ailish Hopper is the author of Dark~Sky Society, which was selected by David St. John as runner up for the New Issues prize, and the chapbook Bird in the Head, which was selected by Jean Valentine for the Center for Book Arts Prize. Greg Tate says of Dark~Sky, “Consider her verse coiled and sprung; and, to paraphrase an exalted homegrown colloquialism, ‘busted loose’.” Michelle M. Tokarczyk’s collection about her hometown, Bronx Migrations “offers [readers] detailed, evocative portraits of urban life with compassion and insight,” says Jim Daniels. Sponsored by the Writer’s Center.

Robbi Behr and Matthew Swanson are the illustrator/writer, wife/husband dynamic duo who have published over 60 illustrated books for children and adults. Their newest creation is Babies Ruin Everything, which follows a spunky older sister dealing with her new, messy baby brother. Laura Gehl is the author of the children’s book Peep & Egg: I’m Not Hatching, the story of an adorable little chick, Peep, who is excited for her baby brother to be born so they can do fun things together, and Egg, who wants to stay hidden from the scary world as long as possible by not coming out of his shell. Juana Medina not only wrote but also illustrated her children’s book, Juana and Lucas, which follows the young Colombian girl Juana and her pet dog Lucas as she learns English for a special trip her abuelos are planning. Laura Murray is the author of the Gingerbread Loose series. Her newest book is The Gingerbread Man Loose at the Zoo.

Co-authors Curtis Harris, James Ellenberger and James Rosen sit down to discuss their joint pseudonym, Curtis J. James, and how they approached writing their debut spy thriller, High Hand. In this “seamless… and …absorbing account of international intrigue,” only Frank Adams and his ex-wife–and female James Bond type– Lisa Hawkes, stand in the way of a covert CIA takeover of the White House. This panel is a must-see for writers considering collaboration or self-publishing.

Pintip Dunn’s new book, The Darkest Lie is about a girl whose life has unraveled after her mother’s alleged suicide sets out to clear her name. School Library Journal calls it “an exhilarating read.” Bracken MacLeod is the author of Stranded, about a crew of the Arctic Promise ship sent astray by an apocalyptic storm and a mysterious illness. Jonathan Mayberry, says, “As brilliant as it is disturbing. Bracken MacLeod joins the ranks of today’s top horror writers.” Mayberry also calls Levi Black’s debut novel, Red Right Hand “a perfect blend of old-school horror and modern storytelling sorcery. Levi Black is absolutely riveting!” R.S. Belcher’s fourth novel, The Brotherhood of the Wheel, is a gritty urban fantasy series about the mysterious society of truckers descended from the Knights Templar who defend the roads of the world and guard those who travel on them. Caroline Bock’s book Before My Eyes shows what no one wants to see when looking at addiction, mental illness and a lone gunman. Kirkus calls it “Gripping, disturbing and nuanced.”

Brianna Low, winner of the 2016 Gazing Grain Press chapbook contest, is the author of Drift, described by guest judge Rachel Eliza Griffiths as a “lucid and searing exploration of the female body, pinned against the feral blood of language and myth.” The contest runner-up, Kelly Lorraine Andrews, will join Low, reading from her manuscript, The Fear Archives. She is the author of Mule Skinner and the forthcoming chapbook I Want to Eat So Many Cakes with You. Sponsored by Gazing Grain Press.

The Book Club for Kids podcast celebrates middle grade books and the kids who love them. Host Kitty Feld is joined by young readers and author Mary Amato to discuss Amato’s new book, Our Teacher is a Vampire and Other (Not) True Stories. In it, a notebook collecting jokes, rumors, hopes and fears is passed from student to student around Mrs. Penrose’s class. The first secret? That Penrose is a vampire. Although she is actually pregnant and not a vampire, Penrose encourages the continued use of the journal to help students build their love of writing and their self expression.  

Jodi Meadows’ newest book is My Lady Jane, which follows the (not quite) true tale of Lady Jane Grey, cousin to King Edward and heir to the throne of England. It is written in the comic and romantic vein of The Princess Bride. In Kristen Simmons’ Metaltown, factories are the ruling class, food is scarce and hope is in short supply. Three teens: Ty and Colin from the working class,and Lena—a ruthless daughter of the factory owner must band together to make things right. In As I Descended, Robin Talley creates a world situated in the exclusive Acheron Academy where feuds turn to fatalities, and madness begins to blur the distinction between what’s real and what is imagined for the determined couple Maria and Lily. Martina Boone is the author of Compulsion, the acclaimed first book in the supernatural Heirs of Watson Island trilogy set on a South Carolina plantation.

Three regional chapters of Sisters in Crime join forces to discuss—and celebrate!—their recent anthologies of mystery fiction: Chesapeake Crimes: Storm Warning (from the Chesapeake Chapter) and Virginia is for Mysteries, Volume 2 (from the Central and Southeastern Virginia Chapters). Editors and contributors include Donna Andrews, Diane Davidson (half of the writing duo Maddi Davidson), Maria Hudgins, Heather Weidner, and Art Taylor, who will moderate the panel. Sisters in Crime is a national organization whose mission is “to promote the ongoing advancement, recognition and professional development of women crime writers.” 

In June 2015, the Supreme Court made the monumental decision to legalize gay marriage in all fifty states. In Love Wins: The Lovers and Lawyers Who Fought the Landmark Case for Marriage Equality, Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Debbie Cenziper weaves together insider accounts and information from key players to illuminate the dramatic and previously unreported events of the Obergefell v Hodges case. It is the story of Jim Obergefell and John Arthur’s steadfast love for one another in the face of discrimination and setbacks, and Al Gerhardstein, their courageous attorney who brought their powerful story to the national stage.

Two independent presses, The Santa Fe Writer’s Project and Stillhouse Press team up for one great reading. In Elizabeth Hazen’s debut poetry collection Chaos Theories, art and science collude to explore the many different forms of love–whether between family, friends or lovers. The stories in Stephen G. Eoannou’s Muscle Cars explore the often difficult relationships between American men and their families. The rich and varied collection depicts “what it means to be male—son, brother, father, spouse, lover, half-baked friend, sports fanatic, neighbor—in the 21st century.” Matthew Fogarty’s Maybe Mermaids & Robots Are Lonely: Stories and a Novella focuses on a host of bizarre, quirky and notorious characters, even featuring Bigfoot and Elvis. Stillhouse Press says, Fogarty “has an obvious affinity for the fabulist, often exploring elements of magical realism, the ethereal and slipstream.” Poet Bryan Borland is the author of Dig. Denise Duhamel says of Dig, “Bryan Borland wields a deft and lyrical hand, cracks open the heart, and imagines a mind where madness is beautiful and ‘everything is instinct.’”

Diane Rehm will accept the 2016 Mason Award, which celebrates authors who have made an extraordinary contribution to connecting literature to the wide reading public. She will be interviewed by WAMU’s new general manager, J. J. Yore, who helped elevate Marketplace to one of public radio’s favorite nationally-syndicated shows. William Miller, Executive Director of Fall for the Book, says, “The Diane Rehm Show has always fostered an appreciation for contemporary literature. In the midst of everything else going on in the world, Diane Rehwm keeps a place dedicated to literature in the show each week. She’s given voice to writers and books over the years, in addition to being a writer herself.” Rehm was awarded the 2010 Personal Peabody Award for her more than 30 years of service in public broadcasting. She also is the author of four best-selling autobiographical books including Finding My Voice and Life with Maxie. Most recently, she wrote the book On My Own, dealing with the death of her husband of 54 years. USA Today calls the book “stunningly honest” while The Miami Herald says it is “important…poignant.” Sponsored by the Fairfax Library Foundation.

Marion Deshmukh’s Max Liebermann: Modern Art and Germany is the first English-language biography of a pioneer in German impressionism and modernism. Deshmukh’s work is meticulous in uncovering the importance of Liebermann’s contribution to German culture and history, and she has “deftly interwoven a comprehensive study of Liebermann’s life, art, and critical reception.” A Robert T. Hawkes Professor of History, Emerita, she taught German and European cultural history and German art history at George Mason University. Sponsored by the Department of History and Art History.

Molly McCartney worked as a newspaper reporter more than 30 years, including 15 years at the Washington Post. She was the 2012 Woodrow Wilson Public Scholar in Washington D.C. where she completed the research and interviews needed to finish the book America’s War Machine: Vested Interests, Endless Conflicts, the book her husband, national security reporter James McCartney, was writing when he died. The book provides the context for today’s national security state and explains what can be done about it. Library Journal calls the book a “riveting” and “sober” look at the “the evolution and influence of our contemporary military industrial complex.” Cosponsored by the National Affairs Committee of the Fairfax County Democrats.

Laura Ellen Scott is the author of three books, including two novels and a collection of short stories. Her newest book is The Juliet, named after the legendary jewel rumored to be hidden in The Mystery House, a century old shack in Death Valley. Before he dies, retired cowboy actor Rigg Dexon gives a rootless woman the deed to the house, changing her life forever. As the history of The Juliet unfolds, it reveals the dark side of the American Dream–one that is corrupt, bawdy, and half insane. Author Tara Laskowski says “[Scott’s] ability to continuously evoke wonder and delight in the dark side makes her one of the freshest and most original voices in fiction today.”

Elizabeth Hand is the author of the crime novels that follow off-beat, punk photographer Cass Nealy, who has been described as “one of literature’s great noir anti-heroes.” Hard Light, the newest book in the series, finds Cass on the run, fearing for her life after her boyfriend disappears. Publisher’s Weekly praises Cass for “conveying an expert’s knowledge of the 1970s East Village punk scene, Iron Age rituals, Paleolithic icons, and the intricacies of photography and film noir…. Gripping.”

Together, sociologists Earl Smith and Timothy McGettigan have written an important new text called A Formula for Eradicating Racism: Debunking White Supremacy. In the book, the authors argue that racism is a remediable form of suggestion-induced sadism. The authors explain in plain terms how societies like that of the United States construct racism, and they put forward a practical plan to eradicate racism in the U.S. and the world. Professor David Keplinger calls Formula a “tour-de-force treatment on the cure to racism.” Sponsored by George Mason’s Women and Gender Studies and African and African American Studies.

Robert Bausch is an enduring name in the literary community. His seven books have all met critical acclaim. His eighth and newest novel, The Legend of Jessie Smoke, follows the young, talented girl who can throw a football farther than anyone, and the consequences of her joining the Washington Redskins as the first woman in the NFL.

In this discussion, you will meet three people—a black historian, a white journalist, and a white poet—who have used their family histories as gateways to historical reclamation. Hear why they have made a lifelong commitment to this work, how it has changed their lives, and why you might want to embark on a similar journey. Anthony Cohen has twice walked to Canada on routes of the Underground Railroad, and in 2014 followed in the steps of his great-great grand uncle, who returned from freedom in Canada to enlist for service in the Civil War. A documentary of that journey, Patrick & Me, will be released nationwide in 2018. Committed to embodied, immersion experiences of history, Cohen both directs his own foundation—Button Farm Living History Center, in Germantown, Maryland—and serves as Director of Historical Interpretation at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Journalist Karen Branan spent two decades in state archives, the Library of Congress, and the wilds of family interviews to uncover the story of a 1912 “kinship lynching,” in which she is implicated by blood relation to both the white sheriff and one of the black victims. The Family Tree: A Lynching in Georgia, a Legacy of Secrets, and My Search for the Truth was published in early 2016 and has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. As she was finishing her book, Karen met poet and Mason professor Susan Tichy, a distant cousin, whose book Trafficke was about to be published. Susan also had required twenty years to research, write, and then totally rewrite her family’s journey from 17th c. Scotland through 200 years of slaveholding in Maryland. Though Trafficke is complete, her search for the families and individuals enslaved by her ancestors, and for their descendants, continues. Her website, Magruder’s Landing, brings together people of all races who claim a genetic or historical connection to her Magruder/McGruder family.

In Tropical Conservation: Perspectives on Local and Global Priorities, editor A. Alonso Aguirre brings together experts who primarily work in Africa, Latin America and Asia to introduce important conservation concepts and real world applications to issues that affect the tropics and subtropics; a region with 75% of the world’s human population as well as 90% of its biodiversity. These issues, such as climate change, environmental sustainability, and emerging diseases must be studied and addressed on a global scale. Aguirre is joined by his contributors, Thomas Lovejoy who coined the term “biological diversity”; Larry Gorenflo, who focuses on how people adapt to their natural and cultural surroundings; Ingrid Visseren-Hamakers, whose research centers on international biodiversity governance; Harald Beck, who studies mammal-plant interaction and ecosystem engineering in temperate and tropical ecosystems; Andrew Taber, an environmental pioneer and authority on Neotropical wildlife; Elizabeth Loh, who studies anthropogenic land-use change; and wildlife biologist and veterinarian, Iga Stasiak.

Penny Guisinger’s book, Postcards from Here, is a memoir told through vignettes that take on the difficulties and politics of being gay and divorced in a rural Maine town at the moment in which gay marriage becomes legal. The essays stitch together a portrait of life in a coastal town. Author Arielle Geenberg praises that “Guisinger’s prose is alert and alive, visible and vibrant.” Susan Landers’ new book, Franklinstein, is a hybrid collection of poetry and prose that “tells the story of one Philadelphia neighborhood, Germantown, a historic, beloved place, wrestling with legacies of colonialism, racism, and capitalism.” Yolanda Wisher calls the book “a church of stained glass truth-telling.” Landers is an alumna of Mason’s graduate creative writing program.

In Ghosts of Bergen County, Dana Cann takes readers into the downward spiral of the lives of three Bergen County, New Jersey, residents dealing with mystery, loss, addiction, and the supernatural after the hit-and-run accident that killed their infant daughter. NPR raves the book has “a keen sense of what makes us human, and what makes us, at times, wish we weren’t.” Joe McGinnis Jr. is the author of the visceral and gripping novel Carousel Court, about a married couple struggling with the seductive and destructive powers of modern life. Bookish calls it “totally addictive.”

Marvin Kalb is a contributing news analyst for National Public Radio and Fox News Channel. His distinguished journalism career encompasses 30 years of award-winning reporting for CBS and NBC News as Chief Diplomatic Correspondent, Moscow bureau chief and anchor of “Meet The Press.” His timely new book Imperial Gamble: Putin, Ukraine, and the New Cold War “traces how the Crimea of Catherine the Great became a global tinder box.” Josef Joffe calls Imperial Gamble “required reading for anybody who wants to understand a contest that will torment East-West relations for years to come.”

Renee Angle, a descendent of Mormon pioneers and a former Mormon herself, wrote WoO, the self-described “creative translation of the original 116 pages of The Book of Mormon lost by Joseph Smith.” WoO is Angle’s debut collection, ten years in the making. Allison Cobb is the author of three books of poetry, including Born2 and Green-Wood. Her newest collection, After We All Died, was a finalist for the National Poetry Series. Matthew Norman is the author of the novel We’re All Damaged, which follows a man dealing with a crop of troubles including divorce and death when he meets a complicated woman who might change everything. Alyson Foster’s newest collection of short stories is Heart Attack Watch, built around disasters large and small, moments for which we can never prepare. Kirkus calls the book “electric,” saying Foster has a “masterful use of tension and language.”

Colleen Shogan is the author of the Washington Whodunit Series, which centers around Kit Marshall, a Washington staffer for a popular senator. In Stabbing in the Senate, book one in the series, Marshall stumbles on the murdered body of her senator and becomes the prime suspect. Shogan’s newest title, Homicide in the House, finds Marshall working for a new congresswoman who becomes the centerpiece of a fresh murder investigation. T. Dasu’s The Perfect Candidate is the second installment in the Spy-Interrupted series, and picks up with Stephen James running for the U.S. Senate. Spanning multiple continents, the book reveals the world of “state secrets and intercultural relationships in a thrilling tale of power and ambition.”

Stephanie Dray is an award-winning, bestselling and two-time RITA award nominated author of historical women’s fiction. Her critically acclaimed series about Cleopatra’s daughter has been translated into more than eight different languages and won the Golden Leaf. She is co-author of America’s First Daughter: A Novel, with Laura Kamoie, which Steve Berry calls, “A delectable and poignant read, carefully paced and plotted with pitch perfect dialogue.” Dray is joined by her co-author, Laura Kamoie, who holds a doctoral degree in early American history from The College of William and Mary, has published two non-fiction books on early America, and most recently held the position of Associate Professor of History at the U.S. Naval Academy before transitioning to a full-time career writing genre fiction as the New York Times bestselling author, Laura Kaye. America’s First Daughter is her debut novel. Sponsored by the Loudoun County Public Library.

Join the discussion on what Donald Trump in Time to Get Tough: Make America Great Again! and Hillary Clinton in Hard Choices have written about their careers and what they hope to do for America should they be elected. Dr. Jack Lechelt, Assistant Dean for Economics, Geography and Political Science at Northern Virginia Community College approaches politics in the classroom just as he will in this presentation: without any personal bias. All views are welcome. Lechelt will offer some questions to lead the group in friendly conversation as a way to brush up before the evening’s presidential debate.

Jen Michalski is the author of several novels, short story collections and novellas. Her 2013 novel, The Tide King, won the the Big Moose Prize and also won first place in contemporary/literary fiction at the Somerset Awards. Her newest book is The Summer She Was Under Water. HTMLGiant calls Michalski “an astonishingly sensitive writer.” PANK cites her a “masterful hand, at once compassionate and unflinching, possessed of extraordinary, aesthetic restraint.”

Glenn Altschuler, Professor of American Studies at Cornell University is the author or coauthor of ten books, including Cornell: A History, 1940–2015 and All Shook Up: How Rock ‘n’ Roll Changed America. His newest book, Ten Great American Trials was co-authored with fellow Cornell professor Faust F. Rossi. It covers ten compelling twentieth-century trials, including Sacco and Vanzetti and O. J. Simpson. Through these ten cases, Altschuler and Rossi dissect the conflicting narratives both the prosecution and defense attorneys crafted, and how politics influenced the content and context of the trials. Sponsored by the Department of History and Art History.

The author of eight critically acclaimed novels and a memoir, Elizabeth Nunez has now written Even in Paradise. A modern-day reimagining of King Lear, it is a novel of greed, resentment, jealousy, betrayal, and romance set in Trinidad, Jamaica, and Barbados. Patriarch Peter Ducksworth, a Trinidadian widower of English ancestry mistakes flattery from two of his daughters for love, just as Lear does, setting in motion the strife he had hoped to prevent. Author Marlon James says, “Nunez, always a master of unexpected contrasts, does it here again. A story told on a huge scale that still manages to be achingly personal and intimate.” Sponsored by African and African American Studies.

Susan Muaddi Darraj is the author of The Inheritance of Exile, which was a finalist in the AWP Book Awards Series and named ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year in Short Fiction. Her new book, A Curious Land: Stories from Home, was named winner of the AWP Grace Paley Award for Short Fiction. Carol Fadda-Conrey calls it “immensely powerful, intimate, and complex.” Sponsored by the NOVA Lyceum Committee and the Division of Language and Learning.

Larry Robertson is an award-winning author who has spent two decades in the entrepreneurial universe in roles ranging from advisor to investor and many in between. In 1992, he founded Lighthouse Consulting, which guides entrepreneurial ventures, their leaders, and those who invest in them. Roberts is the author of A Deliberate Pause: Entrepreneurship and Its Moment in Human Progress. His newest book, The Language of Man: Learning to Speak Creativity “offers a powerful framework for creating.” Author Brigid Schulte says Language “shatters deeply-held myths that creativity and genius are the birthright of a mere handful of elites, bringing the vaunted notion of genius out of the clouds and into our everyday lives.”

Sociologists Angela Hattery and Earl Smith are a dynamic researching duo. Together they have written a number of books, including their most recent title, Gender, Power and Violence. Hattery is the Director of the Women and Gender Studies Program at George Mason University. Her research focuses on social stratification, gender, family, and race. Smith is Professor Emeritus of Sociology and the Rubin Distinguished Professor of American Ethnic Studies at Wake Forest University. Some of their other influential books are The Social Dynamics of Family Violence, and African American Families Today: Myths and Realities. Sponsored by George Mason’s Women and Gender Studies and African and African American Studies.

Baseball fans know Ozzie Smith, Bud Black, and star player Von Hayes, but they may not know Merl Eberly, the man responsible for the beginnings of these greats. Over fifty years, Eberly transformed a small Iowa town into a collegiate summer league powerhouse in a real life version of Field of Dreams. In The Baseball Whisperer: A Small-Town Coach Who Shaped Big League Dreams, Michael Tackett reveals this incredible history of a town and a coach who, Tackett says, “puts character and dedication first, and reminds us of the best, purest form of baseball excellence.”

Kate Andersen Brower spent four years covering the Obama White House for Bloomberg News and is a former CBS News staffer and Fox News producer. Brower is the author of the New York Times bestselling books, First Women: The Grace and Power of America’s Modern First Ladies and The Residence: Inside the Private World of The White House. First Women is described as “an intimate, news-making look at the true modern power brokers at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: the First Ladies, from Jackie Kennedy to Michelle Obama.” Sponsored by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

Call & Response is an annual exhibit of collaborations between writers and visual artists in which one calls and one responds. The result is a set of paired works, resonating with each other, demonstrating the interplay of artistic media, and speaking of our times. This year’s theme is Currents. Call & Response is a collaboration between the School of Art and the English Department’s MFA program in Creative Writing.

In a session marking the 60th anniversary of James Baldwin’s landmark novel Giovanni’s Room, join panelists Monifa Love, Maurice Wallace and Clayton Willis, along with moderator Keith Clark, as they discuss this groundbreaking novel. Though certainly not the first novel by a black writer to do so, Giovanni’s Room was nevertheless a signal development in African American writing for its daring and unreserved treatment of “the love that dare not speak its name” at a time when black writers were primarily expected to address the “race problem.” Panelists will discuss the book—and Baldwin’s— history and enduring significance. Sponsored by African and African American Studies and the English Department.

Roy Kesey’s short story collection Any Deadly Thing ranges across the globe, from the Americas to Europe to Asia. Author Elizabeth Crane says Kesey’s stories “are perfect, masterful portraits of an international cross-section of wise, broken souls–hopeful, brutal, funny as hell, and heart-crushing, every last one.” Kesey is also the author of a novel, Pacazo, which was the January 2011 selection for The Rumpus Book Club, and a collection of short stories called All Over, which was a finalist for the Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Award, and also one of the best books of the decade selected by The L Magazine.

Marfé Ferguson Delano is the author of numerous nonfiction books for children, such as her Explore My World series and her photobiographies for National Geographic, including Helen’s Eyes: A Photobiography of Annie Sullivan, Helen Keller’s Teacher, and Genius: A Photobiography of Albert Einstein. The School Library Journal said of Genius: “While the myriad photographs are fascinating, the bigger draw here is the wonderfully simple explanations of some of Einstein’s theories…This entertaining effort displays clarity and intelligence.” Ferguson Delano’s books have won numerous awards, including the ALA/Book Links Best New Books for Classroom, and Outstanding Science Trade Book for Young People for Genius, and Jefferson Cup Honor Book for Helen’s Eyes. Sponsored by the Duncan Branch Friends.

In 2000, psychologist Jeffrey Arnett coined the term “emerging adulthood” to describe the ever-evolving age between the late teens and mid-twenties. For over a decade he has studied emerging adults across different demographics and countries, looking in particular at risk behavior and consumption of media in youth. On the tenth anniversary of its publication, Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road from the Late Teens to the Twenties has been re-released in a new edition covering all of the developments in media use, social class issues and the other distinctive problems of this life stage. Sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Well-Being, George Mason University Life, and the George Mason Center for Teaching and Faculty Excellence.

Mark Polanzak’s hybrid memoir, POP! captures the author’s attempt to make sense of his father’s sudden death through fiction while documenting the real and convoluted process of grief.  Author Lucas Mann says POP! is “a beautiful, exhilarating book, one I won’t soon forget.” Matthew Fogarty’s Maybe Mermaids & Robots Are Lonely: Stories and a Novella focuses on a host of bizarre, quirky and notorious characters, even featuring Bigfoot and Elvis. Fogarty “has an obvious affinity for the fabulist, often exploring elements of magical realism, the ethereal and slipstream.”

Hear George Mason’s M.F.A. Fellows for 2016-17 as they read from their work. All are third-year M.F.A. candidates who have been awarded fellowships in order to pursue writing their theses. Poet Douglas Luman will read with fellow poet Madeleine Wattenberg, non-fiction writer Kerry Folan, and fiction writer Sarah Ellis Bates. Sponsored by the Creative Writing Program.

Anne Blankman‘s debut novel, Prisoner of Night and Fog, was named a “Flying Start” by Publishers Weekly and a Sydney Taylor Notable Book by the Association of Jewish Libraries. The sequel, Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke was a National Jewish Book Award Finalist and a Romantic Times Top Pick. Blankman’s newest book, Traitor Angels, follows Elizabeth Milton, daughter of Paradise Lost author John Milton on a mysterious quest with a handsome Italian scientist to protect her father. Voice of Youth Advocates says, it “Will leave the reader breathless with each unpredictable plot twist.” Sponsored by the Loudoun County Public Library.

Fred Bowen has penned 21 sports books for children, including a picture-book biography of Ted Williams titled No Easy Way: The story of Ted Williams and the Last .400 Season. That book was awarded a Junior Library Guild Selection and many other honors. In addition to his books, Bowen writes the Thursday sports column for kids in The Washington Post.

In her new book, Andy Warhol Was A Hoarder: Inside the Minds of History’s Greatest Personalities, journalist Claudia Kalb re-examines monumental historical figures through the lens of modern psychology, weaving together interviews with leading mental health experts, groundbreaking research and historical records. Kalb examines the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, and of course, Andy Warhol. Author Edward Hallowell says, the book is “a brilliant and fascinating journey into the perils that so often accompany genius. Spell-binding.” Sponsored by the City of Fairfax Regional Library Friends.

Dina Gold is a former London-based BBC investigative journalist. Her new book, Stolen Legacy: Nazi Theft and the Quest for Justice at Krausenstrasse 17/18, Berlin is a non-fiction historical narrative centered on a Jewish family’s legal battle to reclaim ownership of a building stolen from them by the Nazis in the 1930s. Marvin Kalb, senior adviser to the Pulitzer Center says Stolen Legacy is “An exceptional adventure in Holocaust literature. Dina Gold combines investigative journalism with a keen sense of history to uncover a story everyone should read.” 

Journalist Tom Gjelten covers issues of religion, faith, and belief for NPR News, with a long history of reporting on global conflicts. His 2008 book, Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba: The Biography of a Cause, was named a “Notable Nonfiction Book,” by the New York Times. His newest title, A Nation of Nations: A Great American Immigration Story, traces the implications of the 1965 Immigration Act, which officially opened the country’s doors to immigrants of color. The Washington Post says of Nations: “Gjelten has produced a compelling and informative account of the impact of the 1965 reforms, one that is indispensable reading at a time when anti-immigrant demagoguery has again found its way onto the main stage of political discourse.” Sponsored by the Friends of the Kings Park Library.

Local independent press Relegation Books presents authors Sonya Chung and Daniel Paisner. Chung will read from her upcoming novel The Loved Ones. Called “a radical act of compassion” by Deanna Fei, the book maps the intimate politics of unlikely attractions, illicit love, and costly reconciliations. Paisner will read from his new novel A Single Happened Thing, about neurosis, intimacy, and balancing familial needs while juggling two careers and the demands of modern life.

Two noted historians of the Civil War, James McPherson and Edward Ayers, join in conversation about their work on this important period in American history in a rare event presented by Fall for the Book at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, September 28, in Harris Theater on Mason’s Fairfax Campus. McPherson, appearing via video conference from Princeton University, will offer observations, growing out of his most recent book, on why the Civil War still matters, and Ayers, who will be on the stage in Harris Theater, will talk about his work on the Reconstruction and its relationship to the war and present time. They then will join in discussing their ideas and insights, followed by taking questions from the audience. Christopher Hamner, George Mason Professor of History, will moderate. The appearance by McPherson via video link is necessitated by his not being able to travel to Mason, as he originally planned. The re-formatting offers audience members a rare opportunity to gain from the insights of two experts in the field. It does mean, however, that McPherson will not be present to sign copies of his books, which will still be for sale at the event. Copies of Ayers’ books also will be available for sale and signing. Sponsored by Mason’s Department of History and Art History.

Molly McCartney worked as a newspaper reporter for more than 30 years, including 15 years at The Washington Post. She was the 2012 Woodrow Wilson Public Scholar in Washington, D.C., where she completed the research and interviews needed to finish the book America’s War Machine: Vested Interests, Endless Conflicts, the book her husband, national security reporter James McCartney, was writing when he died. America’s War Machine provides the context for today’s national security state and explains what can be done about it. Library Journal calls the book a “riveting” and “sober” look at “the evolution and influence of our contemporary military industrial complex.” Cosponsored by the National Affairs Committee of the Fairfax County Democrats.

Idra Novey is the author of the debut novel Ways to Disappear, about a young translator who sets off to find her Brazilian author who has gone missing after amassing a mountain of gambling debt. Ways to Disappear is a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a staff pick for The Paris Review, and it was called one of the most anticipated books of 2016 by a number of publications, including Buzzfeed and Flavorwire. Novey has also translated the works of several famous Brazilian writers, including Clarice Lispector.

Celebrate a groundbreaking year and four new releases from Stillhouse Press, Mason’s student-run small press. Enjoy hors d’oeuvres and drinks, get to know the staff, and meet Stillhouse’s literary lineup: Matthew Fogarty of Maybe Mermaids and Robots are Lonely: Stories and a Novella, Mark Polanzak of the hybrid memoir Pop!, and poets Bryan Borland of Dig and Christina Olson of Terminal Human Velocity.

**The performance of Billy Collins at the CenterStage is Sold Out.**

However, come see Billy Collins via Simulcast for the reduced price of $10 Reston / $15 Non Reston.  After the performance, Mr. Collins will be available to sign your books on the CenterStage. Purchase Simulcast Tickets here.

The New York Times says, “Luring his readers into the poem with humor, Mr. Collins leads them unwittingly into deeper, more serious places, a kind of journey from the familiar to quirky to unexpected territory, sometimes tender, often profound.” Billy Collins is an American phenomenon. No poet since Robert Frost has managed to combine high critical acclaim with such broad popular appeal. His work has appeared in a variety of periodicals including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The American Scholar. He is a Guggenheim fellow and a New York Public Library “Literary Lion.” His last three collections of poems have broken sales records for poetry. His readings are usually standing-room-only, and his audiences – enhanced tremendously by his appearances on National Public Radio – include people of all backgrounds and age groups. Tickets will go on sale on August 1 for Reston and August 8 for non-Reston and can be purchased online at http://www.restoncommunitycenter.com/attend-shows-events-exhibits/event-detail/2016/09/29/default-calendar/billy-collins or by calling 703 476-4500 (press 3). This event is part of the Professional Touring Artist Series only at The CenterStage at the Reston Community Center Hunters Woods. Sponsored by the Reston Community Center.

Mark Molesky is a historian who specializes in the intellectual, cultural, and political history of modern Europe. His book This Gulf of Fire: The Destruction of Lisbon, or Apocalypse in the Age of Science and Reason, chronicles the destruction of Lisbon in 1755 after an estimated 8.5 magnitude earthquake, tsunami, and ensuing fire ripped through the city. A finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, it was called “a thoroughly absorbing take on a momentous event” by Library Journal, and “[a] masterpiece of nonfiction” by News-Record. Sponsored by Department of History and Art History.

Lesley Lee Francis is the granddaughter of beloved American poet Robert Frost. In her new book You Come Too: My Journey with Robert Frost, Francis “combines priceless personal memories and rigorous research to create a portrait of Frost and the women, including herself, whose lives he touched.” Author Jay Perini says, “Those in love with the poetry of Robert Frost will find themselves enchanted, illumined, and grateful to the author for undertaking this journey.” Besides writing and teaching, Francis helps organize the annual Frost Symposium.

Monica Youn is the author of Ignatz, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. The name of her new poetry collection, Blackacre, comes from the term for the legal placeholder for a plot of land. In the book, Youn “uses the term to suggest landscape, legacy, what is allotted to each of us… fearlessly [exploring] new territories of art, meaning, and fiction.” Linda Gregerson says Youn “quite simply, is one of the two or three most brilliant poets working in America today.” Her poems have appeared in numerous journals including the New Yorker, the Paris Review, and the New York Times Magazine.

Jacob Appel is a widely-published and award-winning novelist and short story writer. In his new collection of stories, Coulrophobia & Fata Morgana, Appel “draws from his experience in medicine and the law to create arresting stories that combine the eerie and the corporeal,” says Edith Pearlman.  In Why they Run the Way they Do, Susan Perabo weaves the banal and bizarre together as a way to illuminate the triumphs and tragedies of daily life. In these twelve short stories, characters celebrate the everyday truths of people facing unusual or challenging situations…often of their own making. Author Jenny Offill says Perabo has written “darkly beautiful stories about love and loss and every gradation between. Each one is suffused with astonishing wit and tenderness.”

Barbara Amaya is an award-winning author, advocate and survivor. At age 12 she was trafficked first in Washington, D.C. and then on the streets of New York for over a decade. A sought-after speaker and advocate for trafficking victims and survivors of trauma everywhere, Amaya has shared her story on television and college campuses as well as with multiple civic, legal, faith and women’s organizations. In 2014 she was awarded the James B. Hunter Human Rights Award and was a featured speaker at the TEDx Mid Atlantic talks in 2015. Her book Nobody’s Girl won best autobiography at the Taz Author Awards in 2015. Sponsored by Women & Gender Studies.

Michael Landweber’s novel, Thursday, 1:17 PM, marks the moment the world freezes. As seventeen year old Duck–the only one to remain unstuck–deals with the statues of humans and animals alike around him, as well as his personal demons, he must try to make the world move again. Foreward Reviews calls Thursday, “[an] unconventional and intriguing novel that blends thoughtful insight with an irreverent, anything-goes attitude reminiscent of Chuck Palahniuk.” Jamie Dulcos-Yourdoun’s novel Froelich’s Ladder is a nineteenth century madcap adventure novel. When Froelich disappears from his permanent perch atop his ladder, his nephew sets out on a trek across the Pacific Northwest with an ornery accomplice to find him. Kate Ristau calls it “the perfect tall tale for our time.”

Ander Monson’s newest book, Letter to a Future Lover: Marginalia, Errata, Secrets, Inscriptions, and Other Ephemera Found in Libraries is self-described as “an exuberant, expansive cataloging of the intimate physical relationship between a reader and a book.” It was named one of NPR’s Best Books of 2015. T Clutch Fleischmann is the author of Syzygy, Beauty: An Essay, which leads readers “through an intimate relationship that is complicated and deepened by multiple partners, gender transitions, and itinerancy.” Maggie Nelson calls Fleischmann’s declarative sentences “seductive, abject, caustic, moving, informative, and utterly inventive.”

The newest book by New York Times bestselling author L. M. Elliott is Da Vinci’s Tiger, an historical YA novel featuring the young Renaissance woman Ginevra de’ Benci, an aspiring poet who, trapped in an arranged marriage, sits for a painting by the young Leonardo da Vinci. Ginevra’s world is rich with art, history and budding romance. Elliott is joined by Mason professor and art historian Lisa Passaglia Bauman, who will provide the historical context for what was Da Vinci’s first portrait and a fascinating look into Renaissance Italy.  

Jon Mooallem will speak at the capstone event for this year’s Mason Reads program. His book, Wild Ones: A Sometimes Dismaying Weirdly Reassuring Story About Looking at People Looking at Animals in America was given to all incoming George Mason freshman. Students will participate in programming throughout the semester and attend Mooallem’s reading. Wild Ones was chosen as a notable book of 2013 by The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker and Canada’s National Post among others. Mooallem has been a Contributing Writer to the New York Times Magazine since 2006 and also contributes to This American Life, Wired, California Sunday Magazine and many other magazines and radio shows.  Sponsored by George Mason University Libraries.

Tania James, the newest member of Mason’s creative writing faculty, reads from her new novel, The Tusk that Did the Damage, which explores the moral complexities of the ivory trade through the eyes of a poacher, a documentary filmmaker, and an infamous rogue elephant known as the Gravedigger. Karen Russell calls the book “spectacular,” saying, “Tania James is one of our best writers, and here she is at the height of her powers:  brilliant [and] hilarious.” Her debut novel, Atlas of Unknowns, was a New York Times Editor’s Choice, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and a Best Book of 2009 for both The San Francisco Chronicle and NPR.

Maya Corrigan’s Five-Ingredient Mystery series is a blend of rich flavor and suspense. She is a winner of the 2013 Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Unpublished Mystery/Suspense. Her newest book is Final Fondue. Shawn Reilly Simmons is the author of the Red Carpet Catering mystery series, which “delivers a buffet of appealing characters, irresistible movie-industry details, and tantalizing plot twists.” The third book in the series is Murder on a Designer Diet. David Swinson’s recent novel The Second Girl is one of Booklist’s Best Crime Novels of the Year, called a “gritty knockout debut that screams for a series.” Dan Fesperman is the author of the new atmospheric literary thriller, The Letter Writer, set in Manhattan in 1942, just months after Pearl Harbor. Art Taylor, award-winning author of On the Road with Del and Louise, will moderate this panel. Sponsored by the Mystery Writers of America Mid-Atlantic Chapter. 

Poet Oliver Bendorf’s collection, The Spectral Wilderness, won the 2013 Stan & Tom Wick Poetry Prize, and has been called “Astonishing” by The Literary Review. It was named the Best Poetry Book of 2014 by Entropy Magazine. Mark Doty says, “It’s a joy to come nearer to a realm of experience little explored in American poetry, the lives of those who are engaged in the complex project of transforming their own gender…” Poet Natalie Diaz  is Mojave and is an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian community. Her collection When My Brother Was an Aztec examines memory’s role in human identity. Adrian Matejka says, “Diaz both embraces and subverts mythology in whatever form it shows up—Indigenous, Western, [or] counterculture,” and that “she is a poet who will help us write into the future as she excavates the past and interrogates the present.” Sponsored by So to Speak.

Founded in 1998 by Andrew Gifford, the Sante Fe Writer’s Project is an independent press which embraces the mission of artistic preservation, recognizing exciting new authors, and supporting new trends and ideas beyond those of the current publishing industry. Gifford, SFWP editor and author of the forthcoming memoir We All Scream: The Fall of the Gifford’s Ice Cream Dynasty, moderates a panel of SFWP authors including Tara Laskowski, of the thrilling short story collection Bystanders; Brandon Wicks, of the “keenly observed” and “compulsively readable” debut novel American Fallout; and Daniel Ford, of Ordination: Book One of the Paladin Trilogy, called “compelling” and “sharp” by Publisher’s Weekly. Laskowski, Wicks and Ford are alumni of George Mason University’s graduate creative writing program.

The Better Said Than Done oral storytelling group has as its motto, “Because Life is Better in the Telling,” and the members mean it. Each month, these professional storytellers take the stage to engage audiences with poignant, funny, and unbelievably true tales throughout venues in Northern Virginia. Spend your Thursday night with founder Jessica Robinson and BSTD storytellers Ann Cavazos, Sandra Hull, Jay Krasnow, Jack Scheer, Mary Supley Foxworth and Fanny Crawford for a rousing performance centered on the theme of “the Impossible Dream: Stories about quests, dreams, and doing the impossible,” while sampling some of The Auld Shebeen’s best bites and brews!

Journalist Joby Warrick’s new book, Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, and was named “A Best Book of 2015” by The New York Times, The Washington Post, People Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, Kansas City Star, and Kirkus Reviews. In this timely and important text, Warrick explicates how the strain of militant Islam behind ISIS first arose in a remote Jordanian prison and spread with the unwitting aid of two American presidents. Warrick and two colleagues shared the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. He is a reporter at The Washington Post. Sponsored by the Friends of the Richard Byrd Library.

Sadeqa Johnson’s debut novel, Love in a Carry-on Bag, was the recipient of the 2013 Phillis Wheatley award for best fiction and the 2012 USA Best Book Award for African-American Fiction. Her new book, Second House from the Corner, follows a stressed-out stay-at-home mom who receives a call that changes her life, forcing her to confront the family demons and long-buried secrets she thought she had left behind. Romantic Times calls the book “rich with complex characters.” Essence says, “Sadeqa Johnson should take a bow for her latest effort.” Sponsored by Loudoun County Public Library.

Sarah Porter’s Lost Voices is a captivating and haunting start to a unique trilogy about mermaids. It is a poignant story about forgiveness and friendship told through the rich voices of the mermaid characters. Carrie Jones’ Flying is a wild ride about an average teenaged girl—that is, until she finds out her mom is an alien hunter. School Library Journal calls it “a taut, satisfying thriller.” A.J. Hartley doesn’t limit himself to one genre—he writes mysteries, fantasy novels, historical fiction, and young adult novels. His YA debut Steeplejack is an action-packed adventure that leaves readers on the edge of their seats with suspense.

Elena Passarello’s new collection of essays, Let Me Clear My Throat, dissects the whys and hows of popular voices, bringing their emotion to light. From Marlon Brando screaming “Stella!” to Howard Dean’s “BYAH!” Passarello examines, questions and  annotates the “soundtrack of us giving voice to ourselves.” Amy Leach says, “with her extraordinary powers of listening, Elena Passarello helps us hear the sorrow, the epiglottis, and the Allegheny River in the many wondrous things the voice can do besides talking.” Let Me Clear My Throat won the gold IPPY medal for nonfiction and was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award.

Lyndsay Faye’s novel Jane Steele re-imagines Jane Eyre as a gutsy, heroic serial killer who battles for justice with methods inspired by Darkly Dreaming Dexter. Faye has been nominated for an Edgar Award and a Dilys Winn Award. Faye is also the author of Dust and Shadow: an Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson and the Timothy Wilde series, which includes The Gods of Gotham, Seven for a Secret, and The Fatal Flame. Sponsored by the Mystery Writers of America Mid Atlantic Chapter.

Experience a one-hour multi-media event that marries art and science to bring awareness to the issues of water ecology, land use, and public policy in the American West. Project Director Rick Davis and the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Mason present exhibits, seminars and interactive media, as well as a performance which explores the issues first raised in the 1870s by John Wesley Powell, a soldier, ethnologist and director of the United States Geological Survey. Powell’s studies of the Colorado River Basin concluded that the arid West was incapable of supporting substantial human populations at any distance from the main water sources. This production is based on Wallace Stegner’s 1954 book, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the American West. In partnership with the College of Science, the English Department and the School of Art. 

Patricia Briggs is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Mercy Thompson and Alpha and Omega urban fantasy series. Dear Author calls Fire Touched, the newest book in the Mercy Thompson series, “a brilliant installment in a fantastic series.” Fiction Vixen says that in Dead Heat, the newest Alpha and Omega book, “Briggs has created such a detailed and well thought out world that I am helpless to resist.” Urban fantasy fans love her fangs, claws and howls. Sponsored by the Fairfax County Public Library and the McLean Community Center.

The Washington Post calls Bernice McFadden’s book, The Book of Harlan, “simply miraculous… spellbinding.” When Paris falls to the Nazis during World War II, two African American musicians in town to perform, Harlan and his friend Lizard, are thrown into Buchenwald—the notorious concentration camp in Weimar, Germany—irreparably changing the course of Harlan’s life. The book expertly twines McFadden’s own familial ancestry with real and imagined characters alike, while ranging across six decades and two continents. Sponsored by African and African American Studies.

Debra Spark is the author of five books of fiction. Her newest novel, Unknown Caller, is “a funny, moving, and genuinely surprising story about families, misunderstandings, secrets, falls from grace, and chances for redemption” told in reverse. Author Steve Stern calls it “a pageant of mysteries.” Spark has been received numerous awards including a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a Bunting Institute fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, and the John Zacharis/Ploughshares award for best first book.

Take your tastebuds on a delicious ride with Melanie Underwood’s new cookbook, Making Artisan Cheesecake: Expert Techniques for Creating Your Own Creative and Classic Recipes. Underwood presents the classic and well-loved cheesecake in a new, adventurous, and modern way, and answers any questions that might be asked by home cooks and bakers–foodies who love delicious classic desserts. The book features eighty recipes, including Goat Cheese Cheesecake with Honey and Lavender, Mascarpone and Raspberry Cheesecake, Hot Chocolate Cheesecake and many more.

Formerly a Wall Street Journal China correspondent, Mei Fong won a Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for her reporting on China’s economic boom and its environmental and social struggles in the face of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Her best-selling book One Child: The Story of China’s Most Radical Experiment chronicles the history and effects of China’s one-child policy while also weaving in her own reflections on trying to become a mother. The New York Review of Books calls One Child “a searing, important, and eminently readable exploration of China’s one-child policy.”

Musician Donna Gunn’s book, Discoveries from the Fortepiano transports readers back to the Enlightenment, a time when music composed by the likes of Beethoven, Haydn and Mozart mirrored the dynamic social changes of the era. Through an engaging visual presentation and solo piano performance, participants can explore and hear the revolutionary developments in this remarkable instrument, heightening their listening experience in Classical style. Sponsored by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

Cathy Cruise is the author of the the novel A Hundred Weddings which follows Katie Jacobs, a woman burned out on weddings since her wedding-planner mother dragged her along to every event during her childhood. Now, in the face of her sister’s wedding, Jacobs must spend a summer with family, old flames and a neurotic dog to help prepare for her sister’s big day. Cruise is an alumna of the Mason M.F.A. program.

In her new anthology, The Books That Changed My Life: Reflections by 100 Authors, Actors, Musicians, and Other Remarkable People, editor and novelist Bethanne Patrick brings together stars of all walks of life–authors, actors, CEOs and more, to talk about the books that influenced them. Publisher’s Weekly calls the book, “Lively, addictive . . . The short entries are like literary snack food: once readers start consuming them, they may find it difficult to stop.” Avid readers and writers, as well as those aspiring to be both will love this book.

Patrick Rosal is the author of four full-length poetry collections. His newest book, Brooklyn Antediluvian, was called by Publisher’s Weekly “an earth-shattering performance.” Patricia Smith says of the collection, “The poet’s wide-aloud love song to New York’s most boisterous borough is a deftly-crafted tour-de-force, a sleek melding of lyric and unflinching light.” He also is the author of Boneshepherds, My American Kundiman, and Uprock Headspin Scramble and Dive. His collections have been honored with the Association of Asian American Studies Book Award, Global Filipino Literary Award and the Asian American Writers Workshop Members’ Choice Award. Sponsored by the Split This Rock.

Cece Bell is an author and illustrator, and has written a number of books for children, including the beloved Sock Monkey series. Sock Monkey Goes to Hollywood received an Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Gold Seal Award, and was named “Quirkiest Picture Book” by Publishers Weekly in 2003. In her new graphic novel memoir named a 2015 Newbery Honor Book, El Deafo, Bell chronicles her hearing loss at a young age and her subsequent experiences with the Phonic Ear, a very powerful—and very awkward—hearing aid. Author Raina Telgemeier says, “Full of warmth, humor, and superpowered strength, El Deafo is an absolute treat.” Sponsored by the Burke Centre Friends.

In Belle Boggs’ book, The Art of Waiting: On Fertility, Medicine, and Motherhood, she explores her own experience of waiting for motherhood through what her publisher calls an “expansive contemplation of fertility, choice, and the many possible roads to making a life and making a family.” Kirkus Reviews says it is a “deeply empathetic book … about more than one woman’s challenge.” Abigail Waldron always knew she wanted to be a mother. What she didn’t realize was how difficult the journey to motherhood could be. In her new memoir, Far as the Curse Is Found: Searching for God in Infertility, Miscarriage, and Stillbirth, she wrestles with questions about God as she faces a second-trimester miscarriage and infertility. Author Connally Gilliam says, “Waldron writes like she lives–with beauty, intentionality, and a hard-wrought longing to see the goodness of God in the land of the living.” Waldron is an alumna of Mason’s M.F.A. program.

Ross Howell Jr.’s debut novel Forsaken is set in 1912 Hampton, Virginia during the trial of an uneducated African American girl accused of killing her white employer. As racial tensions roil, a white novice journalist becomes enmeshed in the aftermath. Howell Jr. weaves real court records, letters, newspaper stories, and personal accounts into his narrative to reveal characters both large and small in this tale of the Jim Crow era, and the laws that would shape the world. In his memoir Journey to the Wilderness: War, Memory, and a Southern Family’s Civil War Letters, Frye Gaillard examines old letters from family members serving for the Confederacy from the perspective of his generation’s transition from believing the Civil War to be a “glorious lost cause” to viewing it through the lens of civil rights. In this moving and thought-provoking book, Gaillard meditates on the past and the changing identity of the South.  

M. Mack is a genderqueer poet whose collection Theater of Parts investigates the performativity and consciousness of gendered embodiment through page-bound theatrical productions. Ze is also the author of the chapbooks Mine, Imaginary Kansas, and Traveling. Nancy K. Pearson’s second collection of poetry, The Whole by Contemplation of a Single Bone, won the 2015-16 Poets Out Loud Editor’s Prize. In it, she explores the possibilities of recovery and transformation in a world where “words cease to matter,” attempting to reconcile a past of addiction, depression and misdiagnosis. J.K. Daniels’ debut book of poetry, Wedding Pulls, interrogates what it  means to be married, whether lawfully or not. The poems “riff on art and myth, and the fate that is family.” The collection won the 2015 New Southern Voices Prize.

Be a part of the celebration when Harlan Van Buren earns not one, but two Masters’ Degrees — a feat no one in his hometown of Keokee, Virginia has ever done. The entire coal-mining community gathers at the Blue Star Bar & Grill to celebrate, tell tall-talls and remember in this premiere staged reading of the new play, I Ain’t Made That Way, written by Amelia Townsend of Oakton and the late Dink Shackleford of Keokee. The strong cast brings years of experience to the stage and includes several George Mason University graduates. The event is free, but due to limited seating, please visit EventBrite to reserve your free ticket.

Sandra Cisneros will accept Fall for the Book’s Fairfax Prize, which honors outstanding literary achievement and celebrates writers who contribute to the larger literary landscape. William Miller, Executive Director of Fall for the Book, says, “We are excited to recognize Sandra Cisneros for her literary achievements and her many contributions to American and international literature. Over the course of a writing career of more than 30 years, her work has been translated into more than 20 languages, widely anthologized, and read in classrooms throughout the world. The House on Mango Street has become a classic and is one of our defining books about coming of age and the experience of Latino families in this country.” Cisneros has been awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships and a Texas Medal for the Arts. Her other works include Caramelo, Loose Women, Have You Seen Marie?, and most recently, A House of My Own: Stories from My Life. Sponsored by the George Mason Regional Library Friends.