Thursday
October 17
10:30 AM
Two authors tackle the climate crisis in their recent thought-provoking novels: JoeAnn Hart’s Arroyo Circle follows an ensemble of characters fighting against wildfires raging in Boulder, Colorado. Author Ellen Meeropol says, “An ambitious and fast-paced story of wildfire and pandemic and flood told through the eyes of characters living on the margins of our communities and the natural world.” Sharon Wishnow’s The Pelican Tide portrays a struggling Louisiana family. After an explosion at a nearby oil platform, the Babineaux family could lose everything as a result of the spill. Author Rebecca Hodge says the novel “creates a strong sense of place and deftly brings the natural world of this Gulf barrier island to life.”
Location: Wilkins Plaza Tent, between the Johnson Center and Horizon Hall, George Mason University.
10:30 AM
Langston Collin Wilkins’ skills as a folklorist are on full display in Welcome 2 Houston: Hip Hop Heritage in Hustle Town. Wilkins provides an in-depth investigation of the hip hop scene in Houston, Texas through interviews with a variety of local rap artists, managers, and producers. Author Eric Harvey says, “Wilkins examines hip hop’s deep connections to space, place, and heritage by weaving interviews, observations, and his own Houston upbringing into a richly informative and emotionally resonant work about an essential part of Black Americana.”
Location: Fenwick Reading Room, 2nd Floor, Fenwick Library, 4348 Chesapeake River Lane, Fairfax
12 PM
In Surviving Transphobia, editor Laura Jacobs presents an anthology by transgender and nonbinary contributors from all walks of life. These essays focus on the topic of perseverance during difficult times, discussing instances of harassment, discrimination, and vulnerability revealing the writers’ determination to survive and thrive. The contributors offer support and reassurance to readers, encouraging them to find their strength to seek happiness wherever they can. Author Kate Bornstein says, “Surviving Transphobia is . . . [f]ar from being a book of tragic endings, each and every chapter of this first rate collection sees transphobia conquered, and lucky us–we get to learn from the best how to do it for ourselves.”
Location: Wilkins Plaza Tent, between the Johnson Center and Horizon Hall, George Mason University.
12 PM
In Pour One for the Devil, a stunning new gothic novella from author Theodore C. Van Alst Jr., a college professor accepts an invitation to speak at an isolated mansion on an island off the South Carolina coast. When he arrives, however, he finds that nothing is as it should be. Author Jeremy Robert Johnson calls it “a cinematic swirl of bourbon, blood-soaked soil, and bad magic.”
Location: Fenwick Reading Room, 2nd Floor, Fenwick Library, 4348 Chesapeake River Lane, Fairfax
1:30 PM
In their latest nonfiction books, author Leah Lax and co-authors Carol Cleaveland & Michele Waslin emphasize the importance of personal accounts of migration and upheaval. In Not From Here: The Song of America, Lax interweaves the stories of migration told to her in interviews from all over the world with her own personal history. Activist Gloria Steinem says, “Leah Lax understands that everyone has a story and a secret. To experience this ourselves, we have only to read her utterly irresistible Not from Here.” Cleaveland and Waslin examine the ways that victims of gender-based violence are failed by the US asylum process in Private Violence: Latin American Women and the Struggle for Asylum. After studying accounts of court proceedings and women’s testimony, the authors urge the courts to incorporate a gender-based lens to the process of granting asylum.
Location: Fenwick Reading Room, 2nd Floor, Fenwick Library, 4348 Chesapeake River Lane, Fairfax
1:30 PM
In Self Portrait of Icarus as a Country on Fire, poet Jason Schneiderman pairs the personal with the political. He grapples with the rise of antisemitism and extremism in the U.S., while also contending with the dissolution of his marriage and his new life as a recently single gay man. U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón says, “Schneiderman is one of our nation’s best poets … Dangerously free, these poems are finely wrought and unfettered powerhouses.”
Location: Johnson Center, 3rd Floor, Meeting Room E
1:30 PM
Amy Stuber examines the intricacies of human connections in her debut short story collection, Sad Grownups. In this book, Stuber portrays a range of people feeling lost and disconnected, but searching for happiness amidst the strains and expectations of the world around them. Author Morgan Talty says, “Each story took me to the joyfully complex, lovingly hated yet adored world as it is today, and did so with some of the funniest and saddest characters I’ve read in quite some time. Reading these stories, I lost myself, and when I put the book down, I found myself anew.” Presented in Partnership with Stillhouse Press.
Location: Wilkins Plaza Tent, between the Johnson Center and Horizon Hall, George Mason University.
3 PM
Diana Rojas’ Litany of Saints: A Triptych is a collection of three novellas that center around the experiences of Costa Rican immigrants. Each novella displays characters who are grappling with their identities while struggling to balance the expectations and presumptions of others with their own desires. Kirkus Reviews says, “Three stories offer an intriguing look into the lives of Costa Rican characters—Ticos—as they deal with their roles in their families and society… She shows her readers that no homeland is perfect—not even ‘paradise.’”
Location: Wilkins Plaza Tent, between the Johnson Center and Horizon Hall, George Mason University.
4:30 PM
Eunice Hong and Rania Hanna reimagine folklore and mythology to tell vivid and powerful family stories. Hanna’s debut novel The Jinn Daughter uses Middle Eastern mythology to tell a gripping story about a mother protecting her daughter. Author Ehigbor Okosun says, “A beautiful, haunting homage to Middle Eastern folklore, The Jinn Daughter is a stirring tale of love, grief, and the depths we’re willing to go to save our loved ones.” In her debut novel, Memento Mori, Hong applies the Greek myths of Eurydice, Orpheus, Persephone, and Hades to a complicated Korean American family. Author Liv Albert calls Memento Mori “an unexpected and thrilling story that features myth without being just a simple retelling.”
Location: Wilkins Plaza Tent, between the Johnson Center and Horizon Hall, George Mason University
4:30 PM
Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology is a spine-tingling, imaginative book that celebrates Native writers. Hear from contributing writers D.H. Trujillo, Phoenix Boudreau, and contributor/co-editor Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. as they discuss hauntings, monsters, and Indigenous legends. Author Tananarive Due says, “This groundbreaking anthology showcases to the world that Indigenous horror has many faces . . . each one singular and heartfelt, carving new storytelling pathways that feel both unique and universal, haunting and healing.”
Location: Fenwick Reading Room, 2nd Floor, Fenwick Library, 4348 Chesapeake River Lane, Fairfax
4:30 PM
In Between the Night and Its Music, renowned poet and leading figure of the Black Arts Movement, A.B. Spellman intertwines jazz and poetry through the collection of new and selected poems. Author and scholar Margo Natalie Crawford says, “This necessary book shows that [Spellman’s] entire poetic flow has been a profound movement of words that create the sensuality, music, and quiet of a Black collective consciousness.” Sponsored by African and African American Studies.
Location: Hosted at Mason Exhibitions’ Gillespie Gallery in the Art and Design Building of George Mason’s Fairfax Campus, amongst the James Baldwin and Richard Avedon art exhibition Nothing Personal: A Collaboration in Black and White.
6 PM
Set during the civil war in Sri Lanka, V.V. Ganeshananthan’s latest novel, Brotherless Night, follows a young woman, Sashi, who dreams of being a doctor. When she starts working as a medic for a militant group, Sashi is shocked by the atrocities she witnesses, and begins to secretly document all the human rights violations. Best-selling author Celeste Ng says, “With immense compassion and deep moral complexity, V. V. Ganeshananthan brings us an achingly moving portrait of a world full of turmoil, but one in which human connections and shared stories can teach us how—and as importantly, why—to survive.”
Location: Fenwick Reading Room, 2nd Floor, Fenwick Library, 4348 Chesapeake River Lane, Fairfax
7 PM
Secrets, murders, and messy family dynamics abound in two heart-pounding thrillers. K.T. Nguyen’s novel, You Know What You Did, follows a Vietnamese-American artist under investigation for a murder as she struggles to protect her daughter, as well as manage her fractured memories and OCD. In Now You Owe Me by Aliah Wright, a pair of twins have spent years of their lives abducting and killing college students, until the night that they kidnap the wrong person. Author Jessica Jiji says, “Now You Owe Me is a crisply written, fast-paced thriller with meaning layered so deftly into the entertainment, you get a double bonus of social commentary and spine-chilling twists.” Sponsored by the Friends of the Pohick Library.
Location: Pohick Regional Library, 6450 Sydenstricker Rd, Burke, VA
7:30 PM
Enjoy the three powerhouse finalists – and celebrate the winner – of the Seventh Annual New American Voices Award for immigrant writers. Finalists Alex Espinoza, author of The Sons of El Rey, Carrie Sun, author of Private Equity, and Shahnaz Habib, author of Airplane Mode: An Irreverent History of Travelwill be joined by this year’s judges: Myriam J. A. Chancy, V.V. Ganeshananthan, and Karin Tanabe. The New American Voices Award was created in 2018 by Fall for the Book and the Institute for Immigration Research to recognize recently published works that illuminate the complexity of the human experience as told by immigrants, whose work is historically underrepresented in writing and publishing. Sponsored by the Institute for Immigration Research.
Location: Grand Tier III, Center for the Arts, 4373 Mason Pond Drive, Fairfax
