2024 FESTIVAL AUTHOR CONVERSATIONS
1:30-2:45 p.m. / Ridgeline in the Broadway Hotel (lower level) / 1111 E Broadway
Featuring: Mark Cecil, Caroline Leavitt, and Mary O’Malley (moderator)
Caroline Leavitt’s new novel, Days of Wonder, is her 12th. Mark Cecil’s book, Bunyan and Henry, is his first. Both are dazzling, unexpected stories, full of life and hope and bursting with human spirit. Both writers are also involved in A Mighty Blaze, the astonishing online community that was created during the COVID pandemic to help authors who were unable to promote their books because of lockdown. Come and listen to Caroline and Mark – two of the nicest people in the business – talk books, community, and everything else. Both Caroline and Mark will be giving fiction workshops on Sunday as part of the Write On! program.
10-11:15 a.m. / Ridgeline in the Broadway Hotel (lower level) / 1111 E Broadway
Featuring: Idra Novey, Crystal Wilkinson, Kayla Cayasso (moderator)
In her award-winning short stories, Crystal Wilkinson has long been celebrated as a deft and insightful chronicler of Appalachian life. Idra Novey’s most recent novel, Take What You Need – a gorgeous meditation on art, love, and family – is set in the Allegheny Mountains of Appalachia. What drew these writers to this fabled (and perhaps misunderstood) part of rural America, and how does the landscape that these tales inhabit affect their telling?
10-11:15 a.m. / Little Ragtag at Ragtag Cinema / 10 Hitt St
Featuring: Christina Vo and Phong Nguyen (moderator)
Two authors whose lives and stories encompass both the nation of Việt Nam and the greater Vietnamese diaspora come together to discuss the state of Việt Nam today, perceptions from abroad, and generational differences in attitudes towards Việt Nam. Nonfiction writer Christina Vo joins fiction writer Phong Nguyen to delve into the historical, the global, and the contemporary views of this thriving and sometimes controversial corner of Southeast Asia.
11:45 a.m. to 1 p.m. / Little Ragtag at Ragtag Cinema / 10 Hitt St
Featuring: Stephanie Shonekan, Sheri-Marie Harrison (moderator)
“Lifting as we climb” is a maxim long embraced by Black women. What happens once you’ve been lifted and when you are climbing the ranks of academic excellence or learning to lead? In discussing Dear Department Chair: Letters from Black Women Leaders to the Next Generation, co-authored with Stephanie Adams and Stephanie Evans, Stephanie Shonekan will examine how to thrive in a leadership role while securing a safe place for the success of others.
3:15-4:30 p.m. / Ridgeline in the Broadway Hotel (lower level) / 1111 E Broadway
Featuring: Adam Seagrave, Stephanie Shonekan, Faramola Shonekan (moderator)
In Race and the American Story, Stephanie Shonekan and Adam Seagrave provide a unique window into race relations in contemporary America. Shonekan, a Black woman who grew up in Nigeria and Trinidad before emigrating to the U.S., and Seagrave, a white man who grew up in California's Napa Valley, have entwined their life histories to shed light on how Americans experience race. Interviewed by Stephanie’s daughter (and Unbound board member!) Faramola, the authors will share their insights into the personal and social effects of racism and a hopeful approach to confronting it.
11:45 a.m. - 1 p.m. / Ridgeline in the Broadway Hotel (lower level) / 1111 E Broadway
Featuring: Anna Colletto, Caleb Gayle, Christopher Leonard (moderator)
Writing history has become an act of investigative journalism in an age when history itself has become a political battlefield. Lawmakers around the country have sought to criminalize the very teaching of history as more writers work to unearth the vitally important but unpopular aspect of our nation’s past. Author Caleb Gayle and reporter Anna Colletto will discuss their efforts to document a story that has been actively suppressed for generations – the story of a Black leader who sought to make Oklahoma a refuge for recently-freed Black citizens after the Civil War. Gayle’s work will build upon his first book, We Refuse to Forget: A True Story of Black Creeks, American Identity, and Power, which explores the history of the Creek Nation, a Native tribe that two centuries ago both owned slaves and accepted Black people as full citizens.
5-6:15 p.m. / Serendipity Salon and Gallery / 1020 E Walnut St., Suite 100
Featuring: Michelle Collins Anderson, Laura McHugh, Heather Bartel (moderator)
In their brand-new novels, Laura McHugh and Michelle Collins Anderson both spin mesmerizing tales set in small Missouri towns which hold their secrets close. In both Safe and Sound and The Flower Sisters, characters revisit mysteries that still haunt their communities years after they happened and discover that the past is never that far away from the present. Come and listen to these two wonderful writers discuss their work and explore why the Show Me State has so much rich potential for storytellers.