The Always Excellent Southern Festival of Books: 2020 (Virtual) Edition
Instead of being held the usual second weekend in October, this year’s Southern Festival of Books ran almost the entire first half of the month, extending from October 1st through October 11th.
As always, Humanities Tennessee put together an excellent festival. Ann Patchett and Yaa Gyasi kicked off the Southern Festival of Books with what would be one of my favorite sessions of the entire Festival. The quality never went down, though. There were some really awesome panels throughout these past ten days. Ashleigh Bryant Phillips and Deesha Philyaw, both with debut collections out, showcased one of the most interesting and insightful panels. George Singleton and Ron Rash, both frequent visitors to the Festival, were another highlight for me. Jill McCorkle and Lee Smith’s conversation, moderated by Margaret Renkl, was one of the personal talks. It’s always a pleasure to hear Leah Hampton read from her collection, so I was glad to catch her again.
I’m not a big memoir person, but after listening to Natasha Tretheway talk about Memorial Drive, I’m ready to dive in to that book. Her conversation was another one that I appreciated a great deal. There were so many other fascinating panels, too. The Mary Laura Philpott-moderated Coffee with Authors session is always a standout hour.
I need to read M. O. Walsh’s new book—and Alice Randall’s and many, many others.
Everyone behind the scenes put together a special Festival. Here’s to hoping we’ll be back on the Plaza next year. But if that’s not possible, I feel confident in knowing we’ll still have another highly enjoyable Southern Festival of Books.