Back in the before-pandemic times, I helped start a literary festival in my hometown of Greensboro, North Carolina. Six years later, I’m thrilled to say that the festival has not only survived but is thriving!
This year’s Greensboro Bound festival kicked off with a terrific evening with bestselling author James McBride. And this coming weekend, almost 60 fiction writers, nonfiction writers, and poets will convene in downtown Greensboro to talk about their books, conduct workshops, and participate in general literary merriment. There will be books for sale, and the festival is FREE to the public.
Check out the offerings here. I’m doing a panel on short fiction with Jody Hobbs Helser, Halle Hill, and Molly Sentell Haile. This panel will be my last Sex Romp Gone Wrong event before I go on summer break. So please come out and bring your friends!
Beyond Spring Cleaning
On Tuesday, May 21, at 6:30 pm, I’m giving a talk related to my first book, The Sum of Trifles at the Friday Center at UNC Chapel Hill. The Sum of Trifles is a memoir about cleaning out my antique-dealer parents’ house, grief, and what the objects we live with mean to us. The talk is free, but registration is encouraged. Register here.
(This talk was supposed to take place in April but had to be rescheduled.)
It’s not always about me!
Most book events these days tend to be conversations, rather than readings, so one fun thing about being on book tour is getting to meet other writers. This spring I met Alison B. Hart (author of The Work Wife). Her new novel April May June July just came out this week, and we had a great conversation about it at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill.
April May June July is the story of four estranged siblings whose father was kidnapped and presumably murdered while working as a civilian contractor in Iraq. He’s been missing for ten years when the family discovers that he might still be alive after all . . . What follows is a compelling and moving story about how the siblings rediscover their bond with each other as they search for their dad. I encourage you to check it out!
Before I go on my summer break, I’m looking forward to one more event—a conversation with Durham-based novelist Mesha Maren (author of Sugar Run and Perpetual West). Her new novel Shae is one of Lit Hub’s Most Anticipated Books of 2024.
Garrard Conley (author of Boy Erased and All the World Beside) says this about Shae: “Maren brilliantly gives voice to a New South, introducing us to two unforgettable characters whose journeys echo the struggles of queer people across the country. This book is essential for the new queer canon emerging from Southern writers.”
Mesha and I will be talking about Shae at Scuppernong Books in Greensboro on Thursday, May 23, at 6 pm.
Hope to see you there, there, and there!
xo
Julia