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Scuppernong Bookshelf
from May O.Henry 2021
Greensboro Bound: A Literary Festival
It’s here! It’s here!
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By Br i an l amPkin In the March issue of O.Henr y, we announced that the May Scuppernong Bookshelf column would give you the schedule of events for this year’s Greensboro Bound Literar y Festival, a virtual gathering of the minds held May 13–16. Twenty-one conversations pair North Carolina writers with voices from the outside world. Without further ado, here it is:
A Conversation with Roxane Gay
T hursday, May 13, 7– 8 p.m.
Free Join The New York Times best-selling author ROX ANE GAY hosted by C Y NT HI A GR EENLEE. Gay’s writing explores what it means to be a feminist, a woman of color and, quite simply, a human being with a body. Dirty Gold: The Rise and Fall of an International Smuggling Ring
Fr iday, May 14, 4 –5 p.m.
Free An in-depth discussion among veteran investigative repor ters K Y R A
GUR NE Y, NICHOL AS NEH AM AS, JAY W EAV ER , JIM
W YSS and host JOHN COX. T his talk will unear th the stor y of death, dr ugs and corr uption within the gold mining industr y in L atin America and dredge up the impact of greed on the people caught in its wake. Craft, Violence and the Art of Storytelling
Fr iday, May 14, 5– 6 p.m.
Free Join BRYAN GIEM ZA and AM Y W ELDON as they host novelists JOHN H ART, ROD DAV IS and DENNIS McCART H Y. Har t’s latest novel, The Unwilling, is a thriller f ramed around the consequences of the Vietnam War. Publisher’s Weekly describes Davis’ 2020 novel East of Texas, West of Hell as a maelstrom of meth-dealing, human traf fick ing and white supremacy.” Dennis McCar thy’s debut novel, The Gospel According to Billy the Kid, moves an American tale of violence and redemption west to New Mexico. Chefs Ricky Moore & Whitney Otawka
Fr iday, May 14, 6 –7 p.m.
Free Host DABNE Y SANDER S chats with award-winning chefs and authors W HIT NE Y OTAW K A and R ICK Y MOOR E. LIVESTREAM: An Evening with Nnedi Okorafor
Fr iday, May 14, 7– 8 p.m.
Free DR . TAR A GR EEN, UNCG Professor of Af rican American and Af rican Diaspora Studies and the Linda Arnold Carlisle Excellence Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies, explores the past and f uture with NNEDI OKOR AFOR , NigerianAmerican author of Africanfuturism and Africanjujuism.
Our Stories, Our Voices: Four Years On
Sat urday, May 15, 10 – 11 a.m
Free Our Stories, Our Voices was published in 2018. Nearly four years later, the authors share how their perspectives have changed and how, if given the chance, they might rewrite their essays now. Featuring AM Y R EED — editor of Our Stories, Our Voices: 21 YA Authors Get Real About Injustice, Empowerment, and Growing Up Female in America — and contributors T R AC Y DEONN, AMBER SMIT H and I.W. GR EGOR IO. Hidden Histories
Sat urday, May 15, 11–12 p.m.
Free ANN CAHILL hosts authors SH ANNA GR EENE BEN JAMIN and LISA LE V ENST EIN as they talk about memor y, the public persona and the private individual, the biographer/ historian’s relationship to her subject(s) and the intersectionalit y of sexism, racism and economic inequalit y. Love, Justice and Healing
Sat urday, May 15, 12–1 p.m.
Free MOLLY SENT ELL H AILE hosts a discussion on love, justice and healing with SH ARON SAL ZBERG and OMID SAFI. Salzberg, a central fig ure in the field of meditation, is the author of eleven books, including The New York Times bestseller Real Happiness and, most recently, Real Change. Safi, translator and editor of Radical L ove
is a professor of Islamic studies at Duke Universit y and leads Illuminated Tours interfaith journeys. Speculative Fiction
Sat urday, May 15, 1–2 p.m.
Free JASON HER NDON hosts R IV ER S SOL OMON and K .M. SZPAR A in an exploration of their newest works, which, like the best of speculative fiction, force protagonists to question what’s real in their lives while shining a light on societ y’s darker corners. Read Romance, Fight Patriarchy!
Sat urday, May 15, 2–3 p.m.
Free Host SAR AH COL ONNA f rames the conversation with romance authors K I ANNA
ALE X ANDER , ROSIE DANAN,
JOANNA L OW ELL and ALISH A R AI. T he authors will doubtless unpack the ways in which modern romance writers are reshap ing what it means to write romance.
LIVESTREAM: All Up In Your Feels (Poetry Workshop)
Sat urday, May 15, 2–3:30 p.m.
$25 Poets and par tners JESSICA JACOBS and NICKOLE BROW N shine a light on the dif ficult ar t of writing about love and hear tbreak. Issac Bailey & Bakari Sellers
Sat urday, May 15, 3–4 p.m.
Free ST EPHEN COLY ER hosts essayist ISSAC BAILE Y, author of W hy Didn’t We Riot: A Black Man in Trumpland, and CNN commentator BAK AR I SELLER S, author of My Vanishing Country. Allan Gurganus & George Singleton
Sat urday, May 15, 4 –5 p.m.
Free DR E W PER RY hosts a talk with t wo of the Carolinas’ best shor t stor y writers, ALL AN GURGANUS (author of The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All) and GEORGE SINGLETON (author of the recent You Want More). Poems in a Crisis
Sat urday, May 15, 4 –5 p.m.
Free K AT IE K EHOE joins poets T R ACI BR IMH ALL and NICKOLE BROW N along with editor ALICE QUINN in a soulf ul discussion of navigating family, the pandemic and remak ing the world through poetr y. LIVESTREAM: A Conversation with Billy Collins & Ron Rash
Sat urday, May 15, 7– 8 p.m.
Free Host MICH AEL GASPEN Y will investigate the mysteries of ar t and the hear t in a discussion with former U.S. Poet L aureate BILLY COLLINS, hailed as “the most pop ular poet in America,” and RON R ASH, who has been celebrated as the “Appalachian Shakespeare.” Our Stories, Our Voices: Writing as Activism
Sunday, May 16, 10 –11 a.m.
Free AM Y R EED — editor of Our Stories, Our Voices — and contributors AMBER SMIT H and I.W. GR EGOR IO discuss what it means to write in one’s own voice. Writing Outside the Lines: Nonbinary Authors Changing YA
Sunday, May 16, 11 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Free Authors M ASON DEAV ER and NITA T Y NDALL join host SH ANNON JONE S in a conversation about how Young Adult authors outside the gender binar y are reshap ing that world. Art of Memoir with Ginger Gaffney & James Tate Hill
Sunday, May 16, 12–1 p.m.
Free Authors GINGER GAFFNE Y and JAME S TAT E ( JT ) HILL talk about the craf t of writing memoir with host ST E V E MITCHELL . Gaf f ney’s Half Broke is the memoir of a woman who relates more to horses than people and finds a home of sor ts teaching at an alternative prison ranch. Blind Man’s Bluff is James Tate Hill ’s memoir of becoming legally blind at age 16 — but pretending for years that he was not. LIVESTREAM: Your Story, Your Voice: A Writing Workshop
Sunday, May 16, 12–1:30 p.m.
$25 AM Y R EED — editor of Our Stories, Our Voices — and contributors AMBER SMIT H and I.W. GR EGOR IO explore how to find your own “voice” in this writing workshop. Ideal for young adults, parents of young adults, aspiring YA writers and those who identif y with marginalized communities. The Soul of the Novel
Sunday, May 16, 1–2 p.m.
Free K AIT LY N GR EENIDGE and
ANNET T E SAUNOOK E
CL APSADDLE are t wo rising stars in the world of literar y fiction. Greenidge’s Libertie has been called “Pure brilliance.” L ee Smith says Clapsaddle’s Even As We Breathe “lif ts the cur tain to show us a South we don’t know . . . A wonderf ul novel, complicated as life itself.” T his conversation is moderated by N.C. novelist ZELDA L OCK H ART and informed by her work, The Soul of the FullL eng th Manuscript.
LIVESTREAM: Candacy Taylor and The Historic Magnolia House
Sunday, May 16, 2–3 p.m.
Free CANDAC Y TAY L OR , author of Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America, joins preser vationist NATALIE PASS -MILLER at T he Historic Magnolia House, one of only four Green Book sites in Nor th Carolina still in operation. Taylor reaches into her personal histor y to share the stor y of the Green Book and the roots of Black travel in America.
A Measure of Belonging: 21 Writers of Color on the New American South
Sunday, May 16, 3–4 p.m.
Free IV ELISSE RODR IGUEZ and DI ANA CEJAS join CINELLE BAR NES, editor of A Measure of Belonging: 21 Writers of Color on
the New American South, to talk about their experiences — the good, the bad and the bef uddling — of living down South. Naima Coster & Leesa Cross-Smith
Sunday, May 16, 4 –5 p.m.
Free At the center of the powerf ul, tender new titles, W hat’s Mine and Yours by NAIM A COST ER and This Close to Okay by LEE SA CROSS SMIT H, are def tly wrought, perfectly imperfect characters with paths that can never be unwoven f rom another or f rom the ways we see our communities and ourselves. A Conversation on Race & Grace in America
Sunday, May 16, 5– 6 p.m.
Free T he nonfiction work of DENISE K IER NAN has become surefire bestseller material. Her latest book, We Gather Together, brings her considerable gif ts to the untold stor y of Lincoln and the burgeoning of the T hanksgiving holiday. K iernan will join D. WAT K INS — author of the recent We Speak for Ourselves: How Woke Culture Prohibits Progress (and also The Cook-Up: A Crack Rock Memoir and The Beast Side: Living (and Dying ) W hile Black in America) — introduces you to Down Bottom, the storied communit y of East Baltimore that holds a mirror to America’s poor Black neighborhoods. As Watk ins sees it, the perspective of people who live in economically disadvantaged Black communities is largely absent f rom the commentar y of many top intellectuals who speak and write about race.
Wilmington’s Lie: A Conversation with John Sayles & David Zucchino
Sunday, May 16, 6 –7 p.m.
Free JOHN SAY LE S is an indy film legend. His 2011 novel, A Moment in the Sun, looks at America in 1898 and the Wilmington R ace R iot figures prominently in the narrative. DAV ID ZUCCHINO’s 2020 nonfiction book, Wilming ton’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of W hite Supremacy, is the definitive book on the massacre. Together, Sayles and Zucchino will talk about the atmosphere in Wilmington in 1898 and the lasting impact of the white riot through the 20th Centur y. T he discussion will also focus on the parallels with the Januar y 6, 2021, insurrection and the continued strain of white supremacy in America. Hosted by BR I AN L AMPK IN.
Guilford County Schools High School Poet Laureate Year-end Reading
Wednesday, May 19, 6 – 9 p.m.
Free Hosted by Jennifer Worrells, HS Poet L aureate coordinator and Librar y Media Specialist at Grimsley High School. OH
For more information about the vir tual Greensboro Bound Literar y Festival and complete biographies of the par ticipants, visit greensborobound.com/events/ list.
