The Judas Blossom is the first installment in a Persian-inspired fantasy trilogy set in the 13th century. It is an imaginative and sprawling epic fantasy reimagining of the Mongol Empire’s invasion of Persia, following the lives and treacherous journeys of four key figures in the heart of war.

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Country Capitalism: How Corporations from the American South Remade Our Economy and the Planet travels the rural roads running through the American South that led to our planet-changing global economy. Bart Elmore uses the histories of five Southern firms—Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, Walmart, FedEx, and Bank of America—to investigate the environmental impact of our have-it-now,

Byron Lane is an author, playwright, and screenwriter whose debut novel, A Star is Bored, inspired by his time as assistant to actress Carrie Fisher, was hailed by the New York Times Book Review as “wildly funny.” He lives in Palm Springs, California, with his husband, author Steven Rowley (who shares this session at the Fest,

Through evocative illustrations and sharp humor, Darrin Bell examines how “The Talk” shaped intimate and public moments from childhood to adulthood. While coming of age in Los Angeles—and finding a voice through cartooning—Bell becomes painfully aware of being regarded as dangerous by white teachers, neighbors, and police officers, and thus aware of his mortality. And now Bell must decide whether he and his own six-year-old son are ready to have “The Talk.”

In Élodie Durand’s landmark nonfiction comic Transitions: A Mother’s Journey—a sympathetic,

Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America is an investigative biography about how fascism took root in the United States, told through the lens of the life of professional wrestling tycoon Vince McMahon, former World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) chairman and CEO.

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Sponsored by CALS Adult Programming.

Inspired by the nine-night fall goddess festival of Navratri from the ancient Vedic spiritual tradition, The Way of the Goddess is an invitation to embark upon your own sacred hero’s journey. Author and spiritual teacher Ananta Ripa Ajmera shares her story of how she overcame trauma and abuse with the spiritual power of love.

Caroline Dodds Pennock, one of the world’s leading authorities on the Aztecs, is senior lecturer in international history at the University of Sheffield in England, as well as a public historian, consultant, and writer, appearing in programs from the BBC and Netflix. On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe is a landmark work of narrative history that shatters our previous understanding of the Age of Discovery by telling the story of the thousands of Indigenous Americans who journeyed across the Atlantic to Europe after 1492.

De’Shawn Charles Winslow was born and raised in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. His first novel, In West Mills, was the 2019 recipient of the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, the 2020 American Book Award, and the 2020 Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction.  Decent People is a novel about how the residents of a fictional North Carolina hamlet cope with a triple murder,

New York Times bestseller I Have Some Questions for You is Rebecca Makkai’s most irresistible novel yet: a stirring investigation into collective memory and a deeply felt examination of one woman’s reckoning with her past, with a transfixing mystery at its heart.

In Curtis Sittenfeld’s Romantic Comedy,