Thursday, October 4, 7:30 PM. Mountain Heritage Auditorium. Admission Free.

Monday, November 12, 7:30 PM. Mountain Heritage Auditorium. Admission free.

Chinese-American writer Karen Shepard, a member of the faculty at Williams College, is the granddaughter of Chinese novelist Han Suyin. Her debut novel, An Empire of Women (Penguin Putnam) captures the reunion of photographer Celine Arneaux, a French-Chinese éémigréé, her disaffected Asian-American daughter, Sumin, and granddaughter, Cameron, at a family cabin in Virginia. With wonderful emotional acuity, artistry and suspense, Shepard weaves a compelling tale of custody, collaboration and the ferocity with which we sometimes sacrifice loved ones to gain our own ends.

An Empire of Women has received outstanding reviews. Publisher's Weekly writes, "the emotional landscapes are mapped masterfully. . . . Plainspoken and direct, yet rich in complexities, the story. . . raises a host of compelling questions about heritage and family, and more than a few about contemporary art." Novelist Rosellen Brown writes, "An Empire of Women introduces us to three fascinating women whose quirks and prickles are boldly set forth, the three generations attracting and devouring one another like a family of gorgeous, omnivorous flowers. Karen Shepard's debut novel is a bravura performance by an author who writes with uncanny authority and courage." Elle Magazine calls the novel "lean and dreamy." Vogue adds, "Sinuously plotted--told in bursts of startling detail and clarity."

Shepard will read from her novel and also speak to a creative writing class. Interested readers can study the Reading Group Guide.

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March 4. Mountain Heritage Auditorium. 7:30 PM. Admission Free.

Nature Essayist and Novelist James Kilgo

The author of several books of essays, including Deep Enough for Ivorybills and Inheritance of Horses, Kilgo also wrote the text of to accompany photographs in The Blue Wall: Wilderness of the Carolinas and Georgia. He published a book of short stories entitled The Hand-Carved Creche and Other Christmas Stories, and a novel, Daughter of My People.

Of Kilgo's work, The New York Times Book Review writes, "Kilgo has . . . a clean, direct style that is lyrical without becoming sentimental. . . . The obvious comparison is to Hemingway," and author Coleman Barks writes, "There's an old way of living in the South simultaneously in the woods and in the Bible, in the great books that flower from the woods and the Bible, and in a Southern conversational pace and generosity, with some unnameable delicacy of phrase. James Kilgo is one of those truth tellers who continuously alters and changes his art as the truth unfolds within its beauty. He is a great soul and his work is a part of the astonishing soul-work that has been done in this region and continues."

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April. Mountain Heritage Auditorium, 7:30 PM. Admission Free.

Novelist Brian Evenson

Brian Evenson holds a Ph.D. in literature and critical theory from the University of Washington and is currently a professor of creative writing at Denver University and an editor at Conjunctions Magazine. Evenson has also taught at both Oklahoma State University and Brigham Young University, where officials threatened to fire him because of his controversial fiction. He has received an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship and an O. Henry Award.
Evenson is the author of five novels and collections: Contagion. Father of Lies, Prophets & Brothers, Din of Celestial Birds, and Altmann's Tongue. He has also done two book-length translations: The Space of Silence: Selected Poems of Rafael Cadenas and Jean Fremon, Eclipses: Selected Prose Poems. Evenson has written two radio plays and the libretto for an opera, "The Open Curtain," for Seattle Experimental Opera Company.

Leslie Norris has said of Evenson's work, "Neither cruelty nor pity, happiness nor misery, compassion nor suffering, hope nor despair exist in his tales of inexorable and inhuman logic. They are written too in a faultlessly efficient prose, so that we see these strange worlds in the clearest and coldest of lights. And, paradoxically, we become aware of life without a purpose, of laws without sense, of victims who do not know they are victimised and aggressors who act without aim or malice. Evenson is a moralist, telling us that our very humanity is at risk, and that we must defend it."

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