This year’s festival begins September 25.
Three authors. Three Events. Free and open to all.
Great writers, readers and friends will gather for three author visits in September and October for the University of South Carolina Fall Literary Festival. Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, the festival brings unique and inspiring literary voices to campus.
The 2024 festival welcomes two-time National Book Award-winning novelist and MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Jesmyn Ward, Edgar Grand Master award winner Walter Mosley, and Charleston-based memoirist and essayist Cinelle Barnes. They join more than 60 award-winning authors who have visited the USC campus for the festival, participating in readings, book signings and other events – all free and open to the community.
The Fall Literary Festival is a partnership between University Libraries and the Department of English, supported by the generous legacy of Libraries friend Dorothy D. Smith. Mrs. Smith was a lifelong book lover who wanted to share her passion with others. This year we are very pleased to partner with the Richland Library to bring Jesmyn Ward to campus and with the South Carolina Writers Association on Cinelle Barnes’ visit.
Wednesday, September 25, 2024 – Jesmyn Ward
6 p.m., Campus Room, Capstone Hall, 902 Barnwell St.
Reading/Lecture, Q&A, book signing
Novelist, memoirist and nonfiction writer Jesmyn Ward is the author of critically acclaimed and bestselling novels that include Let Us Descend, Sing, Unburied, Sing, and Where the Line Bleeds. She has been hailed as the standout writer of her generation and called “the new Toni Morrison.” Ward is the first woman and the first person of color to win two National Book Awards for Fiction and is also a MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient. Her stories are largely set on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, where she grew up and still lives. Her writing is deeply informed by the trauma of Hurricane Katrina and its social and economic repercussions. Her novel Salvage the Bones, winner of the 2011 National Book Award, is a troubling but ultimately empowering tale of familial bonds set amid the chaos of the hurricane. Ward is the also the editor of the critically acclaimed anthology The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race, which NPR named one of the Best Books of 2016. She is a professor at Tulane University in New Orleans where she teaches creative writing. In 2016, she won the Strauss Living award, given every five years by the American Academy of Arts & Letters for literary excellence. In 2018, she was recognized among Time‘s 100 Most Influential People, and she is the winner of the 2022 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction.
Sunday, September 29, 2024 – Cinelle Barnes
2 p.m., All Good Books, 734 Harden St.
Reading/Lecture, Q&A, book signing
Charleston-based writer Cinelle Barnes is a memoirist, essayist and educator from the Philippines. Her debut memoir, Monsoon Mansion, was Bustle’s Best Nonfiction Book of 2018. She is the author of Malaya: Essays on Freedom and the editor of the New York Times New & Noteworthy book A Measure of Belonging: 21 Writers of Color on the New American South. Her writing has appeared or been featured in the New York Times, Longreads, Garden & Gun, Electric Literature, Buzzfeed Reader, Literary Hub, Hyphen and CNN Philippines, and she has received fellowships and grants from the Sustainable Arts Foundation, VONA, Kundiman, the John and Susan Bennett Memorial Arts Fund, the Lowcountry Quarterly Arts Grant and Capita.
Wednesday, October 23, 2024 – Walter Mosley
6 p.m., Campus Room, Capstone Hall, 902 Barnwell St.
Reading/Lecture, Q&A, book signing
Acclaimed fiction writer Walter Mosley is best known for his mystery novels, including those featuring detective Easy Rawlins. But his 60+ books span multiple genres including crime, science fiction, literary fiction, political, young adult, nonfiction, instructional, and graphic novels. His short stories and op-ed essays have appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, GQ, Esquire, Playboy and The Nation. He is a recipient of the 2020 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the Mystery Writers of America's Grand Master Award, the New York State Writers Hall of Fame, and lifetime achievement awards from both PEN America and the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. The NAACP has honored Mosley a record three times with the Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Fiction. Forthright about race, diversity and equality, he established The Publishing Certificate Program at City University of New York to expand writing courses, internships, and job opportunities for all communities.