Reader Meet Writer, Okra Picks
The next author in the Okra Pick series is Lee Smith. You may have read Lee Smith’s earlier works. Lee Smith will be talking with us about her newest book Blue Marlin and answering your questions. Lee Smith is one of many authors we’ll be bringing into your living room.
“Complex characters and surprising plot twists…Smith has become a master of coupling tragedy and humor.” – San Francisco Chronicle
Here are the details you need:
Date: Tuesday, April 21, 2020
Time: 3pm CST
RSVP here
Blue Marlin
New York Times bestselling author Lee Smith is one of the South’s most prominent and influential writers, with seventeen works of fiction to her name, including the iconic Fair and Tender Ladies and bestseller The Last Girls. Now comes this gem of a novella, which Smith names one of her favorite works of her illustrious career.
Lee Smith’s masterful storytelling manifests in this jewel of a novella that follows Jenny, an adventurous thirteen-year-old, down to Key West for a patched-up family vacation following the discovery of her father’s affair. Jenny confronts the frailty of family life while vying for the attention of dreamy actor Tony Curtis and even a role in his latest movie.
Available for the first time as a stand-alone novella, this book centers on the Blue Marlin Motel, where Jenny, her beautiful socialite mother, and chastened father share their sunny days with movie stars who are in town to film the 1959 classic, Operation Petticoat. Blue Marlin showcases this iconic writer at her best: sharp characterizations, perfect pitch, generous humor, and a quietly profound understanding of human nature.
Author Bio:
Born in the small coal-mining town of Grundy, Virginia, Lee Smith began writing stories at the age of nine and selling them for a nickel apiece. Since then, she has written seventeen works of fiction, including Fair and Tender Ladies, Oral History, and, most recently, Guests on Earth. She has received many awards, including the North Carolina Award for Literature and an Academy Award in Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her novel The Last Girls was a New York Times bestseller as well as winner of the Southern Book Critics Circle Award. She lives in Hillsborough, North Carolina, with her husband, the writer Hal Crowther.
Meet Ruthie Lindsey on Wednesday
Following Lee in the series is Ruthie Lindsey. She will be talking with us about her newest book There I Am: The Journey From Hopelessness to Healing, and answering your questions. Ruthie Lindsay is one of many authors we’ll be bringing into your living room.
“Ruthie Lindsey’s voice speaks directly to the heart. There I Am is a testament to the things that break us, heal us, and make us who we are.”
– Glennon Doyle, author of Untamed, and founder of Together Rising
Here are the details you need:
Date: Wednesday, April 22, 2020
Time: 4pm
RSVP here
There I Am
Brain on Fire meets Carry On, Warrior. There I Am is an arresting inspirational memoir about one woman’s journey from chronic pain and hopelessness to finding joy, redemption, and healing.
At seventeen years old, Ruthie Lindsey is hit by an ambulance near her home in rural Louisiana. She’s given a five percent chance of survival and one percent chance of walking again. One month later after a spinal fusion surgery, Ruthie defies the odds, leaving the hospital on her own two feet.
Just a few years later, newly married and living in Nashville, Ruthie begins to experience debilitating pain. Her case confounds doctors and after numerous rounds of testing, imaging, and treatment, they prescribe narcotic painkillers—lots of them. Ruthie has become bedridden, dependent on painkillers, and hopeless, when an X-ray reveals that the wire used to fuse her spine is piercing her brain stem. Without another staggeringly expensive experimental surgery, she could well become paralyzed, but in many ways, she already is.
Ruthie goes into the hospital in chronic pain, dependent on prescription painkillers, and leaves that way. She can still walk, but has no idea where she’s going. As her life unravels, Ruthie returns home to Louisiana and sets out on a journey to learn joy again. She trades fentanyl for sunsets and morphine for wildflowers, weaning herself off of the drugs and beginning the process of healing—of coming home to her body.
Raw and redemptive, There I Am is not just about the magic of optimism, but the work of it. Ruthie’s extraordinary memoir urges us to unlearn the stories of brokenness that we tell ourselves and embrace the wholeness, joy, and healing that lives inside all of us.
“Ruthie Lindsey’s voice speaks directly to the heart. There I Am is a testament to the things that break us, heal us, and make us who we are.” —Glennon Doyle, author of #1 New York Times Bestseller Love Warrior and founder of Together Rising
Attendance is limited.
If you elect to attend, we will email you on Wednesday morning with the link to attend this virtual event, plus the link to purchase books. Happy Reading!
To see a list of all upcoming authors booked so far, click here.