Thurs., Sept. 15 — Billy Collins at Charleston County School of the Arts
Tues., Oct. 25 —David Sedaris at the Gaillard Center
Mar. 3 – 5 — Pop-Up at Charleston Wine + Food Festival
Tues., Apr. 4 — F.T. Lukens, Spell Bound
Tues., Apr. 18 — Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart
Fri. & Sat., Nov. 10 & 11, 2023 — YALLFest Charleston XIII
Join us on Tues, Apr. 4, 5:30 pm to celebrate the release day of the newest YA novel by F.T. Lukens, Spell Bound! (Margaret K. McElderry, hb., 336 pp., $19.99) Lukens will be joined in conversation by Corrie Wang, Charleston-based YA author of City of Beasts and The Takedown.
About Spell Bound:
Edison Rooker isn’t sure what to expect when he enters the office of Antonia Hex, the powerful sorceress who runs a call center for magical emergencies. He doesn’t have much experience with hexes or curses. Heck, he doesn’t even have magic. But he does have a plan—to regain the access to the magical world he lost when his grandmother passed.
Antonia is…intimidating, but she gives him a job and a new name—Rook—both of which he’s happy to accept. Now all Rook has to do is keep his Spell Binder, an illegal magical detection device, hidden from the Magical Consortium. And contend with Sun, the grumpy and annoyingly cute apprentice to Antonia’s rival colleague, Fable. But dealing with competition isn’t so bad; as Sun seems to pop up more and more, Rook minds less and less.
But when the Consortium gets wind of Rook’s Spell Binder, they come for Antonia. All alone, Rook runs to the only other magical person he knows: Sun. Except Fable has also been attacked, and now Rook and Sun have no choice but to work together to get their mentors back…or face losing their magic forever.
About the author:
F.T. Lukens is a New York Times bestselling author of YA speculative fiction including the novels So This Is Ever After, In Deeper Waters, and the forthcoming Spell Bound as well as other science-fiction and fantasy works. Their contemporary fantasy novel The Rules and Regulations for Mediating Myths & Magic was a 2017 Cybils Award finalist in YA Speculative Fiction, the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Gold Winner for YA fiction and won the Bisexual Book Award for Speculative Fiction. F.T. resides in North Carolina with their spouse, three kids, three dogs, and three cats.
Thurs., Dec. 8, 5:30 pm, have a glass of wine with Savannah’s Carolyn Prusa, author of None of This Would Have Happened If Prince Were Alive (Atria, hb., 336 pp., $27).
Come celebrate the end (hopefully) of hurricane season with this emotional, fun and lively debut!
This in-store event is free and open to the public. For more information call Blue Bicycle Books, 843-722-2666.
Can’t make it? Order a signed copy here (Release date Nov. 22, 2022)
About the book:
Ramona’s got an obnoxious boss, a toddler teetering through toilet training, a critical mom who doesn’t mind sharing her observations, and oops—turns out her husband has been unfaithful. That’s how a Category 4 hurricane bearing down on her life in Savannah becomes just another item on her to-do list. In the next forty-eight hours, she’ll add a neighbor child and a class guinea pig named Clarence Thomas to her entourage as they evacuate town. Attempting to ignore the persistent glow of her minivan’s check engine light, Ramona navigates police checkpoints, bathroom emergencies, instructions from her boss, and torrential downpours while fielding calls and apology texts from her cheating husband and longing for the days when her life was like a Prince song, full of sexy creativity and joy.
About the author:
Carolyn Prusa has written all sorts of things, from essays to articles to product descriptions of zebra print ponchos, which have appeared in the Charlotte Observer, Greensboro News and Record, Go Triad, Savannah Magazine, South Magazine, and Savannah News and Record. None of This Would Happened is her technically her third novel.
She is delighted by Southern women, giant pandas, awkward conversations, Legs-Up-the-Wall pose, pies with graham cracker crust, insulting greeting cards, lip balm, Stacy Abrams, the em dash, Mike’s Hot Honey, and many, many other things.
She lives in Savannah, Georgia, with her two sons, husband, and enormous wookie rescue pup, Dale. So, surrounded by dudes.
Join Food Network star Kardea Brown, Thurs., Oct. 27 at 5:30 pm for a release party for her brand-new cookbook, The Way Home: A Celebration of Sea Islands Food and Family with Over 100 Recipes (Amistad, hb., 300 pp, $35).
NOTES:
Click here to order a signed copy of The Way Home.
About the book:
The breakout star of Food Network’s hit show Delicious Miss Brown celebrates the Gullah/Geechee culinary traditions of her family in this spectacular cookbook featuring 125 original mouthwatering recipes and gorgeous four-color photos.
In The Way Home, her first cookbook, Kardea shares her multi-generational “passed down” recipes and innovative takes on Gullah classics with home cooks everywhere. “Gullah” and “GeeChee” refer to a distinct group of African Americans living in the coastal areas of South Carolina and Georgia who have preserved much of their West African language, culture, and cuisine. The Way Home is an unabashed love letter to her family’s roots, packed with dishes that combine West African herbs, spices, and grains with traditional Southern cooking. “Gullah people laid the foundation for Southern cooking. Before farm-to-table was a fad, it was what Gullah people did,” Kardea explains. “I want to show the world that soul food is not monolithic. It’s so much more than fried chicken and vegetables cooked in pork. It’s seasonal, fresh and delicious! ”
About the author:
In April 2015, Kardea Brown made a leap of faith, quitting her job as a social worker in New Jersey to pursue a career in the food industry. She opened the New Gullah Supper Club, a restaurant and social destination centered around the food she grew up eating at her grandmother’s house on South Carolina’s Wadmalaw Island. After an appearance on Food Network, Kardea caught the attention of executives at the cooking channel and over the course of nearly four hardworking years became a star—sparring with chefs on hit shows like Beat Bobby Flay and hosting Cupcake Championship. Viewers fell in love with her Southern warmth, love of family, and awe-inspiring New Gullah meals, and Kardea quickly landed her own show, the top-rated Delicious Miss Brown.
On Weds., Oct. 19, 5:30 pm, join journalist John Torry in conversation with historian James Scott on Torry’s newest work of military history, The Last One Out: Yates McDaniel, World War II’s Most Daring Reporter (Schiffer Military, hb., 256 pp., $30).
About the book:
When Yates McDaniel died in Florida in 1983, few outside his family paid much attention. The only hint of his fame came in a brief obituary buried on the inside pages of the New York Times. The obit suggested bravery and a past far more exciting than almost anyone knew. Even those who worked alongside him in the 1960s at the Associated Press were startled to learn what McDaniel had been, what he had done when he was a young man and the world was at war. Yet, this remarkable reporter covered more of the Asian war than anyone else—from the savage Japanese assault on Nanking in 1937 to the fall of Singapore in 1942 to landing with US Marines on New Britain in 1943. He took risks no other reporter ever accepted, and colleagues joked that Japanese bombers followed him wherever he went.
About the author:
Jack Torry is the former Washington bureau chief for the Columbus Dispatch. The Last One Out is his third book.
Thurs., Oct. 6, 5:30 pm, join former College of Charleston professor Brandon Rushton and current University of South Carolina professor Samuel Amadon for a night of poetry. Rushton will be reading from his new book The Air in the Air Behind It (Tupelo, pb., 116 pp., $21.95). Amadon will be reading from Often, Common, Some, and Free (Omnidawn, pb., 80 pp., $17.95)
Brandon Rushton was born and raised in Michigan. A recipient of awards from Gulf Coast and Ninth Letter, his poems appear widely in publications like The Southern Review, Denver Quarterly, Pleiades, Bennington Review, and Passages North. His essays have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review and the critical anthology, A Field Guide to the Poetry of Theodore Roethke. After earning his MFA from the University of South Carolina, he joined the writing faculty at the College of Charleston. In the fall of 2020, he began as a Visiting Professor of Writing at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. With Josh English, he co-founded the poetry journal Oxidant | Engine.
Samuel Amadon is the author of Often, Common, Some, And Free (Omnidawn, 2021), Listener (Solid Objects, 2020), The Hartford Book (Cleveland State, 2012), winner of the Believer Poetry Book Award, and Like a Sea (Iowa, 2010), winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, Poetry, American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, Lana Turner, and elsewhere. He is the author of four chapbooks, including Each H from Ugly Duckling Presse. He regularly reviews poetry in places such as The Believer, Boston Review, Lana Turner: a journal of poetry and opinion, and Rain Taxi. He edits the poetry journal Oversound with Liz Countryman, and directs the MFA Program at the University of South Carolina.
Brandon Rushton
Samuel Amadon
Renowned silhouette artist Clay Rice returns to Blue Bicycle Books, Wed., Aug. 24, 3 – 6 pm to cut children’s silhouettes.
Taught by his grandfather, Carew Rice, Clay is a 21st-century folk artist and a Lowcountry treasure. Cutting a child’s silhouette in under five minutes is a performance in itself. You’ll be amazed when he captures a recognizable profile of your squirming two-year-old in less time than it takes to get her shoes on. His national touring schedule keeps him on the road often, cutting more than 10,000 children’s silhouettes a year, so events back home in Charleston are rare!
Personal silhouettes start at $48 for two copies.
We expect slots to fill up quickly; to book an appointment, just register here!
Sat., June 4, 5 pm, Piccolo Fiction presented by Blue Bicycle Books.
Blue Bicycle Books, 420 King Street. Free and open to the public. 843-722-2666.
The festival’s longest-running event exclusively devoted to fiction, Piccolo Fiction presents local and South Carolina authors reading brief short stories. This year’s reading will be in the courtyard beside the bookstore, and, following tradition, each story will begin with the words “I ducked into the alley…”
Since 2000, Piccolo Fiction has featured dozens of S.C. writers, with stories broadcast by S.C. Public Radio and published in the Charleston City Paper.
Featured authors:
Paul Bowers is a writer, devoted trophy husband, and father of three living in North Charleston. A former reporter for The Post and Courier and Charleston City Paper, he now writes a weekly newsletter on education policy, class warfare, and Brutalist architecture, available at brutalsouth.substack.com.
Melissa Falcon Field was born in Hartford, Conn. A former Teach for America instructor and curriculum writer, she is a graduate of the University of Maine at Farmington has an MFA from Texas State University, where she received the Katherine Anne Porter Writer-in-Residence Award. She is the author of What Burns Away (Sourcebooks, 2015).
Jonathan Sanchez is the owner of Blue Bicycle Books and the director of YALLFest, Charleston’s young adult book festival. He also leads a popular summer writing camp. Recent publications include Mockingbird and State of the Heart: South Carolina Writers on the Places They Love.
Sean A. Scapellato is a writer of fiction and essays, a former creative writing teacher at Charleston County School of the Arts, and now a lawyer in Charleston. He is an adviser to the South Carolina Writers Association board of directors.
Join journalist and historian Chris Lamb Sat. June 11 at 1 pm for a signing of his newest book, Stolen Dreams: The 1955 Cannon Street All-Stars and Little League Baseball’s Civil War (University of Nebraska, hb, 392 pp., $34.95).
About the book:
Stolen Dreams by Dr. Chris Lamb is the story of how a seemingly mild act of protest became part of a much bigger struggle for racial equality during the early years of the Civil Rights Movement. The Cannon Street YMCA All-Stars was South Carolina’s first Black Little League team, its charter approved in 1953. To the young boys in the league it meant they could play on a real field, with real uniforms and equipment. But it meant more than that to the team’s founder, Robert Morrison. He dreamed that the team could become a vehicle for change–if youth baseball could be integrated, so could other institutions.
When the 11- and 12-year-olds registered for a tournament in July 1955, it became clear just how hard that change might come. White teams refused to take the field with the Cannon Street team. Segregationists denied the boys their dream of playing in the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. The Cannon Street all-stars spent decades trying to forget that day. It would not be clear to them until they were middle-aged men that they were part of something much larger.
Although the core of this book is about that team and the discovery of their heartbreaking story, the book also offers a broader examination of how the Civil Rights Movement began in South Carolina, about the centuries of bigotry in the South and how it shaped the city of Charleston and its people, from its horrific roots in the 1600s to the murders at Mother Emanuel AME Church in 2015.
About the author:
Chris Lamb is chair of the Journalism and Public Relations department at Indiana University-Indianapolis. He’s an author, historian, lecturer, satirist, and columnist. Lamb is the author of 11 books, including two that were published in 2020 (The Art of the Political Putdown: The Greatest Comebacks, Ripostes, and Retorts in History and Sports Journalism: A History of Glory, Fame, and Technology. He’s written extensively on sports, race, and media. Before becoming a college professor, he worked for newspapers and magazines. Since becoming a professor, he’s written about 250 articles and columns for such publications as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Sports Illustrated, Los Angeles Times, ESPN.com, and Christian Science Monitor.
Join chef, cookbook author, and YouTube personality, Carla Lalli Music, Thurs., Apr. 21 at 5:30 pm for a talk and signing for That Sounds So Good: 100 Real-Life Recipes for Every Day of the Week (Clarkson Potter, 288 pp., $35). She’ll be in conversation with Charleston writer Merritt Watts.
About the book:
Great food is an achievable part of every day, no matter how busy you are; the key is to have go-to recipes for every situation and for whatever you have on hand. The recipes in That Sounds So Good are split between weekday and weekend cooking. When time is short, turn to quick stovetop suppers, one-pot meals, and dinner salads. And for the weekend, lean into lazy lunches, simmered stews, and hands-off roasts.
Carla’s dishes are as inviting and get-your-attention-good as ever. All the recipes—such as Fat Noodles with Pan-Roasted Mushrooms and Crushed Herb Sauce or Chicken Legs with Warm Spices—come with multiple ingredient swaps and suggestions, so you can make each one your own. That Sounds So Good shows Carla at her effortless best, and shows how you can be, too.
About the author:
Carla Lalli Music is the James Beard Award-winning author of Where Cooking Begins (a national bestseller) and the host of Carla’s Cooking Show on Patreon. The former food director at Bon Appétit, Carla is known for anchoring the hit YouTube series, “Back to Back Chef,” and has appeared in many BA test kitchen videos. Her second cookbook, That Sounds So Good, was published in October 2021. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, children, and backyard wood-burning oven.
