Friday, October 24, 3:00 p.m.
Author of The Story of Land and Sea
First-time novelist and Jackson native Katy Simpson Smith will read and discuss The Story of Land and Sea, which chronicles three generations of North Carolinians around the time of the Revolutionary War to tell the tale of Helen and her privateer husband, as well as Helen’s uneasy relationship with her slave, Moll, as well as the stories of Helen’s father Asa and her daughter Tabitha, whose bout with Yellow Fever serves as the crisis that launches one of several interwoven journeys. The Oxford American calls the novel “a memorable debut, rich with small, sharp moments of observation and understanding” and Vogue predicts it will be the "debut of the year."
Simpson Smith also serves as one of the judges of the first Ephemera Prize for High School Writers. The prize will be awarded following her and Derrick Harriell's readings.
