Craft your summer reading list for fall’s Charleston Literary Festival

The annual Charleston Literary Festival returns November 1-10 at Dock Street Theatre with a diverse lineup of literary excellence, including two 2024 Pulitzer Prize winners and Oprah’s 2024 Book Club Pick author, Colm Tóibín.

Announced today are the first 14 writers of the lineup, which festival director Sarah Moriarty said reflects the festival’s goal to showcase diverse and international perspectives.

“In terms of being relevant to our modern audience, it’s important that we have Pulitzer Prize winners alongside the Oprah Book Club, for example,” Moriarty said. “Everyone on this lineup excels at literary craft. But it’s also important to us that we have something for everyone.”

Both of the 2024 fiction and nonfiction winners of the Pulitzer Prize will present in the 10-day festival: West Virginia native Jayne Anne Philips will discuss her novel Night Watch, a mother-daughter story set in an asylum in West Virginia around the time of the Civil War, and Korean-American author Ilyon Woo will discuss her winning biography, Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom.

Moriarty also highlighted Oprah’s Book Club pick of the year, Colm Tóibín, the laureate for Irish fiction with an international reputation for powerful emotional narratives. Tóibín will discuss his latest novel, Long Island, a sequel to his award-winning book, Brooklyn.

“Colm is a beautiful writer of literary fiction,” said Moriarty, who is an Irish native. “He’s compelling and compulsively readable.”

Something for everyone

Moriarty said today’s announcement gives a great map for planning the adventures of summer reading. Topics covered range widely, from stories of exile, to disordered eating, to culture wars and censorship.

“As book bans are on the rise in South Carolina, Charleston Literary Festival is committed to the free exchange of ideas and facilitating open conversations,” said the press release.

Moriarty advised readers to pick not only the topics and authors that are immediately intriguing, but also to read a book or two that covers something totally new.

“Say you see a nonfiction book about a culture war in the 1930s, and you think, this doesn’t sound like it’s for me, or even Marie Arana, the inaugural literary director of the Library of Congress,” as she discusses Latinoland, a sweeping yet personal overview of Latino identity drawn from hundreds of interviews and deep research. “It’s drawn from personal stories, which makes it so compelling.

“So I would say to people, take a little bit of a risk, lean out the window, because this program was created to be compulsive, necessary, exciting and relevant right now. So even if it’s something you would never normally read, pick it up, and you might surprise yourself.”

There’s great nonfiction speakers this year, like James Shapiro, one of the most important Shakespeare scholars in the United States, who uncovers the hidden roots of today’s culture wars and offers vital insights into the transformative power of art in his history of the Federal Theatre Project, The Playbook.

Or read Eddie S. Glaude Jr., a New York Times Bestselling author celebrated for his book, Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own who returns to the Festival to discuss his latest, We Are The Leaders We Have Been Looking For.

“If you’re feeling a little bit in despair before this election and you’re looking for inspiration, [Glaude] speaks to the fact that we can look inside ourselves to protect democracy.”

And in one of the most “dazzling literary debuts of the year,” Moriarty said, English writer Lottie Hazell joins the festival to talk about her sumptuous novel Piglet and how it deals with literary depictions of food and disordered eating. Hazell will converse with cultural critic Emmeline Clein, author of the acclaimed, generation-defining, Dead Weight: On Hunger, Harm and Disordered Eating.

“For a page turner, read Hazell’s Piglet. It’s one of the best books I’ve read this year. Her research is in literary representations of food and culture in literature. Piglet is a thriller essentially about a woman processing a terrible secret and how it relates to her relationship with food. It talks about what women are allowed to have appetites for.”

Meanwhile Klein’s Dead Weight takes the conversation into a relevant cultural critique of women’s bodies in the media. “She writes about Skims and the Kardashians; about how women relate to food from a nonfiction essay perspective. Those writers in conversation will be really fascinating.”

Community partnerships continue

For the second year running, Charleston Literary Festival is partnering with the International African American Museum. This year’s collaboration sees the Festival and IAAM welcoming literary and cultural icon, poet Nikki Giovanni.

Giovanni’s poetry became the voice of many African Americans in the 1960s and 1970s, Moriarty said, and the partnership reflects the festival’s mission to illuminate untold stories.

“We’re deeply connected to the history of Charleston and the evolution of Charleston as a vibrant cultural arts city. To have the opportunity to host Nikki Giovanni at Charleston Literary Festival, a world class festival in downtown Charleston with an international edge and an emphasis on excellence, it just makes so much sense.”

And the four-year long partnership with the College of Charleston speaks to the festival’s aims for accessibility.

“To be plugged into the university is absolutely key,” Moriarty said. The partnership sees discounted tickets for students and faculty, internships and seminars at the College from these world-renowned authors.