with Michele Norris • Grown Woman Talk

“Dr. Sharon Malone is one of the smartest, funniest, and most charismatic women I know.”—Michelle Obama. 

A leading expert on women’s health, Sharon Malone, M.D., joins us to discuss Grown Woman Talk. This New York Times bestseller dives into what we’re not talking about as women: our health. Inspired by questions her friends and family have asked her, Dr. Malone shows us that we’re in charge of our own health—not anyone else! She also shares how we can advocate for ourselves and march to the beat of our own drum (or in her case, her custom playlist!).

Sharon Malone will be in conversation with journalist and broadcaster, Michele Norris.

with Edoardo Ballerini • Roman Year: A Memoir

Award-winning author of Call Me by Your Name, André Aciman revisits Rome in a memoir that reads like a novel. On the cusp of adulthood, Aciman and his family were expelled from their hometown, Alexandria, Egypt, for being Jewish. In the book, Aciman describes his experience in the “Eternal City.” Woven into Aciman’s amusing style is a story of trauma and displacement.

He will be in conversation with world-class audiobook narrator, Edoardo Ballerini, who performs the voice of André Aciman in Roman Year.

with Judith Thurman • The Iliad

Emily Wilson, Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, discusses her “sparkling and buoyant” translation of The Iliad (New York Times).

This effervescent version—a vivid retelling of Homer’s great war story for modern times—conveys the timeless battlefield epic’s emotional impact. Named one of the best books of 2023 by The Guardian and The Washington Post, this contemporary translation has been lauded as a revelation and a cultural landmark.

Emily Wilson will be in conversation with New Yorker essayist and cultural critic,Judith Thurman.

with Bill Goldstein • The Bee Sting

Shortlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize. Paul Murray joins us from Ireland to discuss his novel The Bee Sting—a dazzling multi-generational family drama about a wealthy Irish family’s financial ruin. Told from multiple perspectives, we learn of the struggles of adolescence and the devastating effects of secrets—set against concerns of climate change. The Bee Sting was a New York Times top ten Book of the Year for 2023, and has been featured in NewYorker, The Sunday Times, and The Washington Post. According to The Guardian, “It is a tragic-comic triumph. You won’t read a sadder, truer, funnier novel.”

Paul Murray will be in conversation with Bill Goldstein, author and interviewer with NBC’s Weekend Today.

with David Adams • Why We Remember

Professor Charan Ranganath, neuroscientist and psychologist, discusses groundbreaking new research that radically reframes how we think about memory and reveals the powerful role it plays in our lives, from recalling faces and names to learning, decision-making, and healing. “Not only will every reader remember better afterward, they’ll also never forget this life-changing book,”—Siddhartha Mukherjee. Professor Ranganath, who plays in punk bands when not studying the mind, will be in conversation with Dr. David Adams, Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Surgery MUSC. 

with Kerri Forrest • Our Hidden Conversations

From Michele Norris, award-winning journalist and the first African-American female host for NPR, is a profound project on race that began with a simple note on a card, “Race. Your Thoughts. Six Words. Please Send.” Over half a million people submitted their responses to what we now know as The Race Card Project. Her resulting book, Our Hidden Conversations, was a New York Times bestseller. Norris discusses her transformative national project on race and identity—a unique, moving compilation of personal stories, essays, and photographs providing a window into real-life experiences of race in the United States.  

with Georgina Godwin • This Strange Eventful History

Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2024. One of Oprah's most anticipated books of 2024, Claire Messud’s seventh novel traces three generations of an itinerant French family with roots in colonial Algeria. “One of those rare novels that a reader doesn’t merely read but lives through with the characters…”—Yiyun Li. Inspired by her the displacement of her own ancestors, the novel charts the odyssey of a family torn apart by war, politics, and religion. She discusses the joys and pitfalls that come from fictionalizing one’s own relatives with Monocle journalist and broadcaster Georgina Godwin. 

with Dominic Dromgoole • The Playbook

World-famous Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro joins us to discuss his vivid and stirring account of a 1930s culture war over the role of theater in American society. He recounts the 1935 foundation and 1938 demise of the Federal Theatre Project which toured groundbreaking productions across America, until it was finally destroyed by the head of the newly formed Un-American Activities Committee in 1939. He discusses the contemporary relevance of the radical project with Dominic Dromgoole, Former Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London, who staged Hamlet in every country of the world.

with Joan Robinson Berry • We Are the Leaders We Have Been Looking For

Eddie S. Glaude Jr. discusses his new book—a politically astute, lyrical meditation on how ordinary people can break loose from their reliance on a small group of professional politicians and assume individual responsibility for a more just and perfect democracy. The New York Times bestselling author and distinguished professor of African-American Studies at Princeton draws from the lives and work of James Baldwin, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Toni Morrison (among others) to inspire ordinary citizens towards greater social impact. 

with Bill Goldstein • Christopher Isherwood: Inside Out

Born the heir to a crumbling English estate, Christopher Isherwood, best remembered for his semi-autobiographical 1939 novel, Goodbye To Berlin, which inspired the musical Cabaret, died an icon of gay liberation in California. His 1964 novel, A Single Man, was made into a period romantic film by designer Tom Ford. He might also be known as the only person in recorded history who turned down an invitation to Truman Capote’s legendary 1966 Black and White Ball. Katherine Bucknell discusses Isherwood’s life and legacy with Bill Goldstein, author of the forthcoming biography of Larry Kramer.  

with Richard Brodhead • Yale and Slavery

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author of biography Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, David W. Blight, answers the call to investigate Yale University’s historical involvement with the slave trade and abolition. His findings take the form of a compelling narrative account of the role of slavery in the university’s past, based on the premise that the history of Yale is aligned with the history of the United States, and therefore American slavery. He considers the implications of his findings with Richard Brodhead, former Dean of Yale College and Emeritus President of Duke University. 

with Adam Gopnik • Alfred Dreyfus: The Man at the Center of the Affair

In France, 1894, Captain Alfred Dreyfus’s treason charge—for passing secret documents to the enemy—split the country, dividing families (including that of Proust), friends, and artists; such as Claude Monet, who was pro Dreyfus, and Paul Cézanne, who was anti. Emile Zola’s famous manifesto J’accuse was written to rally the country in favor of Dreyfus. Although Dreyfus was eventually exonerated when the true culprit confessed, the Dreyfus Affair’s repercussions continued to echo around the world. Maurice Samuels, Director of the Yale Program for the Study of Antisemitism, discusses the significance of the Dreyfus Affair with Adam Gopnik, New Yorker essayist and author. 

with Shane O’Reilly • The Friday Afternoon Club

An instant New York Times bestseller, Griffin Dunne discusses his warm, dramatic, and moving family story—full of twists and turns growing up among larger-than-life characters in Hollywood and Manhattan, including his Aunt Joan Didion and close friend Carrie Fisher. At the core of his memoir is the heart-breaking story of the murder of his younger sister and the controversial court case that followed. He will be in conversation with Irish actor and playwright Shane O’Reilly.

with Tonya Matthews • A Conversation With Nikki Giovanni

Nikki Giovanni is a generation-defining poet, writer, and activist renowned for her five-decade career creating evocative works exploring themes of social justice and love, while captivating audiences with her conviction, humor, and devotion to telling her truth as a Black woman. Charleston Literary Festival is collaborating with the International African American Museum (IAAM) demonstrating great alignment between the two organizations and their complementary missions to illuminate untold stories of the African American experience.

In this marquee event, Prof. Giovanni will be in conversation with Dr. Tonya Matthews, CEO of IAAM. This is an important opportunity for audiences to embrace a conversation with one of the most important poets of our time. Prof. Giovanni has been awarded 7 NAACP awards, a Grammy nomination, and was a finalist for the National Book Award. 

In collaboration with the International African American Museum (IAAM), made possible by the generosity of TD Bank

with Marjory Wentworth • Fortunate Travelers

Fellow poets, Kwame Dawes, current poet laureate of Jamaica, and Kimiko Hahn, distinguished Creative Writing & Literary Translation professor at Queens College, are in conversation discussing poetry with international themes. Dawes is the author of twenty books of poetry and numerous other books of fiction, criticism, and essays. His work often centers on his childhood and early adult life in Jamaica. The talk is moderated by former poet laureate to South Carolina, Marjory Wentworth.

with Geoffrey Harpham • The Last Days of Roger Federer

“I define retirement as the phase of life in which I will do nothing but watch tennis,” writes Geoff Dyer in The Last Days of Roger Federer. The book is his meditation on things coming to an end and an examination of the late achievements of a range of writers, painters, athletes and musicians. “Tennis, jazz, Dylan, movies, TV, drugs, Nietzsche, Beethoven. Geoff Dyer once again melds commentary and observation with intellect and wit.”—Steve Martin. He muses on last performances and last works, with plenty of lively detours along the way, together with Geoffrey Harpham, author of Citizenship on Catfish Row.

Live Theater Performance
by the american vicarious

To commemorate the centenary of the birth of James Baldwin, we re-create the legendary Cambridge University debate between two intellectual titans:

“The American Dream is at the expense of the American Negro,”—James Baldwin

Experience a live staging of the historic 1965 Cambridge Union debate, televised across the world, between James Baldwin, leading literary voice of the civil rights movement, and William F. Buckley Jr., the US’s most influential conservative intellectual.

Following the re-enactment, members of the audience will be invited to have their say regarding the contemporary relevance of the debate. Photo Credit: Ellie Kurttz

with Bilal Qureshi • Latinoland

Peruvian-American author and Former Literary Director of the Library of Congress, Marie Arana discusses her sweeping book Latinoland with broadcaster, editor and critic, Bilal Qureshi. Arana conducted hundreds of in-depth interviews about the fastest-growing minority group in the US. Her family arrived in Miami in the 1950s, back when Latinos officially made up 2 percent of the United States. That number is closer to 20 percent today, an enormous and increasing population that, despite being mostly Mexican American, is also growing in its diversity. A central tension of Latinoland is how to navigate these demographic differences while holding 60 million people to a single, collective identity.

with Monica Langley • The Wolves of K Street

On K Street, a few blocks from The White House, sit the offices of the most powerful men in Washington. Join brothers and co-authors Brody Mullins, an investigative reporter in the Washington, DC, bureau of The Wall Street Journal and Luke Mullins, a contributing writer at POLITICO magazine as they discuss their book The Wolves of K Street: The Secret History of How Big Money Took Over Big Government, a dazzling, yet infuriating, portrait of fifty years of corporate influence in the US capital. Brody and Luke will be in conversation with board member, Monica Langley, former EVP of Salesforce and former Wall Street Journal

with Anthony Varallo • All the Colors of the Dark

British author Chris Whitaker discusses his New York Times bestseller All the Colors of the Dark—a gripping thriller and love story that delves into the shadows of a small town, where secrets, betrayal, and haunting pasts converge in a tense, emotionally charged narrative of survival. A Read With Jenna book club pick, People magazine says it “melds tense suspense with a powerful exploration of devotion, obsession, and love.” Chris Whitaker will be in conversation with Anthony Varallo, Professor and Director of the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at College of Charleston.

with Dr. Tamara Butler • A Conversation With the Cato Fellows

Inaugural Charleston Literary Festival Cato Fellowship Prize winners, Latria Graham and Dasia Moore will take to the Dock Street Theatre stage to share their writing and participate in a facilitated discussion with Dr. Tamara Butler. Join us for a riveting conversation and reading to celebrate these two emerging voices in the southeast.

The Cato Fellowship Prize is awarded to two highly-skilled writers of fiction,creative nonfiction, or poetry who are resident in North or South Carolina. Writers receive a full residency in Charleston during the ten days of Charleston Literary Festival with full access to the Festival events, authors, and a writing desk in Dock Street Theatre as well as a cash prize of $7500. 

with Jennet Robinson Alterman • The Patriarchs

For centuries, societies have treated male domination as a natural state. Join Angela Saini, award-winning science journalist and lecturer in science writing at MIT, as she debunks this idea by exploring the roots and various iterations of patriarchy and shows how more equal societies are structured and flourish. Analyzing the latest research findings in science and archaeology, and tracing cultural and political histories from the Americas to Asia, she discusses why ideas about patriarchy are so difficult to dismantle with Jennet Robinson Alterman, women’s rights advocate. 

with Scott Denham • A Kafka Centenary Celebration

Charleston Literary Festival is honored to be featured as part of Kafka2024, a global Festival marking the centenary of Franz Kafka’s death. 

“A hundred insane years have passed since Franz succumbed to his suffering. Nevertheless, the fascination with what he created remains to this day. Explore his work with our help – regardless of whether you are already closely familiar with him or are still looking to get more familiar. Here we bridge the boundaries of space and time together.”—Kafka2024

A century from the author’s death, ‘Kafkaesque’ is an adjective, a meme, and a Simpson gag. International fascination with him shows no signs of abating: new translations of his Diaries and Short Stories just published in English, a TV serialization of his life produced in Germany, and a Polish director working on a biopic. Ross Benjamin, translator of The Diaries of Franz Kafka, and Mark Harman, translator of Kafka’s Selected Stories, will discuss Kafka’s surreal worlds and lasting impact.  

In collaboration with Kafka2024 (coordinated by the Adalbert Stifter Association and the Prague City Library) 

with Ann Close • Night Watch

Join Jayne Anne Phillips in conversation with her long-time editor at Knopf, Ann Close, on her haunting novel about a mother and daughter seeking refuge in the chaotic aftermath of the Civil War, whose perilous circumstances lead them to a lunatic asylum in West Virginia. With meticulous research, Phillips has conjured a mesmerizing portrait of family suffering and endurance against the odds. Jayne Anne Phillips is the author of two short story collections and six highly regarded novels. Dubbed "epic, enthralling, and meticulously crafted" by the Pulitzer panel, Night Watch won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

with Anne Blessing • The Sequel

Jean Hanff Korelitz discusses her latest novel, The Sequel, a gripping follow-up to The Plot (currently in development for a limited TV series). In what Stephen King describes as “insanely readable,” Korelitz continues the story of Anna Williams-Bonner, the widow of a successful writer who committed suicide and then goes on to become a bestseller, attracting nasty rumours about her past. Experience the psychological suspense and literary intrigue at the heart of this page-turning book that explores the nature of storytelling. She discusses her twisty new thriller with Anne Blessing, Charleston Literary Festival Board member.

with Autumn Phillips • Creation Lake

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2024. Join Rachel Kushner as she discusses her wickedly funny and unnerving book, Creation Lake. A reimagination of the spy novel, it explores environmental destruction and the complexities of survival in a rapidly changing world. The novel revolves around an unlikely female spy tasked with infiltrating a group of eco-activists in rural France, where she follows a trail from Neanderthals to modernity. “A novel this brilliant and profound shouldn’t be so much fun,”—Hernan Diaz. She discusses her novel of espionage and ideas with Autumn Philipps, Post and Courier Editor at Large. 

World Premiere Theater Performance

Starring Patrick Bringley
Directed by Dominic Dromgoole

The world premiere of the monologue play All The Beauty In The World by Patrick Bringley is happening right here at the 2024 Charleston Literary Festival. Directed by Dominic Dromgoole, Former Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London, and produced by Charleston Literary Festival, with the help of Spoleto Festival USA, the play is a story of grief, healing, and the power of art. Prepare to be moved, enthralled, entertained, and enlightened. Say you saw it at the Charleston Literary Festival first, as we hope it will tour the world, like Dominic Dromgoole’s production of Hamlet. 

Film Screening • Directed by John Crowley, Written by Nick Hornby

Starring Saorise Ronan, Emory Cohen, Domhnall Gleeson, Jim Broadbent and Julie Walters

Brooklyn, adapted from Colm Tóibín’s novel, follows Eilis Lacey, an Irish immigrant in 1950s New York, as she navigates homesickness, love, and identity. Torn between two countries and two lives, she ultimately must choose one path forward.

The film won the BAFTA Award for Best British Film 2015, and was nominated for three Academy Awards.

with Bilal Qureshi • Long Island

Celebrated author Colm Tóibín, currently Laureate for Irish Fiction, discusses his latest novel, Long Island, a sequel to his award-winning novel Brooklyn, which reunites the reader with Eilis Lacey in the 1970s, as she returns to Ireland and tries to reconcile lost love with current reality. Set mainly in Enniscorthy, the small town in Ireland where Colm Tóibín was born and still has a home, the novel foregrounds some of the minor characters in Brooklyn. He discusses the themes of abandonment, loss, lust and denial in the novel with Bilal Qureshi, broadcaster, editor and critic. 

with Patrick Bringley • Get The Picture

An instant New York Times bestseller, join Bianca Bosker as she plunges deep inside the world of art and the people who live for it: gallerists, collectors, curators and, of course, artists themselves—the kind who work multiple jobs and let their paintings sleep soundly in the studio while they wake up covered in cat pee on a friend's couch. Bosker details her experiences stretching canvases until her fingers blister, attending A-list parties full of billionaire art collectors, and staring at a single sculpture for an hour straight while working as a museum security guard—all on a journey to discover why art matters and what it does for us. From ancient cave paintings to Instagram posts, Bianca Bosker will discuss art and its role in our lives with her friend, author and former museum guard at The Met, Patrick Bringley. 

with Regina Marler • Shakespeare's Sisters

Ramie Targoff, Professor of Humanities at Brandeis University, presents her ground-breaking book, Shakespeare's Sisters. This illuminating work uncovers and celebrates the overlooked lives and contributions of women writers in Shakespeare’s era, offering fresh insights into their impact on literature and the challenges they faced and surmounted. Taking her cue from Virginia Woolf’s famous essay, A Room of One’s Own, Targoff refutes Woolf’s argument that the voice of Shakespeare’s mythical sister would have been suppressed. Ramie Targoff will be in conversation with Regina Marler, editor of The Letters of Vanessa Bell (Virginia Woolf's sister).

with Regina Marler • Biography of X

Biography of X, named one of The Great American Novels by The Atlantic, and “a Russian Doll of a book” by the Financial Times, is a novel disguised in biographical form. When “X”, an iconoclastic artist dies suddenly, her grief stricken widow begins to realize how little she knew the woman she loves. Together with Regina Marler, New York Review of Books essayist, she discusses whether an artist’s story can ever be truly known, and how our own stories impact our experience of art.

with Emmeline Clein • Piglet

As Piglet takes on the task of preparing an elaborate dessert for her wedding day, she is face with the fact that, just days before the ceremony, her fiancé confesses to a terrible secret. Lottie Hazell joins us to discuss her stunning, delicious début Piglet with literary critic Emmeline Clein. The pair will dive into the luscious world of Piglet and tease out the commentary that the novel has on our relationships with food, diet culture, and questions about what women are allowed to have an appetite for.

with Dr. Jeannelle Perkins • The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

Deesha Philyaw joins us to discuss her acclaimed story collection, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies. These nine stories explore the inner lives of Black women—often caught between their religious upbringing and their personal desires. The collection highlights perceived tensions between tradition and freedom, creating a powerful and nuanced exploration of Black womanhood and spirituality. Deesha Philyaw will be in conversation with Jeannelle Perkins, a psychotherapist and licensed family therapist who specializes in intimacy in Black relationships. 

with Kim Cliett Long • Master Slave Husband Wife

This event is our 3rd annual CHARLESTON READS! program: a city-wide reading initiative run in tandem with the Mayor’s Book Club. 

Winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Biography. This year’s Festival will see Ilyon Woo appear in conversation about her novel Master Slave Husband Wife—winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Biography—in a historic location with deep significance, The Dock Street Theatre. Woo's book is the true story of Ellen and William Craft who pulled off one of the most dramatic escapes in US history by performing, in broad daylight, as master and slave. In 1848, the couple fled in the early hours of the morning by train from Macon to Savannah, where they boarded a steamship bound for Charleston, South Carolina. In Charleston, they stayed the night at the Planter’s Hotel, which today is the Dock Street Theatre. So, we will listen to the couple’s story in the exact building where they were hiding in plain sight 176 years ago. 

Live Theater Performance • Second Performance

Starring Patrick Bringley
Directed by Dominic Dromgoole

Experience the monologue play All The Beauty In The World by Patrick Bringley. Directed by Dominic Dromgoole, Former Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London, and produced by Charleston Literary Festival, with the help of Spoleto Festival USA, the play is a story of grief, healing, and the power of art. Prepare to be moved, enthralled, entertained, and enlightened. Say you saw it at the Charleston Literary Festival first, as we hope it will tour the world, like Dominic Dromgoole’s production of Hamlet.