A Triumphant Return for Authors in the Round
After a four-year absence, the Authors in the Round dinner, which serves as a kickoff to Humanities Tennessee’s Southern Festival of Books, returned to War Memorial Auditorium. The evening was a huge success thanks to the guidance of a talented quartet of chairs. Jay Joyner and Mary Spalding were already tapped to chair the 2020 event, and they brought on Mary Jo Shankle and Tori Wimberly to make it a spectacular comeback.
The fall night was perfect for cocktails on the plaza. While Victory watched over the crowd, guests kept their eyes out for their favorite authors among the 40 participating that night. Familiar faces in the crowd included local legends Mary Laura Philpott and Margaret Renkl; literary giants Ada Calhoun, Joshua Cohen and Andrew Sean Green; and screen star and children’s author Diane Kruger. After meeting as many writers as possible, everyone was excited to find out which one they would be seated with at dinner — something always kept a secret until the night of.
The co-chairs dreamed up a whimsical bookish décor, and Tori, a self-described “tabletop diva,” embraced the theme with her usual flair. Guest were handed tiny composition notebooks with their table assignments, and in lieu of flowers, tables were adorned with books and silver trays holding scads of pencils and erasers. Also topping the tables were copies of that particular author’s book as a souvenir of the party.
Emcee Jeremy Finley, WSMV4 investigative reporter and author, and Humanities Tennessee Executive Director Tim Henderson said a few words of welcome before everyone enjoyed a delicious, seasonal dinner provided by the Clean Plate Club. The lively conversations began to wind down as authors headed back to their hotel rooms to get ready for the Southern Festival of Books, the oldest literary festival in the country. If the return of Authors in the Round was any indication, the weekend ahead promised to be equally successful.
