Story Sessions: Tayari Jones and ZZ Packer

Tayari Jones and ZZ Packer are coming to the King-Seabrook Chapel at Huston-Tillotson University on Thursday, September 10, for a conversation about the power of stories. It's part of Story Sessions, a literary series put on by American Short Fiction that brings authors together for a freewheeling discussion about how we tell stories and why we share them. This is the third installment of the series.

Jones is an internationally best-selling novelist whose novels and essays look at family, friendship, and what it means to be a girl and a woman in the American South. Her novel Kin was chosen for Oprah's Book Club, and Essence has called her one of the most important voices of her generation. ZZ Packer's fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, and The New York Times Magazine, among many other publications. She wrote Drinking Coffee Elsewhere and has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a National Book Award 5 Under 35 prize; she also teaches writing at Vanderbilt University.

If you're coming for the books, First Light Books—a community bookstore in Hyde Park—will be selling them onsite. The event is free and open to the public, and ASL interpretation is provided. It runs from 6 PM to 8 PM at the King-Seabrook Chapel, 900 Chicon, on the Huston-Tillotson campus. Space is limited, so you'll need to RSVP to get in.