Taylor Books offers many free events like author talks, book launches, art gallery receptions, beginner friendly craft workshops like Drink and Draw, and live music on Friday and Saturday evenings.
Events Calendar
Author Event with Beth Howard
Join author Beth Howard as she discusses her book Song for a Hard-Hit People, out this spring from Haymarket Books. Following the event, Howard will be available to sign her book.
From the publisher:
In Song for a Hard-Hit People, Beth Howard shares her story of growing up in Appalachian Kentucky—the economic struggles, trauma, and ever-present sexism along with the loving care of her close-knit rural community. These complex people shaped Howard’s sense of justice and solidarity, and taught her about the inextricable bonds working-class people share, despite our differences. But her childhood also left her with emotional wounds that threatened to destroy the life she built for herself. While healing her wounds is deeply personal, there’s no separating it from the people and place that made her.
Appalachia is often framed as a place to escape from, where people are hateful, lazy, and bring tragedy upon themselves. But in her quest to understand her home and her people, Howard uncovers the powerful history of white Appalachians fighting alongside Black and Brown people, pushing back against billionaires who gain power by using racism to divide them. Appalachia, she realizes, has not only been hit hard; it is the place to wage a freedom struggle.
Too many of us are denied the basic necessities of life: somewhere decent to live, good food to eat, health care that doesn’t break the bank, jobs that don’t kill us. As Howard reminds us, we haven’t got a chance—unless we organize.
In the midst of divisive rhetoric, violent repression, and grifters writing elegies, may this story be a song.
Author Event with Andrew Moore
Join author Andrew Moore as he discusses his newest book, The Beasts of the East: The Fall and Rise of America's Eastern Wilderness.
"A fresh and fascinating portrait of the eastern wilds, The Beasts of the East is a celebration of the extraordinary lost natural wonder of the eastern U.S.—an astonishingly abundant landscape that was once the center of American wildness before its despoliation—and a revelatory journey through recent efforts to return elk, bison, wolves, and other creatures to their native landscapes."
Following the discussion, Moore will be available to sign copies of his book.
Author Event with Pamela Steele
Join author Pamela Steele as she discusses her new novel, In the Fields of Fatherless Children. Following the event, Steele will be available to sign her book.
“In late 1960s Appalachia, many things loom darkly over June Branham: the Vietnam War is dividing the country, and a strip mine is eating away the mountain at the head of the holler where she lives, threatening the natural landscape and the only way of life she has ever known. While still in high school, June has fallen in love. She is pregnant, and the father may be Ellis Akers. Ellis is the son of Solomon, a mortal enemy of June's stepfather, Isom. The feud is so old it fuels two vengeful men with the power of long animosity between rival families.
June's brother, Tom, leaves to enlist in the war, and so does Ellis. Suddenly, June is on her own, at sixteen with a newborn, and is a mother unable to protect her daughter from the wrath of Isom. Without warning, her baby is kidnapped. Guided by her love for the generations of women before her, but now desperately alone, June must carefully navigate the search for her child alongside family and strangers in a wild and disappearing landscape.”
Dialogue on Shifting Power in Rural America
Using the newly published, Power and Just Transitions: Struggles for a Post-Coal Future in an Appalachian Valley, as a starting point, the discussion will focus on West Virginia’s lived experience: the enduring influence of the coal industry, shifting political dynamics, the rise of Trumpism, investigative journalism’s role in exposing corporate power, and emerging grassroots efforts to build more equitable and sustainable futures.
We are thrilled to welcome four featured panelists:
-Ken Ward Jr., Founding Editor-in-Chief and President of Mountain State Spotlight and long-time environment and energy reporter
-Barbara Ellen Smith, scholar-activist who focuses on labor, race and gender in Appalachia and the U.S. South
-John Gaventa, political sociologist and engaged scholar and author of Power and Just Transitions: Struggles for a post-coal future in an Appalachian Valley
-Gabe Schwartzman, Assistant professor in the Department of Geography and Sustainability at the University of Tennessee who studies climate change, rural development, and the energy transition
