Literary Fair

The Johns Creek Literary Fair will feature keynote author Rick Bragg, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, acclaimed journalist and bestselling author of 11 nonfiction books. Bragg will be in conversation with Brian Panowich, award-winning Georgia-based author of four novels. They will be joined by numerous local, regional and nationally known writers speaking throughout the afternoon, which will kick off with lunch with 20 local authors.

The event will be held rain or shine!

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Date & Time

Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024
Noon to 5 p.m. Rain or Shine!

Location

Newtown Park
3150 Old Alabama Road
Johns Creek, GA 30022

Cost

Free to attend!

Keynote Author

Rick bragg image — **Keynote Author Rick Bragg**

Rick Bragg, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and acclaimed author whose many New York Times bestsellers include “All Over but the Shoutin’,” and, most recently, “The Speckled Beauty” will be in conversation with author Brian Panowich.

Rick Bragg is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, acclaimed writer and bestselling author of 11 nonfiction books, including, most recently, The Speckled Beauty: A Dog and His People, Lost and Found. Lauded as one of the most distinctive, illustrative storytellers in American literature for more than three decades, Bragg began his career at newspapers before writing nearly a dozen books and penning columns in magazines including Southern Living and Garden & Gun. His first book, the national bestseller All Over but the Shoutin’, has become something of an anthem for the people of the mountain South, and it is that regard, more than any award he has won, he says he holds most dear. The book tells Bragg’s story of being raised by a single mother who worked as a maid and picked cotton to hold her family together. He has often said he climbed up his mother’s backbone to escape the future he seemed predestined to live. In 1996, while on staff at The New York Times, Bragg won a Pulitzer Prize for “elegantly written stories on contemporary America.” Many other awards followed, as have numerous New York Times bestsellers, including Ava’s Man, Prince of Frogtown, The Best Cook in the World and The Speckled Beauty. For nearly 20 years, he has been the Clarence Cason Professor of Writing at the University of Alabama. For the past 10, he has cared for his mother on their farm in Alabama. “I do the same thing I did 50 years ago,” Bragg has said. “I haul feed and fertilizer, and burn brush, and shoot water moccasins. The only difference is, I have a slightly better pickup truck to do it in.”

The event will feature a renowned panel of lawyers-turned-authors – “Legal Eagles with Scribe Vibes.”

Books by Rick Bragg

Brian Panowich

Panowich author photo — **Brian Panowich**

Brian Panowich is a Georgia-based author who has topped the best thriller list on Apple iBooks, was placed in the top 20 best books on Amazon and went on to win the International Thriller Writers Award for Best First Novel, as well as the Southern Book Prize for Best Mystery. He has also been nominated for the Barry Award, the Anthony Award, the Georgia Townsend Book Prize, and was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize. His first novel, Bull Mountain, was also selected for the coveted Books All Georgians Should Read list by the Georgia Center of the Book, and has been the recipient of several foreign press awards. Brian’s sophomore novel, Like Lions, earned him The Georgia Author of the Year Award for Best Mystery, and his next, Hard Cash Valley, was released in April 2020 to critical and commercial acclaim and was named one of the top 10 best crime novels of the year by The New York Times. Nothing but the Bones, released in April, is his fourth novel.

‘Legal Eagles with Scribe Vibes’ Panel

C. Matthew Smith, Moderator

C. Matthew Smith is an attorney and author of the novel Twentymile as well as short stories that have appeared in numerous outlets, including Mystery Tribune, Mystery Weekly, Close to the Bone and Mickey Finn: 21st Century Noir Vol. 3 (Down & Out Books). He’s a member of Sisters in Crime and the Atlanta Writers Club.

Lo Patrick

Lo Patrick is a former lawyer and current novelist. She grew up outside Atlanta before going to Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. She remained in L.A. for seven years, where she was a concert promoter, model booker and musician before eventually leaving and attending law school at University of Miami. She graduated magna cum laude, began writing and moved back to Georgia, where she lives with her husband and two children. The Floating Girls was her debut novel. Her second, The Night the River Wept, was released in July.

Michael L. Thurmond

Georgia Trend, Michael Thurmond — **Michael Thurmond**

Michael L. Thurmond is the chief executive officer of DeKalb County, Georgia. He is the author of James Oglethorpe, Father of Georgia: A Founder’s Journey from Slave Trader to Abolitionist, Freedom: Georgia’s Antislavery Heritage, 1733–1865, and A Story Untold: Black Men and Women in Athens History. Thurmond has previously served in the Georgia legislature, as director of Georgia’s Division of Family and Children Services, Georgia labor commissioner, and as superintendent of DeKalb schools. In 1997, he became a distinguished lecturer at the University of Georgia’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government. He lives in Stone Mountain.

Deepa Varadarajan

Deepa Varadarajan is a writer and law professor. She grew up in Texas and is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and the Yale Law School. Her short fiction has appeared in the Georgia Review and Colorado Review, and her legal scholarship has appeared in the Yale Law Journal and many other publications. Her debut novel, Late Bloomers, published by Random House in May 2023, was selected as a Target Book Club Pick, a Lilly’s Library Pick, and a Real Simple Best Book of 2023. She lives in Atlanta with her husband and two children.