If you go
› What: Claire Vaye Watkins in South Bound: Distinguished Lectures series.› When: 6 p.m. today, April 21 (cocktail reception at 5 p.m. for VIP ticketholders).› Where: The Arts Building, 301 E. 11th St.› Admission: $15 general admission, $25 VIP (includes cocktail reception, reserved seating and fast-track superpowers at the book signing), $5 students.› Phone: 423-267-1218.› Website: SouthernLitAlliance.org.
Author Claire Vaye Watkins, whose “Gold Fame Citrus” has been described as “a tour-de-force first novel,” will deliver a South Bound lecture tonight, April 21, for the Southern Lit Alliance.
VIP ticketholders may attend a cocktail reception at 5 p.m. before the general-admission reading and book signing at 6 p.m.
“Gold Fame Citrus” is Watkins’ second book but first novel. An earlier collection of short stories, “Battleborn,” won The Story Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize, New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award, the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a Silver Pen Award from the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame.
“Gold Fame Citrus” is set in the American West in a not-too-distant future decimated by drought and ruled by chaos. Watkins’ focus is on two survivors, Luz and Ray, the toddler they kidnap and the perilous trek that takes them across the growing sea of sand in hopes of finding a better life back East. In this environmental disaster, caused by pollution and greed, the characters’ precarious future mirrors our own.
A Guggenheim Fellow, Watkins is on the faculty of the Helen Zell Writers Program at the University of Michigan. She is also the co-director, with Derek Palacio, of the Mojave School, a free creative writing workshop for teenagers in rural Nevada. During her time in Chattanooga, she will visit with students at Sequoyah High School.