The "Joshilyn Jackson Reads" Series: Amy Jo Burns and Megha Majumdar
The Decatur Book Festival, A Cappella Books, and the Georgia Center for the Book welcome "Shiner" author Amy Jo Burns and "A Burning" author Megha Majumdar, who will discuss their extraordinary debut novels as part of the "Joshilyn Jackson Reads" virtual series.
Burns and Majumdar will appear live in conversation with Atlanta's own Joshilyn Jackson, the New York Times bestselling author of "The Almost Sisters" and "Never Have I Ever."
This event is free and open to the public. To attend, click the link below to register for the Crowdcast event:
A Cappella Books has copies of both titles available for pre-order online. Shipping, curbside pick-up, and local delivery options are available at checkout. Your book will arrive after the event.
Pre-order "Shiner"
Pre-order "A Burning"
About "Shiner"
An hour from the closest West Virginia mining town, fifteen-year-old Wren Bird lives in a cloistered mountain cabin with her parents. They have no car, no mailbox, and no visitors-except for her mother's lifelong best friend. Every Sunday, Wren's father delivers winding sermons in an abandoned gas station, where he takes up serpents and praises the Lord for his blighted white eye, proof of his divinity and key to the hold he has over the community, over Wren and her mother.
But over the course of one summer, a miracle performed by Wren's father quickly turns to tragedy. As the order of her world begins to shatter, Wren must uncover the truth of her father's mysterious legend and her mother's harrowing history and complex bond with her best friend. And with that newfound knowledge, Wren can imagine a different future for herself than she has been told to expect.
Rich with epic love and epic loss, and diving deep into a world that is often forgotten but still part of America, "Shiner" reveals the hidden story behind two generations' worth of Appalachian heartbreak and resolve. Amy Jo Burns brings us a smoldering, taut debut novel about modern female myth-making in a land of men-and one young girl who must ultimately open her eyes.
About Amy Jo Burns
Amy Jo Burns is the author of the memoir "Cinderland," and her novel Shiner is forthcoming from Riverhead Books. Her writing has appeared in The Paris Review Daily, Tin House, Good Housekeeping, Electric Literature, Literary Hub, Ploughshares, and the anthology Not That Bad.
About "A Burning"
Jivan is a Muslim girl from the slums, determined to move up in life, who is accused of executing a terrorist attack on a train because of a careless comment on Facebook. PT Sir is an opportunistic gym teacher who hitches his aspirations to a right-wing political party and finds that his own ascent becomes linked to Jivan's fall. Lovely--an irresistible outcast whose exuberant voice and dreams of glory fill the novel with warmth and hope and humor--has the alibi that can set Jivan free, but it will cost her everything she holds dear.
Taut, symphonic, propulsive, and riveting from its opening lines, A Burning has the force of an epic while being so masterfully compressed it can be read in a single sitting. Majumdar writes with dazzling assurance at a breakneck pace on complex themes that read here as the components of a thriller: class, fate, corruption, justice, and what it feels like to face profound obstacles and yet nurture big dreams in a country spinning toward extremism. An extraordinary debut.
About Megha Majumdar
Megha Majumdar was born and raised in Kolkata, India. She moved to the United States to attend college at Harvard University, followed by graduate school in social anthropology at Johns Hopkins University. She works as an editor at Catapult and lives in New York City. "A Burning" is her first book.
