British crime novelist Elizabeth George to headline 2024 Southern Voices festival

by

Elizabeth George, a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of 20 British crime novels, will be the headline speaker for the 2024 Southern Voices festival at the Hoover Public Library.

The festival is scheduled for Feb. 18-24, and George’s talk will take place in the Hoover Library Theatre on Friday, Feb. 23, at 7 p.m. and will be followed by a book signing and catered reception in the Library Plaza upstairs.

The Saturday authors conference, scheduled from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Feb. 24, will kick off with historical fiction writer Kate Quinn and also include Yasmin Angoe, John Archibald, Kim Cross, Kristin Harmel, Daniel Nayeri and Kenan Orhan.

This year, the festival kicks off a little earlier than usual with the musical act performing on the previous Sunday, Feb. 18, instead of in the middle of the week. Power ballad and rock star John Waite is scheduled to perform two concerts at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m., both of which have already sold out.

The festival also features artist Katie Baldwin, an associate professor of art at the University of Alabama at Huntsville who has been an artist in residence in Scotland, Iceland, Nicaragua, Poland, Cuba, Mexico and Japan. Baldwin will give a free lecture at 5:45 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 20, followed by a catered reception with wine and hors d’oeuvres.

Carrie Steinmehl, the Hoover Public Library’s assistant director and chairwoman of the Southern Voices festival in recent years, said George is her favorite author and she has read just about everything George has written, except her nonfiction books on writing. Steinmehl tried to book George in a previous year but was unable to make it work.

“The stars aligned this year,” Steinmehl said. “The day I found out she was coming, there were tears coming down my face. I literally cried.”

Steinmehl said whenever she sees George has a new book coming out, she puts it on hold, and “when it comes, it is like the best day of my life.”

This is the 31st Southern Voices festival, which is billed as a celebration of writing, music and art. Linda Andrews, the first director of the Hoover Public Library and founder of the festival, created it as a way to celebrate Southern authors.

The festival has drawn Southern staples such as Pat Conroy, Winston Groom, Rheta Grimsley Johnson, Lewis Grizzard, Leah Rawls Atkins and Sean Dietrich, as well as personalities such as Gene Stallings, Rosalynn Carter and Rosanne Cash.

But after a while, festival organizers decided to expand the horizon and invite celebrated and up-and-coming authors from all over the country, so for many years now, it has not been unusual to see writers from places like Massachusetts or Oregon.

“We can’t just limit ourselves to the South, or we’ll run out of authors,” Steinmehl said.

The decision was made not to change the name of the festival as well.

“A lot of authors know our conference because we’ve had a good reputation among authors,” she said. “If we were to change our name, it would be like starting over.”

Tickets for the 2024 Southern Voices festival go on sale Thursday, Jan. 11, at 10 a.m., with online and phone sales only. Tickets for “An Evening with Elizabeth George” are $40, while tickets for the Saturday authors conference are $45. The website is southernvoices.info.

Organizers expect to sell out quickly, but if tickets remain, they will be available during normal box office hours of 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Saturday.

Here is more information about each of the authors, Waite and Baldwin, based on information provided by the Hoover Public Library and from some of the authors’ websites:

ELIZABETH GEORGE

George has written 20 British crime novels featuring Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley and his unconventional partner, Detective Sgt. Barbara Havers. Lynley is an earl, part of the British noble class, but Havers comes from the lower class, and they partner to solve homicides in England.

George’s crime novels have been translated into 30 languages and were featured on the BBC television channel in Britain and PBS in the United States. Steinmehl said at first, she thought George lived in Britain, but she later discovered George lives on Whidbey Island in the state of Washington.

“She goes over there and does her research in England and comes back and writes these amazing books,” Steinmehl said.

George also is the author of a young adult series set on Whidbey Island. A longtime instructor of creative writing, she has taught at colleges, universities, writers' retreats and conferences internationally. She most recently taught a live online creative writing class for the Hedgebrook Women's Writers' Retreat on Whidbey Island.

She is the recipient of the Anthony Award (a literary award for mystery writers presented at the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention), the Agatha Award (an award for mystery and crime writers named after Agatha Christie), France's Grand Prix di Literatture Policiere and Germany's Mimi award.

She has twice been nominated for an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America, and she is the recipient of an honorary doctorate of humane letters from California State University Fullerton and an honorary master’s degree of fine arts from the Northwest Institute of Language Arts.

She has also written the bestselling creative writing book “Write Away,” has edited two volumes of short stories, and has a foundation that makes grants to poets, emerging playwrights and unpublished novelists.

KATE QUINN

Quinn is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of historical fiction. She wrote four novels in the “Empress of Rome” saga and two books set in the Italian Renaissance before turning to the 20th century with New York Times bestsellers “The Alice Network” and “The Huntress.”

With authors Stephanie Dray, Laura Kamoie, E. Knight, Sophie Perinto and Heather Webb, Quinn contributed to a collaborative novel on the French Revolution called “Ribbons of Scarlet.” In the summer of 2017, Reese Witherspoon selected “The Alice Network” for her book club, and it was also selected as an Amazon Best Book of the Month, a GoodReads Best Books of the Month, and an NPR Best Book of the Year.

“The Huntress” has earned similar accolades and was recognized as a February Library Reads pick, a March Indie Next Pick and one of Marie Claire’s Best Women’s Fiction Books of the Year. Her latest novel, “The Diamond Eye,” was released in March 2022.

Quinn has always been a history lover and seeks to show the life, laughter and humanity that runs through the past. She’s a native of southern California and attended Boston University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in classical voice. Today, she lives in San Diego with her husband and three rescue dogs, and enjoys opera, action movies and the Boston Red Sox.

YASMIN ANGOE

Angoe is the Anthony‐nominated author of the critically acclaimed thrillers “Her Name Is Knight” and “They Come At Knight” of the Nena Knight series. She is a first‐generation Ghanaian American and, in 2020, received the Eleanor Taylor Bland Award for Emerging Writers of Color from Sisters in Crime.

Angoe has had books chosen as an Amazon Best Book of the Month for the mystery, thriller and suspense category, and as an Editor’s Pick. Her work has been on a billboard in Times Square, on various “best of” lists and received a Library Journal Starred Review.

“Her Name Is Knight” has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, OprahDaily.com, Popsugar, Nerd Daily, the Washington Independent Review of Books, The Guardian and other platforms. The Nena Knight series has been optioned for a TV series by Ink Factory and Fifth Season and is currently in development.

Angoe is a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, Crime Writers of Color, International Thriller Writers and the Women’s National Book Association. She is a former English teacher and lives in South Carolina with her husband, Vincent, and their four children.

JOHN ARCHIBALD

Archibald, a journalist for The Birmingham News (and now AL.com) for more than 35 years, is a two‐time winner of the Pulitzer Prize. The 2018 Pulitzer jury described his columns as “lyrical and courageous commentary that is rooted in Alabama but has a national resonance in scrutinizing corrupt politicians, championing the rights of women and calling out hypocrisy.”

He was lead reporter on the 2023 Pulitzer for Local Reporting, which examined aggressive policing tactics in Brookside that led to lawsuits alleging speed traps and unjustified traffic and criminal enforcement to boost city coffers. Stories by Archibald and other reporters resulted in the resignation of seven police officers, including the chief, and new laws in the state Legislature designed to discourage such tactics.

Archibald wrote and co‐hosted the national Murrow Award‐winning podcast "Unjustifiable" in 2021. His book, “Shaking the Gates of Hell: A Search for Family and Truth in the Wake of the Civil Rights Revolution”, was named one of NPR's "books we love" of 2021. He was a 2021 Nieman Fellow at Harvard and taught column writing in the Harvard Summer School.

KIM CROSS

Cross is a New York Times bestselling author, journalist and historian known for meticulously reported narrative nonfiction, including “What Stands in a Storm: A True Story of Love and Resilience in the Worst Superstorm in History.”

The book recounts the April 2011 superstorm that ripped through 21 states over three days, spawning 358 tornadoes that destroyed entire towns and killed 348 people. She weaved the scientific explanations of the storms in with the tales of destruction and heartrending stories of the people on the ground who rescued one another.

She also writes short stories that have been recognized in “best of” lists by The New York Times, the Columbia Journalism Review, The Sunday Longread, Longform, Apple News Audio and Best American Sports Writing.

Her latest work is “In Light of All Darkness: Inside the Polly Klaas Kidnapping and the Search for America’s Child,” which tells the story of a 12-year-old girl who was kidnapped at knifepoint during a slumber party at her mother’s home in Petaluma, California, and strangled to death in 1993. Cross was interviewed on the “20/20” TV show about the case in an episode that aired in September.

Cross lived in Hoover for a time but now makes her home in Boise, Idaho.

KRISTIN HARMEL

Harmel is The New York Times bestselling author of more than a dozen novels, including “The Forest of Vanishing Stars,” “The Book of Lost Names,” “The Room on Rue Amélie,” “The Sweetness of Forgetting” and “The Paris Daughter.”

She is published in more than 30 languages and is the cofounder and cohost of the web series “Friends & Fiction,” along with Mary Kay Andrews, Kristy Woodson Harvey and Patti Callahan Henry, all three of whom are previous speakers at the Southern Voices festival.

Harmel has been writing professionally since the age of 16, when she began her career as a sportswriter, covering Major League Baseball and NHL hockey for a magazine in Tampa Bay, Florida in the late 1990s.

Her magazine writing career was primarily with People magazine, but she has had articles published in numerous other magazines, including American Baby, Men’s Health and Woman’s Day. She also has been a frequent contributor to “The Daily Buzz” national television morning show. She sold her first novel in 2004, and it debuted in 2006.

Harmel was born just outside Boston and spent her childhoold there and in Worthington, Ohio, and St. Petersburg, Florida. After graduating from the University of Florida, she spent time living in Paris and Los Angeles and now lives in Orlando with her husband and son.

DANIEL NAYERI

Nayeri was born in Iran and spent a couple of years as a refugee before immigrating to Oklahoma at age 8 with his family. His autobiographical novel, “Everything Sad is Untrue (A True Story)” was the winner of the Michael L. Printz Award, the Christopher Medal and the Middle Eastern Book Award. It has 360 pages and no chapters.

His latest book, “The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams,” tells the tale of a monk and his newfound guardian, Samir, who is a scammer that makes people so furious with him that they hire assassins to kill him. The monk — in an effort to pay off his debt to Samir — decides to try to save Samir from the many attempts on his life.

Nayeri is a former publisher, editor and pastry chef and writes novels for the young adult audience (ages 13-18). He is the first Southern Voices speaker fully dedicated to that task. He lives with his wife and son in an Airstream in one of America's national parks.

KENAN ORHAN

Orhan, a Turkish American writer, is the author of “I Am My Country and Other Stories,” which is his first book, published by Random House. He has had several short stories published in publications such as The Atlantic, The Paris Review, Prairie Schooner, Massachusetts Review and elsewhere, and has been anthologized in “The O. Henry Prize Stories” and “The Best American Short Stories.”

He received his master’s degree in fine arts from Emerson College and teaches literature and creative writing at the Kansas City Art Institute and lives in Kansas.

JOHN WAITE

Waite, an English musician, started as the lead singer and bassist of a British rock band called The Babys. The band had two songs, “Isn’t it Time?” and “Every Time I Think of You,” peak at No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 and disbanded in 1980.

Waite then launched a solo career and in 1984 had a No. 1 hit song, “Missing You,” from his “No Brakes” album.

In 1988, he joined up with former Babys bandmates Jonathan Cain and Ricky Phillips, along with Neal Schon and drummer Deen Castronovo from Journey, to form a group called Bad English. One of that group’s songs, “When I See You Smile,” reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and earned a gold single status.

Bad English disbanded in 1992, and Waite went back out on his own.

KATIE BALDWIN

Baldwin’s artwork  explores methods of abstraction and representation of landscape through printmaking, drawing and textiles. Recognizable subjects of rivers, mountains and gardens are deconstructed utilizing color, pattern, shape and form. She loves to create with her hands: blocks are carved, inked up and hand-pulled; fabric is pieced and stitched.

She was one of seven international artists selected in 2004 to learn traditional Japanese woodblock printing (mokuhanga) from master carvers and printers at the Nagasawa Residency on Awaji Island, Japan. She returned to Japan in 2017 and 2019 for the Mi-Lab Advanced and Upper Advanced Residency in Kawaguchi.

She has been an artist in residence at The University of Hawaii Hilo, Vermont Studio Center, the Women’s Studio Workshop and Common Press at the University of Pennsylvania. Her work has been exhibited extensively, including at the ASP Gallery at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, Poland, The Kentler International Drawing Center in Red Hook, New York, and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Art. Her work can be found in numerous collections, such as the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., The Spencer Museum of Art in Lawrence, Kansas, and Yale University Library Special Collections in New Haven, Connecticut.

Baldwin co-founded the wood+paper+box collaborative in 2012, the Shift-lab collective in 2013 and the international print collective Mokuhanga Sisters in 2020.