An Evening with Marlon James and Desiree C. Bailey

Miami Book Fair, Books & Books, the National Book Foundation, and PEN America team up to present National Book Award Finalist, Marlon James, in conversation with author Desiree C. Bailey, moderated by PEN Across America Program Director, William Johnson.

Books & Books is excited to partner with the National Book Foundation, Miami Book Fair and PEN America to present National Book Award Finalist, Marlon James to celebrate the release of Moon Witch, Spider King of the Dark Star Trilogy! Marlon will be in conversation with National Book Award finalist, Desiree C. Bailey discussing folklore, fantasy and the writing of contemporary epics. The conversation will be moderated by PEN Across America Program Director, William Johnson.

Join us in the courtyard at Books & Books, Coral Gables. Admission is FREE. This event will be outdoors, and masks are strongly encouraged!

About the Authors:

Marlon James is the author of the New York Times bestselling National Book Award finalist Black Leopard, Red Wolf, the Booker Prize-winning A Brief History of Seven Killings, and The Book of Night Women and John Crow’s Devil. In addition to the Booker Prize, his novels have won the American Book Award, the Los Angeles Times’ Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Born in Jamaica, James lives in New York City.

Desiree C. Bailey is the author of What Noise Against the Cane (Yale University Press, 2021), winner of the 2020 Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize. She is also the author of the fiction chapbook In Dirt or Saltwater (O’clock Press, 2016) and has short stories and poems published in Best American Poetry, Best New Poets, American Short Fiction, Callaloo, the Academy of American Poets and elsewhere. Desiree is a recipient of awards from the New York State Council on the Arts/New York Foundation for the Arts and Poets & Writers. Born in Trinidad and Tobago, Desiree grew up in Queens, New York, and is currently an English teacher in Brooklyn.

About the Moderator:

William Johnson is the PEN Across America program director at PEN America. A longtime steward in the writing community, Johnson was the editor and publisher of Mary Literary, a literary magazine committed to showcasing work of artistic integrity. He also co-produced Nepantla: A Journal Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color, the first major anthology for queer poets of color in the United States. In 2011, Johnson began his tenure at Lambda Literary, an organization dedicated to promoting LGBTQ literature. As the deputy director of Lambda Literary, Johnson oversaw many of the organization’s most dynamic programs and public events, including the Writer’s Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices and Lambda’s web magazine, the Lambda Literary Review.

In 2021, Johnson was awarded The Publishing Triangle’s Leadership Award, an award recognizing contributions to LGBTQ literature by those who are not primarily writers, such as editors, agents, librarians, and institutions.