Music

Four young adult authors discuss how love can form under pressure or flare up with passion. The daughter of a proud Cuban family bakery enters a competition to pay the bills with help from the son of a rival Cuban bakery in Guava and Grudges, the slow-burn (or bake) enemies-to-lovers novel by ALEXIS CASTELLANOS. Tensions rise in LAURA TAYLOR NAMEY’s With Love, Echo Park as the two last surviving Cuban family businesses in an L.A.…

DEBORAH PAREDEZ’s American Diva: Extraordinary, Unruly, Fabulous explores the impact divas have had on her life and on American culture. Tina Turner’s spellbinding performances, Celia Cruz’s command of the male-dominated salsa world, and the excellence of Venus and Serena Williams not only shaped her life, Paredez argues, they’ve challenged American ideas about feminism and freedom. In My Black Country: A Journey Through Country Music’s Black Past, Present, and Future, ALICE RANDALL chronicles her search for the first family of Black country music,…

LORI TUCKER-SULLIVAN’s I Can’t Remember If I Cried: Rock Widows on Life, Love, and Legacy is part music history, part memoir, based on interviews with women who stood next to some of rock’s greatest icons. What became of them? How did they survive their losses? With each interview, Tucker-Sullivan, a widow herself, learned lessons in love, forgiveness, coping, and moving on. Heard from in the book are Judy VanZant, Sandy Chapin, Crystal Zevon, Jamie Weiland, and VERA RAMONE KING,…

With more than 365 photographs taking you through a single year, A Book of Days offers a new way to experience the expansive mind of PATTI SMITH – visionary poet, writer, and performer. Including photos from her Instagram account, vintage images, and archives, the book charts her passions, devotions, obsessions, and whims, and opens with an introduction by Smith herself that explores her documentary process. SPONSORED BY Buy A Book of Days – Smith _____________ This is a ticketed event that includes the book ($30).…

El productor OMER PARDILLO CID, creador de la Fundación Celia Cruz, llega con una obra que ofrece una mirada profunda a la vida y el legado de la inolvidable “Reina de la Salsa”. En conversación con el periodista cultural y crítico de cine ALEJANDRO RÍOS. SPONSORED BY   Compra Celia Mi Vida: Una autobiografía – Pardillo Cid  …

Sonic Life: A Memoir is a passionate account tracing THURSTON MOORE’s life and art in an era of explosive creativity. From his music-obsessed teen years in small-town Connecticut to the formation of his legendary rock group – a fixture in New York’s burgeoning “No Wave” scene that paved the way for bands like Nirvana – Sonic Life celebrates 30 years of creation, experimentation, and wonder. Moderated by JOHNNY TEMPLE, publisher, professor, musician, and editor-in-chief of Akashic Books.…

The ROCK BOTTOM REMAINDERS, an endearingly ragtag cover band established in 1992 and mostly made up of high-profile published authors, performed at Miami Book Fair more than a dozen times over the years. And they’re reuniting right here this year, bringing together a lineup not seen together on stage for more than a decade! Meet the latest iteration of the group – which includes MITCH ALBOM, DAVE BARRY, SAM BARRY,…

ISABEL BANTA’s Honey: A Novel follows the meteoric rise of a female pop star during the late 1990s and early aughts after she escapes her small town to join a popular girl group, navigating intensifying fame, exploitation, and complicated relationships. MARISSA STAPLEY’s The Lightning Bottles follows Jane Pyre, one half of the famous duo the Lightning Bottles, as she tries to find out what really happened to her husband and partner in music, who disappeared five years earlier.…

In her memoir Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk, KATHLEEN HANNA, punk singer, writer, artist, and the frontwoman of the influential bands Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, takes us from her tumultuous childhood to her formative college years and her first shows. Being in a punk “girl band” was not an easy gig, or a safe one, as violence and antagonism threatened at every turn. Joining Hanna in conversation is author ADA CALHOUN.…

In Phenomena Book Two: Matilde’s Quest: A Graphic Novel, BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS tells the story of a young boy, a mysterious girl, and a warrior. As they join forces to piece together the reason the girl was cast from her home, they start to become legend and folklore – and their mythology brings new threats. At first glance, Diamond Mine emerged in 1979 as Arkansas’s first punk band. But according to NATE POWELL’s Fall Through: A Graphic Novel,…

In GLORY EDIM’s Gather Me: A Memoir in Praise of the Books That Saved Me, she celebrates the Black writers who changed her life with their words, and recounts how they taught her to find her own voice and uplift other Black women’s stories. In My Black Country: A Journey Through Country Music’s Black Past, Present, and Future, ALICE RANDALL chronicles her search for the first family of Black country music, through which she found inspiration in a community of people who rose through hard times to create beauty and joy through music.…

In the alt-culture scene of 1980s Miami, artists, music makers, and scenesters mixed in the few party and cultural spaces the city offered, creating multidisciplinary events we thought of as “just parties and shows.” During that decade, more and more creatives settled in Miami, joining the natives who’d kickstarted it all in the grittier parts of South Beach, the Design District, and other neighborhoods west. By the time Hurricane Andrew hit in ’92, Miami was already entering its 2.0 cultural phase and heading toward what it is today,…

Jane Start had a hit once, 10 years ago. Now she’s 33, broke, newly single and living out of four garbage bags at her parents’ house. In This Bird Has Flown: A Novel, SUSANNA HOFFS, lead singer of ’80s band the Bangles, explores love and the ghosts of our past – while offering an insider’s view of pop music fame. Hoffs will perform a few of her greatest hits and be in conversation with journalist and pop culture critic EVELYN MCDONNELL.…

In 1964, Beatlemania exploded in the United States as the Fab Four appeared live on The Ed Sullivan Show and toured the country. On that visit, The Beatles spent more time in Florida than anywhere else. In Good Day Sunshine State: How the Beatles Rocked Florida, BOB KEALING explores the band’s influence on the people and culture of the state. Joining him in conversation is radio personality JOE JOHNSON, host of the nationally syndicated “Beatle Brunch” show.…

John Prine hated giving interviews. Prine on Prine: Interviews and Encounters with John Prine, edited by HOLLY GLEASON – who enjoyed a long-standing relationship with the singer-songwriter – captures him unguarded and unfiltered, on the road, in the kitchen, at the Library of Congress, and on a radio show. Prine hated giving interviews, but said much when he talked. Joining her in conversation is MICHAEL LEONARD, former feature reporter for the Today Show, and music journalist MICHAEL MCCALL.…