Southern Author Fest 2025

Raquel Vasquez Gilliland is a Mexican American poet, novelist, and painter. She's most inspired by fog and seeds and the lineages of all things. When not writing, Raquel tells stories to her plants and they tell her stories back. She lives in Tennessee with her beloved family and mountains. Her first poetry collection was Dirt and Honey and the second was Tales From the House of Vasquez. Her debut YA novel, Sia Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything, was published in 2020; her second YA novel, How Moon Fuentez Fell in Love with the Universe, was published in 2021. Her adult debut novel, Witch of Wild Things, was a USA Today Bestseller, one of Amazon's Best Romances of September 2023, and a People Magazine Romantasy Pick. Her latest adult novel, Lightning in Her Hands was released in October of 2024.

A twelfth generation North Carolinian, David Joy grew up in Piedmont along the Catawba River, moved away at eighteen, and has spent the last 22 years 100 moles west in the mountains of Jackson County. His work is place-driven and deeply rooted to Appalachia, and has been translated into six languages. In 2023, his debut novel was adapted to film starring Billy Bob Thornton and Robin Wright.

Glenis Redmond is the First Poet Laureate of Greenville, South Carolina. She is a Kennedy Center Teaching Artist and a Cave Canem alumni. She has authored six books of poetry: Backbone (Underground Epics, 200), Under the Sun (Main Street Rag, 2002), and What My Hand Say (Press 53, 2016), Listening Skin (Four Way Books), Three Harriets & Others (Finishing Line Press), and Praise Songs for Dave the Potter, Art by Jonathan Green, and Poetry by Glenis Redmond (University of Georgia Press). The Listening Skin was longlisted for the Pen America Open Book Award and the Julie Suk Award.