The event happened on a cold Tuesday night.

I took the wrong train and got off on the right stop. I walked into the auditorium after stopping by the table shifted book store.

I now carried 3 hardcover books plus the books I had in my bag to read on the train. I stood at the back of the auditorium and kept my bags and coat ready to make an exit at the end of the event.

But if course, I didn’t leave immediately.

Each author that shared, must have picked the best part of their book because I wanted to buy more. And I did!

I picked up two books from Young People’s Literature:

Ibi Zoboi’s (S)kin, and Amber McBride’s The Leaving Room.

After listening to Patricia Smith talk about her father and Mississippi, I just had to purchase her book of poetry, The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems. Her storytelling was sweet with sadness.

The nonfiction genre was difficult to pick from. I knew I wanted something but went back and forth between Jordan Thomas When it all Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World and Claudia Rowe’s Wards of the State: The Long Shadow of American Foster Care. After listening to the finalists I decided that I wanted to hear more of the voice of Yiyun Li in Things in Nature Merely Grow. Her voice was pure grief but the writing technique sounded new.

Lastly for fiction, I bought A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar.