Literary superstars and new voices: Inprint Houston’s biggest season ever

Winners of National Book Awards, Pulitzer Prizes, Booker Prizes, MacArthur Fellows and even Oscar nominees are among the writers we expect every year when Houston’s foremost literary arts organization, Inprint, announces the lineup for their Margarett Root Brown Reading Series. And with names like Ta-Nehisi Coates, Emma Donoghue, Danzy Senna, Rachel Kushner, Paul Lynch, Richard Powers, Karen Russell, and Rumaan Alam, the 24-25 season will likely exceed those expectations.

But beyond the lengthy award list for the writers and poets of any season, Inprint strives to present authors who can tell a really good story. They try to balance each season with literary superstars, while also bringing to Houston electric new voices whose words open new literary worlds.

“Our thought is that if we can offer a great array of interesting, fascinating, wonderful writers, we’ll attract people for different reasons and get people in the door one way or another,” says Inprint executive director, Rich Levy.

This 24-25 season will be one of their biggest seasons ever, delivering thirteen authors—novelists, poets, and essayists—over ten reading events.

“We want to deliver for Houston the best series possible and we want to take advantage of the opportunities whenever they arise and not say no,” explains Inprint associate director, Krupa Parikh, when I asked about the expansive season.

Saying yes meant finding a space in November when National Book Award, MacArthur Fellow and all around genius cultural journalist, Ta-Nehisi Coates would be doing a select tour with his newest book, The Message. This might be his only Texas stop for the book that Levy describes as exploring nonfiction storytelling “through the lens of his experiences in three different places and the different people he talks to,” specifically Senegal, South Carolina, and Palestine/Israel.

But taking advantage of those literary opportunities also means they will begin the season a little early, in August when National Book Critics Circle Award winning performance poet, Danez Smith tours with the long awaited new collection of poetry, Bluff.  Then in September, they invite two best-selling novelists onto the same stage: Rumaan Alam, whose Leave the World Behind was adapted into the Netflix blockbuster, reading from his new book Entitlement, and breakout author Danzy Senna with her novel Colored Television. While the two write with very distinct voices, they’re also good friends. Levy says it made sense to pair them together.

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Ta-Nehisi Coates; Photo courtesy of the artist.

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Rumaan Alam; Photo by David A. Land.

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Danez Smith; Photo by Anna Min.

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Paul Lynch; Photo by Joel Saget.

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Emma Donoghue; Photo by Mark Raynes.

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Rachel Kushner; Photo by Chloe Aftel.

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Inprint Houston Executive Director Rich Levy; Photo by CJ Martin.

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The expansive season shows its breadth in October with two separate readings.  Paul Lynch travels from Ireland to read from his Booker Prize-winning novel, Prophet Song. Then just two weeks later, the Pulitzer Prize winning, prolific writer Richard Power gives audiences a taste of his just published novel, Playground, which balances research, science, and vivid character stories.

December brings U.S writer with an international reach, Rachel Kushner, whose Creation Lake, gives a literary take on a spy thriller. In January, Mexican novelist and Tulane University professor Yuri Herrera will read from Season of the Swamp, his new work of historical fiction depicting the months the future president of Mexico, Benito Juárez, spent exiled in New Orleans in the mid-19th century.

Mark March down for another two readings, including an evening focused on poetry with two Texas award-winning poets, Jennifer Chang and Naomi Shihab Nye. Later in the month, Emma Donoghue, who garnered that Oscar nom for best adapted screenplay of her novel Room, will read from her latest, The Paris Express, a historical novel about the Montparnasse train derailment in 1885, one of the first rail disasters captured by photography.

The series ends in April with another joint reading. New to the series, writer Katie Kitamura plays with narrative structure in her novel Audition. Returning favorite, Swamplandia! author Karen Russell’s new novel The Antidote weaves magical realism into a tale about dustbowl-era Nebraska.

Of course, a series that presents such a cross-section of national and international renowned writers can’t be easily defined by one literary trend, yet Levy and Parikh do see several of the authors responding to unresolved issues about race, while others explore environmental crises in the safety of fictional worlds.

“Novels are pretty good places to pose questions, not necessarily to get answers, but at least pose some questions,” muses Levy regarding his own, and Inprint audiences’  complex love for immersing oneself in a good new novel.

Like this year’s reading series, Inprint itself continues evolving and expanding with a plethora of other programming, like their Cool Brains! reading series for kids, writing workshops, specialty writing workshops for seniors and health care workers and a new Spanish-language reading series featuring another round of award winning authors from Latin America, Spain, and the U.S.

From those individual members of a writing workshop to a sold-out reading at the Wortham’s Cullen Theatre or Alley Theatre, Inprint continues to bring people together for the love of a good story.

“I like the fact that some people tell us they were attracted to the series by a Margaret Atwood or Anthony Doerr reading, but then they came and heard these other authors who they weren’t as familiar with, and they were excited about that. They bought their books and recommended them to their book clubs,” describes Levy. “To us that’s the best part.”

—TARRA GAINES