Pig City Monthly

Join us on Saturday, March 25th for the first-ever Lexington Book Festival! Thanks to local businesses and organzations for helping us bring this event to fruition. All events are free and open to the public. Books, food, beverages and other merchandise will be available for purchase.

Thanks to our co-sponsors: Arts Davidson, Open Market Collective, Sophie's Cork and Ale, Smoke and Oak, and Lexington Visitor's Center, Ryan Short Entertainment and Yank's Franks.

Deeply moving and illuminating, Trouble the Water reveals the little-known real-life story of Robert Smalls. Born enslaved before the Civil War, Smalls witnesses great privilege and immense suffering alongside his owner's daughter and the dangerous son of a firebrand secessionist. When he's only twelve, he's put to work in Charleston, where he loads ships and learns to pilot a cotton steamer. When the war erupts and his cotton steamer becomes a confederate warship, Robert attempts a harrowing escape to freedom for himself and the people he loves.

Meet Rebecca Bruff in our pre-festival kickoff event on Friday evening. At 5:00, enjoy some light refreshments courtesy of the Friends of the Lexington Library and then at 6:00 a Q and A with the author. Event will take place in the "courtyard" in front of Pig City Books, weather permitting. In the event of rain, the event will take place at Bull City Ciderworks.

Books available for purchase and signing, $19.95.

We have a cast of authors and illustrators that will host story times and presentations at Open Market Collective on the hour. Books will be available for purchase and author signings will immediately following presentations.

Thank you to Arts Davidson for hosting our author panels at their new facility, soon to be renamed Arts/Theatre 202. These events are free, but books will be available for purchase. Author signings to immediately follow scheduled panels.

In addition to the author panels, there will be a number of independently published authors (TBA) on site with books available for sale at Arts Davidson.

Alan Gratz is the New York Times bestselling author of nineteen novels for young readers, including Prisoner B-3087, Projekt 1065, Refugee, Ban This Book, Allies, Ground Zero, Captain America: The Ghost Army, and Two Degrees. A Knoxville, Tennessee native, Alan is now a full-time writer living in Asheville, North Carolina with his wife and daughter.

Even as We Breathe: Nineteen-year-old Cowney Sequoyah yearns to escape his hometown of Cherokee, North Carolina, in the heart of the Smoky Mountains. When a summer job at Asheville's luxurious Grove Park Inn and Resort brings him one step closer to escaping the hills that both cradle and suffocate him, he sees it as an opportunity. With World War II raging in Europe, the inn is the temporary home of Axis diplomats and their families, who are being held as prisoners of war. Soon, Cowney's refuge becomes a cage when the daughter of one of the residents goes missing and he finds himself accused of abduction and murder.

Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle, an enrolled citizen of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and resides in Qualla, NC, with her husband, Evan and sons, Ross and Charlie. She holds degrees from Yale University and the College of William and Mary. Her debut novel, Even As We Breathe, was released by the University Press of Kentucky in 2020, a finalist for the Weatherford Award and named one of NPR’s Best Books of 2020. In 2021, it received the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award.

An Enigma Affair: When small-town librarian Patton Harcourt comes under fire one morning while making profiteroles, she has no choice but to trust the mysterious assassin, Nemo, who shows up in her kitchen. Fleeing a pair of German thugs, the two form an unlikely alliance as they try to decipher a seventy-five-year-old message encoded by Nazis on an Enigma machine. Traveling to Bletchley Park in England, they enlist the aid of Patton’s old flame, Ruthie Drinkwater, an expert on Enigma. The trio soon finds themselves on the run, pursued by both the police and Ingrid Weiss, a white supremacist trying to unlock the secret of Heinrich Himmler’s research into alchemy. If Patton, Nemo, and their cohorts can survive a host of dangers -- from trained killers to explosions to imprisonment -- they might be able to prevent Weiss from acquiring untold wealth to promote her racist agenda.

Charlie Lovett is a New York Times bestselling novelist and playwright whose plays for children have been seen in over 5000 productions worldwide. He hosts the podcast Inside the Writer’s Studio. He is a collector of Lewis Carroll materials (including Carroll’s 1888 typewriter) and has written many works on Carroll.

The following independently published authors will be exhibiting at Arts Davidson from 10-4. Visit their tables to chat, purchase books and get them signed by some wonderful local folks!

After the festival, join us at Sophie's Cork and Ale, a sophisticated wine and brew bar with some amazing, upscale dining.

Located on W. 2nd Avenue.

Pig City Books is an independent bookstore in Uptown Lexington just off the square. Look for the bright pink door behind the Old Courthouse.

Email: pigcitybooks@gmail.com
Website: www.pigcitybooks.com
Location: 16 Lsb Plaza, Lexington, NC, USA
Phone: 336-843-2024
Facebook: facebook.com/pigcitybooks
Twitter: @pigcitybooks