A Cappella Books and the Georgia Center for the Book are delighted to welcome author Maurice Carlos Ruffin, the award-winning author of We Cast a Shadow, to discuss his highly anticipated new novel, The American Daughters, a gripping historical novel about a spirited girl who joins a sisterhood working to undermine the Confederates. Ruffin will appear in conversation with Atlanta's own Ruth Watson, author of A Right Worthy Woman. This event is free and open to the public. Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the venue. Registration requested, not required.

This event will be held in the Periodicals Room on the First Floor of Decatur Library.

Order a copy of the book from A Capella Books here .

About the Book:

Ady, a curious, sharp-witted girl, and her fierce mother, Sanite, are inseparable. Enslaved to a businessman in the French Quarter of New Orleans, the pair spend their days dreaming of a loving future and reminiscing about their family's rebellious and storied history. When mother and daughter are separated, Ady is left hopeless and directionless until she stumbles into the Mockingbird Inn and meets Lenore, a free Black woman with whom she becomes fast friends. Lenore invites Ady to join a clandestine society of spies called the Daughters. With the courage instilled in her by Sanite—and with help from these strong women—Ady learns how to put herself first. So begins her journey toward liberation and imagining a new future. The American Daughters is a novel of hope and triumph that reminds us what is possible when a community bands together to fight for their freedom.

About the Author:

Maurice Carlos Ruffin is the author of The Ones Who Don't Say They Love You, which was longlisted for the Story Prize and was a finalist for the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, and We Cast a Shadow, which was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, the PEN Open Book Award, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and International Dublin Literary Award. A recipient of an Iowa Review Award in fiction, he has been published in the Virginia Quarterly Review, AGNI, the Kenyon Review, The Massachusetts Review, and Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas. A native of New Orleans, he is a graduate of the University of New Orleans Creative Writing Workshop and a professor of creative writing at Louisiana State University.

About the Conversation Partner

Ruth P. Watson is the author of Blackberry Days of Summer, An Elderberry Fall, Cranberry Winter, Strawberry Spring, and A Right Worthy Woman. A musical stage play, Blackberry Daze, is based on her debut novel. She received the Caversham Fellowship, an artist and writer's residency in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, where she published her first children's book in Zulu, Our Secret Bond. She is a freelance writer and member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators and has written for Upscale, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and other publications. She is an adjunct professor and project manager who lives with her family in Atlanta, Georgia.