Decatur, GA – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Decatur Book Festival Presented By Emory University and Georgia Center for the Book has announced in a press release that the popular virtual author series Joshilyn Jackson Reads will return for a second year in 2021.

Joshilyn Jackson Reads is set to kick off on May 4, 2021. The virtual series of nine panel discussions will showcase some of the most anticipated novels of 2021 and run through June 29, 2021. For this year’s event, Atlanta author and journalist Nicki Salcedo will join Jackson as a co-host.

“Last year, Joshilyn Jackson Reads proved to be an incredibly popular virtual event,” said Joy Pope, interim director for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Decatur Book Festival. “We are thrilled to have Joshilyn back this year, along with Nicki Salcedo, for a lively and engaging discussion about some of 2021’s best books.”

The panels and dates can be found below. To register for the virtual author series, visit www.decaturbookfestival.com.

May 4: Birmingham-based author Gin Phillips will be in conversation with Joshilyn Jackson regarding Phillips’ novel, Family Law. Set in Alabama in the 1980s, the novel represents a fresh take on the pursuit of women’s rights.

May 11: Molly Greeley, author of The Heiress: The Revelations of Anne De Bourgh, and Vanessa Riley, author of An Earl, the Girl, and a Toddler, will speak with Nicki Salcedo. Riley’s book is an O Magazine “Most Anticipated Romance of 2021” and Publishers Weekly “Top 10 Romance of Spring 2021.”

May 18: A much-anticipated chat with the popular politician, lawyer, voting rights activist, and author of the upcoming legal thriller, While Justice Sleeps. The book has been compared with bestseller The Pelican Brief by Scott Turow, New York Times bestselling author.

May 25: This panel, moderated by Joshilyn Jackson, arrives just in time for the unofficial kickoff to summer. The conversation showcases New York Times bestselling author and “Queen of the Beach Reads” Mary Kay Andrews (The Newcomer) and Rochelle Alers (The Beach House).

June 1: This conversation features authors Andromeda Romano-Lax (Annie and the Wolves), Nancy Johnson (The Kindest Lie), and Ilona Bannister (When I Ran Away) in a panel moderated by Nicki Salcedo. The three books feature wide-ranging themes including revenge, race, class, identity, and the pursuit of the American dream.

June 8: A panel moderated by Nicki Salcedo and features authors Jennifer Saint’s Ariadne, which is an epic feminist retelling of the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, from the perspective of Ariadne and her sister Phaedra, Claire Andrews’ Daughter of Sparta, a thrilling reimagining of ancient Greek mythology, and The Witch’s Heart, a bestselling debut novel from Genevieve Gornichec that reimagines Norse mythology.

June 15: A panel with Nebula, Locus, and Alex Award-winner P. Djèlí Clark’s return to his popular alternate Cairo universe in The Master of Djinn, and Nghi Vo‘s The Chosen and the Beautiful, which is described as the American immigrant story that Gatsby always should have been. The series will be moderated by Nicki Salcedo.

June 22: This panel is moderated by Nicki Salcedo and showcases Kelly Quindlen’s queer young adult romcom She Drives me Crazy, and Angeline Boulley’s Firekeeper’s Daughter, a groundbreaking young adult thriller about a Native teenager, caught between worlds, who goes undercover to root out the crime and corruption threatening her community. Firekeeper’s Daughter is Reese Witherspoon’s spring young adult pick.

June 29: In a panel moderated by Joshilyn Jackson, authors Kirstin Valdez Quade and Kaitlyn Greenidge will discuss their respective books The Five Wounds, named one of the “Most Anticipated Books of 2021” by Oprah Magazine, The Week, The Millions, and Electric Lit, and Libertie, which was named “One of the Most-Anticipated Books of 2021” by: O, The Oprah Magazine, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, The Millions, Refinery29, Garden & Gun, Publishers Lunch, BuzzFeed, The Rumpus, BookPage, Harper’s Bazaar, Ms. Goodreads, and more.

For more information, visit www.decaturbookfestival.com.

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