DC Reads
A City-Wide Conversation with DC Writers
DC Reads is an annual series of workshops, book clubs, and one signature panel discussion with noted authors. Held from January through March in partnership with the DC Public Library, DC Reads fosters thoughtful conversations about fiction, builds community, and celebrates local writers. This year’s titles and authors are When She Left by E.A. Aymar, Casualties of Truth by Lauren Francis-Sharma, and Absolution by Alice McDermott.
For each selection this year, the DC Public Library hosted a virtual book club, and each author led a two-hour session for community members at a DCPL branch library. All events were free to attend.
DC Reads culminated in a panel discussion featuring all three authors on Thursday, March 20 at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library. This conversation was moderated by Hannah Oliver Depp, co-owner of Loyalty Bookstores. Afterwards, the authors stayed for a book signing.
Wednesday, Jan 15, 2025, 7 PM
DCPL hosted a virtual book club discussion of PEN/Faulkner Award finalist, Absolution, a shimmering novel about American women on the margins of the Vietnam War, complicity, and regret.
Wednesday, Feb 12, 2025, 7 PM
DCPL hosted a virtual book club discussion of When She Left, a cinematic thriller about a young couple on the run from a powerful criminal family—and the reluctant assassin hunting them down.
Thursday, Feb 20, 2025, 6:30 PM | Southwest Library, 900 Wesley Place SW, Washington, DC 20024
E.A. Aymar, author of When She Left, presented “Crime Fiction in the DMV: A Story of Rebellion,” highlighting the local writers who used fiction to take a stand against forces that often seemed too powerful to resist, and whose work reached beyond our borders to find a global audience. He was accompanied by celebrated jazz singer Sara Jones, who provided musical interludes from each of the eras highlighted during the presentation.
Tuesday, Feb 25, 2025, 6:30 PM | Cleveland Park Library, 3310 Connecticut Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20008
Alice McDermott, author of PEN/Faulkner Award finalist Absolution, led a creative writing workshop “Is This As Good As You Can Make It?” Revision can be illuminating, but it can also be deadening: when does not good enough become not bad, when does not bad become brilliant, and when does the pursuit of brilliance become the dawn of despair? A discussion about the endless challenge to write better sentences, better scenes, better characters, better stories.
Thursday, Feb 27, 2025, 6:00 PM | Anacostia Library, 1800 Marion Barry Ave, SE Washington, DC 20020
DCPL hosted an in-person book club discussion of When She Left, a cinematic thriller about a young couple on the run from a powerful criminal family—and the reluctant assassin hunting them down.
Wednesday, Mar 12, 2025, 7 PM
DCPL hosted a virtual book club discussion of Casualties of Truth, a sweeping, incisive novel set between Washington, DC and Johannesburg, South Africa exploring vengeance, justice, and memory.
Thursday, Mar 13, 2025, 6:30 PM | Capitol View Library, 5001 Central Ave SE, Washington, DC 20019
Lauren Francis-Sharma, author of Casualties of Truth, presented “Reading the Signs,” where she traces her journey from lawyer to novelist, and explored how one of her book’s themes–South African Apartheid–provides insight into our current political divide.
Thursday, Mar 20, 2025, 7 PM | Martin Luther King, Jr. Library, 901 G Street, NW, Washington, DC 20001
DC Reads culminated in a panel discussion featuring all three authors on Thursday, March 20 at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library. This conversation was moderated by Hannah Oliver Depp, co-owner of Loyalty Bookstores. Afterwards, the authors stayed for a book signing.
In 2023-24, DC Reads focused on authors Karin Tanabe (The Sunset Crowd), Tania James (Loot), and Morowa Yejidé (Creatures of Passage).
At the panel discussion in February, recorded live and archived here, moderator Lauren Francis-Sharma led Tanabe and James in a conversation about the inspirations for their historical novels, research, and the craft of grounding their stories in a particular time and place.
Our thanks to Shreve Williams Public Relations for making PEN/Faulkner’s participation possible.
Your Support Matters
Your support makes our programs possible. Please consider a contribution. Thank you.
GIVE ONLINE
Make a secure, tax-deductible gift online
GIVE by Mail
PEN/Faulkner Foundation
6218 Georgia Avenue NW
Unit #1062
Washington, DC 20011
GIVE by phone
(202) 898-9063
GIVE by Text
Text
PENFAULKNER
to 44321