Lunch will feature a conversation with three authors, Jaha Nailah Avery, Those Who Saw the Sun, Phyllis R. Dixon, Intermission, and Shanora Williams, The Other Mistress.

Jaha Nailah Avery is an African American woman and proud Southerner. Hailing from Asheville, North Carolina, she received her law degree from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she studied constitutional and civil rights law. She spent several years in the startup tech space before embarking on her professional writing career, and her work can be found in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, and Architectural Digest. Her aim is to always document, celebrate, and preserve the stories of Black people, communities, and history. 

Phyllis R. Dixon is the acclaimed author of Intermission, Forty Acres, and Down Home Blues, which was shortlisted for the Lariat Adult Fiction Reading List by the Texas Library Association. She also is a contributor to the New Tri-State Defender book review column and to Chicken Soup for the African American Woman’s Soul. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, she is a former independent bookstore owner, previously worked for the U.S. Treasury Department, and currently serves on several nonprofit boards. She currently lives in Memphis, Tennessee, and can be found online at PhyllisRDixon.com.

Shanora Williams is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than twenty-five suspense and romance novels, including her traditional publishing debut, The Perfect Ruin, a selection of the Target Diverse Book Club. She began self-publishing in 2012 and first landed on the New York Times bestseller list when she was only nineteen years old. She lives with her husband and three sons near Charlotte, NC and can be found online at ShanoraWilliams.com.

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