The Georgia Review, the Institute for African American Studies at UGA, Avid Bookshop, and the Athens-Clarke County Library invite the public to a reading with Aaliyah Bilal and Kiese Laymon. This event is on Thursday, January 23, 2025, at 7pm in the Appleton Auditorium at the Athens-Clarke County Library.
The reading will be followed by a book sale and signing. Free and open to the public.
Aaliyah Bilal is a fiction and nonfiction writer who focuses on the Black American Muslim experience and stories that connect Chinese and Afro-Diasporic peoples. She has experience as a director and producer of short films and she has published stories and essays with The Michigan Quarterly Review, The Chicago Quarterly Review, and The Rumpus.
Bilal’s path to publishing was both untraditional and inspiring. Temple Folk, her first short story collection and a 2023 National Book Award finalist, was acquired by Simon and Schuster after an open call for submissions, without an agent or connections to the world of publishing.
Temple Folk explores the multifaceted identity of Black Muslims in America, delving into their experiences with race, religion, economics, politics, and sexuality. The collection of ten stories depicts a community resisting mainstream culture while navigating the expectations placed upon them. Each story offers intimate glimpses into characters grappling with moral contradictions, blending compassion, nuance, and humor to highlight the human aspects of their imperfections and failures.
Born and raised in Prince George’s County, Maryland, Bilal obtained degrees from Oberlin College and the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies.
Kiese Laymon is a Black Southern writer from Jackson, Mississippi, and the Libbie Shearn Moody Professor of English and Creative Writing at Rice University in Houston. Laymon is the author of Long Division and How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America. His best-selling Heavy: An American Memoir won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence and was named one of the 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years by The New York Times. His new book, City Summer, Country Summer, will be published April 2025.