After some ticket shifting due to a partner surprising someone with tickets to the event that said partner had already arraigned to go with friends and bought tickets for (and also an absence due to covid), I attended a talk by Barbara Kingsolver.
I was amused thinking about Jess Walter’s preparation for the conversation. While I bet he prepared many questions, he asked maybe four. Kingsolver’s responses were lengthy (like 15 minutes) and engaging.
She talked about how she came to write Demon Copperhead (it involves Charles Dickens’s desk) and how her Appalachian community was very proud that it won the Pulitzer Prize. She also had observations about how the rest of the country feels about Appalachia and her thoughts about those stereotypes.