2023 Spring Literary Festival welcomes novelist Megan Giddings on March 29-30

Megan Giddings, short fiction writer and author of two novels, visits Ohio University for the 2023 Spring Literary Festival, with free public readings and lectures on March 29-30.

Giddings will give a public reading and a craft talk.

Giddings' most recent novel, "The Women Could Fly," was published by Amistad on Aug. 9, 2022. The book is described as “a piercing dystopian novel about the unbreakable bond between a young woman and her mysterious mother” in which Giddings “explores the limits women face—and the powers they have to transgress and transcend them” and “ingeniously blends her harrowing parable of an all-powerful patriarchy with insights into racial imbalance.”

"The Women Could Fly" is a cerebral novel, one where the prose flutters effortlessly between family history and complex societal structures. Though ostensibly about witches, Giddings leverages both the real and unreal to superb effect—not delineating nor blurring, but venturing slipstream into flowing and surprising prose.

The novel has been placed on multiple best-of lists, including The Washington Post’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy novels of 2022, Vulture’s Best Fantasy books of 2022, and a New York Times Editor’s choice.

Gidding’s first novel, "Lakewood," came out in 2020. Gidding’s stories have appeared in Story Magazine, The Iowa Review, Catapult, and Gulf Coast, among other places, and has been widely anthologized, including in Best of the Net, Wigleaf Top 50 Very Short Fictions, and Best Small Fictions.

Spring 2023 Literary Festival Schedule

Wednesday, March 29

7:30 p.m. Barrie Jean Borich lecture

8:30 p.m. Denise Duhamel reading

Thursday, March 30

10 a.m.: Megan Giddings lecture

11 a.m.: Denise Duhamel lecture

5 p.m.: Barrie Jean Borich reading

6 p.m.: Megan Giddings reading

See more Spring Literary Festival news.