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Talking Volumes is back, and we’re so excited to be returning to the Fitz for our 22nd season! 

Join host Kerri Miller as she welcomes — in person! — an amazing lineup of writers to the stage. From deeply loved Minnesota novelists to huge New York Times bestsellers, you won’t want to miss this lineup. 

Tickets go on sale Tuesday, Aug. 3 at noon, and you can save when you buy the full season. Get your tickets at 

 and find more information about the authors and the books they’ll be discussing with Kerri.  

Get your tickets here

is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels The Monsters of Templeton, Arcadia, and Fates and Furies, and the short story collections Delicate Edible Birds and Florida. She has won the Story Prize and has twice been a finalist for the National Book Award. Groff’s work regularly appears in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and elsewhere, and she was named one of Granta’s 2017 Best Young American Novelists.  

Join Miller at 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 14 for a discussion with author Lauren Groff about her new book, “Matrix.” 

Bestselling author and two-time National Book Award finalist Lauren Groff’s new novel, her first since “Fates and Furies,” is a defiant and timely exploration of the raw power of female creativity in a corrupted world.  

Cast out of the royal court by Eleanor of Aquitaine, deemed too coarse and rough-hewn for marriage or courtly life, seventeen-year-old Marie de France is sent to England to be the new prioress of an impoverished abbey, its nuns on the brink of starvation and beset by disease. At first taken aback by the severity of her new life, Marie finds focus and love in collective life with her singular and mercurial sisters. Marie, born the last in a long line of women warriors and crusaders, is determined to chart a bold new course for the women she now leads and protects.  

Equally alive to the sacred and the profane, “Matrix” gathers currents of violence, sensuality, and religious ecstasy in a mesmerizing portrait of consuming passion, aberrant faith, and a woman that history moves both through and around.  

 grew up in Florida and moved to Minnesota in her twenties when homesickness and a bitter winter led her to write Because of Winn-Dixie, which became a runaway bestseller. She now has almost 37 million books in print worldwide and has won two Newbery Medals and served as National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature.  

Join us at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 30 for a discussion with DiCamillo about her highly anticipated new kids’ novel, “The Beatryce Prophecy.”

From two-time Newbery Medalist Kate DiCamillo and two-time Caldecott Medalist Sophie Blackall comes a fantastical meditation on fate, love, and the power of words to spell the world. With its timeless themes, unforgettable cast, and magical medieval setting, Kate DiCamillo’s lyrical tale, paired with resonant black-and-white illustrations by Caldecott Medalist Sophie Blackall, is a true collaboration between masters. 

In a time of war, a mysterious child appears at the monastery of the Order of the Chronicles of Sorrowing. Gentle Brother Edik finds the girl, Beatryce, curled in a stall, wracked with fever, coated in dirt and blood, and holding fast to the ear of Answelica the goat. As the monk nurses Beatryce to health, he uncovers her dangerous secret, one that imperils them all—for the king of the land seeks just such a girl, and Brother Edik, who penned the prophecy himself, knows why. 

And so it is that a girl with a head full of stories—powerful tales-within-the-tale of queens and kings, mermaids and wolves—ventures into a dark wood in search of the castle of one who wishes her dead. But Beatryce knows that, should she lose her way, those who love her—a wild-eyed monk, a man who had once been king, a boy with a terrible sword, and a goat with a head as hard as stone—will never give up searching for her, and to know this is to know everything. 

 is the author of the New York Times bestsellers “Rules of Civility” and “A Gentleman in Moscow.” The two novels have collectively sold more than four million copies and have been translated into more than thirty languages. Towles lives in Manhattan with his wife and two children.  

Join us at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 13 for a discussion with Towles about his third novel, “The Lincoln Highway.”

Amor Towles is the author of the New York Times bestsellers “Rules of Civility” and “A Gentleman in Moscow.” The two novels have collectively sold more than four million copies and have been translated into more than thirty languages. Towles is back with his third novel, “The Lincoln Highway.” 

In June 1954, 18-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the juvenile work farm where he has just served fifteen months for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett's intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother, Billy, and head to California where they can start their lives anew. But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves in the trunk of the warden's car. Together, they have hatched an altogether different plan for Emmett's future, one that will take them all on a fateful journey in the opposite direction—to the City of New York.  

Spanning just 10 days and told from multiple points of view, Towles's novel will satisfy fans of his multi-layered literary styling while providing them an array of new and richly imagined settings, characters, and themes.  

 is the New York Times bestselling author of “This Tender Land,” “Ordinary Grace”(winner of the Edgar Award for best novel), as well as 18 acclaimed books in the Cork O’Connor mystery series, including “Desolation Mountain” and “Sulfur Springs.” He lives in the Twin Cities with his family. 

Join us at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 3 for a discussion with Krueger about his latest novel, “Lightning Strike.”

The author of the instant New York Times bestseller “This Tender Land” returns with a powerful prequel to his acclaimed Cork O’Connor series—a book about fathers and sons, long-simmering conflicts in a small Minnesota town, and the events that echo through youth and shape our lives forever. 

Aurora is a small town nestled on the shores of Minnesota’s Iron Lake. In the summer of 1963, it is the whole world to twelve-year-old Cork O’Connor. But when Cork stumbles upon the body of a man he revered hanging from a tree in an abandoned logging camp, it is the first in a series of events that will cause him to question everything he took for granted about his hometown, his family, and himself. 

Cork’s father, Liam O’Connor, is Aurora’s sheriff and it is his job to confirm that the man’s death was the result of suicide, as all the evidence suggests. In the shadow of his father’s official investigation, Cork begins to look for answers on his own. Together, father and son face the ultimate test of choosing between what their heads tell them is true and what their hearts know is right. 

In this masterful story of a young man and a town on the cusp of change, beloved novelist William Kent Krueger shows that some mysteries can be solved even as others surpass our understanding.   

MPR News Staff

Author

Join host Kerri Miller as she welcomes — in person! — an amazing lineup of writers to the stage. From deeply loved Minnesota novelists to huge New York Times bestsellers, you won’t want to miss this lineup. 


Talking Volumes 2021 season guide

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