Based at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA, Fall for the Book is an independent non-profit literary arts organization that promotes reading by sponsoring a variety of year-round events and activities, the flagship of which is the Fall for the Book festival held each October.

This year Tom Sleigh will participate in the reading and conversation Battling for the Future Through Poetry. From the threats of climate change to California and the globe, to overflowing pandemic morgues, to the frontlines of the refugee crisis, urgent themes permeate the poetry collections The King’s Touch by Tom Sleigh, and Look at this Blue by Allison Adelle Hedge Coke. In discussing The King’s Touch, Ploughshares’ Philip Levine says, “I am struck by the human dramas that are enacted in these poems, the deep encounters that often shatter the participants and occasionally restore them.” Craig Santos Perez calls Hedge Coke “one of the most important and innovative environmental writers of our time. Look at This Blue urgently asks us to see the wondrous biodiversity of the planet amidst the violent ravages of colonialism, capitalism, and ecological imperialism.”

Location: Johnson Center, 3rd Floor, Meeting Room C. 4477 Aquia Creek Lane, Fairfax. (map)