Three authors discuss their fictional accounts of historical figures. Laurie Lico Albanese’s Hester reimagines the life of Hester Prynne—a Hawthorne character inspired by a real individual—as a newly arrived woman in Salem who develops a relationship with a man whose ancestors killed women with unusual gifts. In Jackie & Me, bestselling author Louis Bayard tells the story of Jackie Kennedy’s marriage from the perspective of a close family friend. The characters in Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Award recipient David Wright Faladé’s Black Cloud Rising include real-life Civil War sergeant Richard Etheridge and members of the African Brigade, Black Union soldiers who were enslaved only before enlistment.

Moderator: Becka Oliver, executive director of the Writers’ League of TexasLouis Bayard, Laurie Lico Albanese, David Wright Faladé, Jackie & Me: A Novel, Hester, Black Cloud Rising