Silas House: The Tulip Poplars - in Conversation with Halle Hill

After their discussion of Silas's new novel The Tulip Poplars and an audience Q&A, Silas will be signing copies of his books.

This is a free event in partnership with the Spartanburg County Public Libraries. The event will be held at the Headquarters Library in the Barrett Room. ASL interpreters will be available.

About the Book

A sweeping historical novel about hidden, forbidden love in the early 1900s by bestselling writer and former poet laureate of Kentucky, Silas House.

"A masterful storyteller, House has crafted an ambitious and utterly beautiful love story so attuned to the minute moments in which a life can change.” ―Kevin Wilson, author of Run for the Hills

Amos and Tom fall in love while working in the tobacco fields during the hot summers of the early 1900s, yet Tom cannot shake his strict religious upbringing nor the responsibilities of his family’s farm. His longtime friend Maeve also pines for a man she can’t have, lest she endanger his already tenuous life in a town and world shaped by racial lines. How do you live a life that feels untrue, and at what point do you risk everything?

The Tulip Poplars is a gorgeous and moving novel spanning most of the 20th century, centering on four people trying to find happiness in a world that demands conventional choices. House tells a deeply intimate story of faith and doubt, race and class, sexual desire and the longing to be good when you’ve been taught that you are evil for loving who you love. Based on the story of an ancestor, House’s new novel takes us from NYC to Southern cities to Appalachia and will leave you with a bigger heart.

About the Author

Silas House was a finalist for a 2024 Grammy Award, winner of the 2022 Duggins Prize, and is a two-time winner of the Southern Book Prize. His writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Time, The New York Times, The Advocate, Garden & Gun, and other publications. He teaches at Berea College and at the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Creative Writing.

About the Conversation Partner

Halle Hill is from East Tennessee and lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. A graduate of Maryville College and the M.F.A. Writing program at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), she is the winner of the 2021 Crystal Wilkinson Creative Writing Prize and was a finalist for the 2021 ASME Award for Fiction. Her short stories have been published in Joyland, New Limestone Review, Southwest Review, and The Oxford American, where she won the 2020 Debut Fiction Prize.