Going to Decatur Book Festival? Check out UATL’s October recommendations

Decatur Book Festival is a two-day event for families and bibliophiles to connect through storytelling.

Now in its 20th year, the independent book festival’s programming Oct. 3-4 includes musical performances, parades, book drop-offs, selected readings, fireside chats, panels and cooking demonstrations.

“The People’s Project: Poems, Essays and Art for Looking Forward” is an anthology of original works from 27 writers and visual artists like Kiese Laymon and Imani Perry. The collection, edited by poets Saeed Jones and Maggie Smith, offers suggestions and perspectives on how individuals and communities can turn creativity and resilience into weapons to combat a tense political atmosphere.

Jones, the festival’s opening keynote speaker along with Victoria Chang, Tiana Clark and Aruni Kashyap, cocreated the book after having numerous conversations about the 2024 presidential election. It resulted in a carefully curated road map readers can use to find inner strength from using their gifts.

“People Like Us” is a novel by writer and poet Jason Mott about two Black writers who come together searching for peace in a world affected by gun violence. As one embarks on an upcoming book tour and the other prepares for a public speaking engagement at a school following a mass shooting, the authors connect over cocktails and trading personal stories on how they’re each affected by their individual moments.

Mott, a 2021 National Book Award winner behind “Hell of a Book” who’s appearing at the festival on Oct. 4 at 10 a.m., interjects humor in his latest work while not shying away from displaying vulnerability. “People Like Us” indicates how characters process grief and loss while searching for joy and love.

Atlanta-based Chef Duane Nutter connects with people through bold flavors and punch lines.

Nutter, co-owner of the restaurant Southern National in Summerhill and James Beard Award semifinalist, is the creator of “Cutting Up in the Kitchen: Food and Fun from Southern National’s Chef Duane Nutter,” a cookbook released in May. It features 100 Southern-inspired recipes using local ingredients and in international influences.

Appearing on Oct. 4 at 11:15 a.m., the chef tells stories using a homegrown tone while organizing each chapter like a stand-up comedy routine. Your mouth will water (while milk potentially shoots from your nose) while sifting through recipes like pimento cheese deviled eggs, lamb burger helper and mustard green chimichurri.

In “Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler,” Georgia Tech professor Susana Morris pens a cultural biography that digs into the groundbreaking speculative fiction writer’s career and journey. The book, released in August, includes materials from the Grand Dame’s personal archive to connect how social movements like Civil Rights and women’s liberation inspired Butler’s political ideology and classics like 1979’s “Kindred” and 1993’s “Parable of the Sower.”

Morris, a panelist on Oct. 4 at 1 p.m., penned a book that celebrates the work of one of Black literature’s reigning (but often underappreciated) queens, who died in 2006 at age 58.