Joseph & Bessie Feinberg Foundation Stage
(On W. Polk St., just east of Clark St.)
Saturday 9/12 – 10am

Dolen Perkins-Valdez is the New York Times bestselling author of four novels, most recently, Happy Land (2025) which was longlisted for the 2026 Aspen Words Literary Prize and won the 2026 Southern Book Prize. Her previous novel Take My Hand was awarded a 2023 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work and a Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association. It was longlisted for the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award. A three-time nominee for a United States Artists Fellowship, Dolen is widely considered a pre-eminent chronicler of American historical life