Hybrid Author Event: The Tulip Poplars, Silas House

Date and Time

• Wednesday, Oct 28, 2026  7pm - 8pm

Location

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Details

East City Bookshop welcomes Silas House to discuss his book, The Tulip Poplars, in conversation with Nicholas A. Brown-Cáceres.

Note on Format: This hybrid event will have both an in-person component with limited seating as well as a virtual broadcast via Zoom Webinar. Both in-person and virtual attendees will be able to pose questions to the author during audience Q&A.

ABOUT THE TULIP POPLARS

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

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.

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, Time, Garden & Gun, and other publications. He teaches at Berea College and at the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Creative Writing.

Nicholas A. Brown-Cáceres is acting chief of the Library of Congress’s Music Division. He previously served in senior leadership roles at the Prince George’s County Memorial Library System and Washington Performing Arts and he is a former Army bandsman.