What drives people to make art? Who decides its value? How is beauty created? Where does truth reside?

Led by executive director William Carpenter, SECCA's Fall Book Discussions will explore these questions with four contemporary novels about art, education, commerce, and love. The books swerve through high-end galleries and makeshift studios, preppy art schools and private homes. Join us for friendly, thoughtful conversations about the stories and the concepts they present.

Kicking off the series on Thursday, August 24 is a discussion of The Longcut by Emily Hall. The narrator of The Longcut is an artist who doesn't know what her art is. As she gets lost on her way to a meeting in an art gallery, walking around in circles in a city she knows perfectly well, she finds herself endlessly sidetracked and distracted by the question of what her work is and how she'll know it when she sees it. An extraordinary feat of syntactical dexterity and comic ingenuity, The Longcut is ultimately a story of resistance to easy answers and the place of art and the artist in the world.

All book discussions begin at 6pm in the Hanes House Library. Participants can receive a 10% discount at Bookmarks in downtown Winston-Salem.

Handicap parking for the Hanes House is located directly in front of the historic home, on the cobblestone driveway.