Join us for a special afternoon author talk and book signing with Asheville-based author and teacher Dr. Mac Marquis and Julian from the Asheville Prison Books program!

Dr. Dave “Mac” Marquis is a Founding Documents Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of South Carolina. He joined the department in 2022 after earning his PhD from the College of William & Mary. Mac is the Book Review Editor for H-Labor, the Executive Assistant for the Labor and Working Class History Association, and a former board member of the Southern Labor Studies Association.

His work has primarily been focused on the timber industry of the South during Jim Crow and lies at the intersection of Labor, Environmental, and African-American History.

He is the co-editor of Books Through Bars: Stories from the Prison Books Movement (University of Georgia Press: Spring 2023), which is the first edited volume to examine the origins and activities of this nationwide social movement.

He also has a graphic history in progress, Solidarity in the Jim Crow Piney Woods: A Graphic History of The Brotherhood of Timber Workers, 1910-1916 (The Historic New Orleans Collection), which details the history and legacy of one of the largest interracial unions in the Deep South during Jim Crow.

Julian is a formerly incarcerated individual who has working with Asheville Prison Books since 2018. He read over 200 books while inside. An aspiring writer, he fervently defends access to books and all free speech.