Wildfire Reading Series Featuring LaToya Watkins

Torch Literary Arts presents an evening with LaToya Watkins celebrating the launch of her debut novel, Perish. Named “A Most Anticipated Book of 2022” by Essence, Esquire, Bustle, Ms. Magazine, and others, Perish introduces us to a Black Texan family, exploring the effects of inherited trauma and intergenerational violence as the family comes together to say goodbye to their matriarch on her deathbed.

Praise for Perish

“Perish offers a moving look into Black communities, bringing complexity and nuance to this story of intergenerational trauma and the toll it takes on the human spirit. But for all the secrets, resentments, and bitterness here, Watkins has a generosity of spirit enough to entertain the possibility of forgiveness; miraculous and moving, light glimmers at the edges of this wise novel.”

—Esquire

“With Perish, Watkins joins a tradition of Southern writers who delve into the taboo and grotesque to expose a dark past and a dim, backtracking present. . .Like Walker’s The Color Purple and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Perish lures readers past the pain with a spellbinding, buoyant use of language.”

—Texas Monthly

LaToya Watkins’s writing has appeared in A Public Space, The Sun, McSweeney’s, Kenyon Review, The Pushcart Prize Anthology (2015), and elsewhere. She has received grants, scholarships, and fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and A Public Space (she was one of their 2018 Emerging Writers Fellows). She holds a PhD from the University of Texas at Dallas. Perish is her debut novel. Visit her online at LaToyaWatkins.com

Torch Literary Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. TORCH has featured work by Colleen J. McElroy, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Elizabeth Alexander, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Support TORCH and help amplify Black women writers for generations to come.