Book Launch: Fairfield County - Delana R.A. Dameron

Imani Perry, Denne Michele Norris, and Renée Watson pay tribute to the life and career of the late DéLana R.A. Dameron and discuss her new novel Fairfield County, posthumously published by Dial Press in June 2026.

About the Book

A sweeping family saga about inheritance and the enduring legacy of Southern Black cowboy culture, from the acclaimed author of Redwood Court, a Reese's Book Club Pick.

"Epic . . . a family saga in the finest tradition." — Charmaine Wilkerson, New York Times bestselling author of Good Dirt

South Carolina's Fairfield County is the only place the Bolton family has ever called home. For more than a century, they have cultivated this land, raising horses for derbies and rodeos and passing their knowledge from generation to generation. But after a devastating tragedy, Dwayne — the next inheritor of the Bolton legacy — buries his family history, particularly from his daughter. Unlike her father, Nikki is a proud, burgeoning horsewoman with no knowledge of her family's connection to the part of her life she's most passionate about. When a series of events threatens to sever father and daughter from the only land they've ever known, Dwayne is forced to confront his past so that Nikki can step into her future.

Fairfield County is at once a moving exploration of the ties that bind us and a bold reclamation of the American cowboy — taking this iconic image out of the whitewashed Old West and deep into the heart of the Black South, where it has always resided.

About the Panelists

Imani Perry is the National Book Award–winning author of South to America and eight other books of nonfiction. Her latest, Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People, was among the most anticipated books of 2025. She is the Henry A. Morss Jr. and Elisabeth W. Morss Professor of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University, and a 2023 MacArthur Fellow.

Denne Michele Norris is the editor in chief of Electric Literature, winner of the Whiting Literary Magazine Prize. She is the first Black, openly trans woman to helm a major literary publication. She co-hosts the podcast Food 4 Thot and holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College.

Renée Watson is a #1 New York Times bestselling author with over one million books sold. Her middle grade novel All the Blues in the Sky received the John Newbery Medal. Her novel Piecing Me Together received a Coretta Scott King Award and a Newbery Honor. Her poetry collection Black Girl You are Atlas received a Coretta Scott King Honor and the Walter Dean Myers Award. She serves on the Education Advisory Council for the Academy of American Poets.

About the Author

DéLana R.A. Dameron is the author of Fairfield County and Redwood Court, a Reese's Book Club pick and a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. She is also the author of two poetry collections, How God Ends Us and Weary Kingdom. Her work has appeared in Kweli Journal, the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. She was the founder of Saloma Acres, an equestrian and cultural space in her home state of South Carolina. She passed away in 2025.