The Hamlet Fire: A Tragic Story of Cheap Food, Cheap Government, and Cheap Lives author Bryant Simon will be in conversation with Monica Hesse, author of American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land, to discuss their stories of poverty, desperation, and tragedy in rural America at 4 p.m. on Saturday, March 24, at the Central JMRL Library.

The event is free and open to the public.