Inprint, Houston’s premier literary arts nonprofit organization, presents acclaimed author Adam Johnson on Wednesday, October 15, 7:30 pm as part of the 2025/2026 Inprint Margarett Root Brown Reading Series. The event will be held at the Wortham Center’s Cullen Theater, 501 Texas Avenue, Houston, TX 77002. Johnson, author of The Orphan Master’s Son, will read from and talk about his new novel, The Wayfinder, with Houston author and former Houston Chronicle Book Editor Maggie Galehouse, followed by a book sale and signing in the lobby, at which audience members can meet the author. Season subscriptions and $5 general admission tickets are on sale now on the Inprint website. Free tickets for students and senior citizens are available upon request. Books will be available for sale on site at the Cullen Theater through Brazos Bookstore.

Named among The New York Times' “10 Novels We’re Looking Forward to This Fall,” Adam Johnson’s The Wayfinder (out October 14) is a historical epic set in the Polynesian islands during the Tu’i Tonga Empire. Kōrero, a young girl chosen to save her people from starvation, must brave a daring seafaring journey across a vast ocean empire. Jennifer Egan observes, “[Johnson’s] years of immersion in the Polynesian oral tradition and research… shimmer through The Wayfinder at every twist, but his rollicking storytelling leads the way.” Marlon James calls the book “epic in every sense of the word.”

The novel evokes a world before Western influence through practices like outrigger navigation and oral storytelling. As Johnson told People magazine, “My own grandmother was Sioux, yet no language or culture made it down to me. What did it mean when stories disappeared? What was it that I had lost? These questions set The Wayfinder in motion, a book about navigating not just the natural world, but realms of change, conflict, and strife.”

Adam Johnson won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Orphan Master’s Son. His other books include the story collections Fortune Smiles, which won the National Book Award, and Emporium, and the novel Parasites Like Us. His honors include Guggenheim and NEA Fellowships, a Whiting Award, and a Stegner Fellowship. Born in South Dakota, an enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, Johnson lives in San Francisco with his wife and children and teaches creative writing at Stanford University.

The series is presented by Inprint, a Houston-based literary arts nonprofit organization dedicated to inspiring readers and writers. Since 1980, the Inprint Margarett Root Brown Reading Series has featured more than 400 of the world’s great writers from 40 countries, including winners of 13 Nobel Prizes, 73 Pulitzer Prizes, 67 National Book Awards, 57 National Book Critics Circle Awards, and 18 Booker Prizes, as well as 23 U.S. Poets Laureate. The series and Inprint receive generous underwriting support from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Brown Foundation, Inc., The Jerry C. Dearing Family Foundation, Houston Endowment, The City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance, and the Texas Commission on the Arts. The series is presented in association with Brazos Bookstore and the University of Houston Creative Writing Program. Special thanks to Winpark.

Event Details:

Time: 7:30 pm
Date: October 15, 2025
Address: Cullen Theater, Wortham Center, 501 Texas Avenue, Houston 77002

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For more information, visit inprint.org or call 713.521.2026.