Join us for a discussion, reading, and Q&A with novelist Kai Thomas, author of In the Upper Country—a sweeping, powerful story set at the terminus of the Underground Railroad, where the fates of two unforgettable women—one beginning a journey of reckoning and self-discovery, the other completing her life’s last vital act—intertwine.

Kai will also share reflections on The Light Pirate, the 2025 Vermont Reads selection from Vermont Humanities, exploring themes of place, resilience, and community.

Following the talk, students from Burr and Burton Academy’s Creative Writing class will read original work developed in a workshop with Kai at Smokey House Center the day before.

Free and open to the public. Presented in partnership with Smokey House Center and Vermont Humanities.

Kai Thomas is an author and educator. His background and body of work span from land stewardship, carpentry, and small-scale farming to historical research and scholarship.

His debut novel, In the Upper Country, was awarded the 2023 Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust prize for fiction and was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for Fiction, the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Debut Fiction, and the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. The work has been featured in news outlets such as NPR, CBC, The New York Times, and the Globe and Mail.