But you can also still submit your fiction or poetry for this year's Pinch literary contest. The submission deadline has been extended from March 15th to April 15th. For more information, go to thepinchjournal.com, brought to you by the good folks in the writing department at the University of Memphis.

The book, The Clone Codes, is set in 2170. There's peace and prosperity on planet Earth. But the cyborgs and clones that populate the planet are little more than slaves. And yet, there's an underground movement afoot to free those cyborgs and clones, and the mother of a 13-year-old girl named Leanna is part of it.

The book is science fictional, but it draws on elements and individuals from American history — elements such as the Fugitive Slave Act, the Thirteenth Amendment, the abolitionist movement, and Plessy v. Ferguson and individuals such as Benjamin Franklin, Sojourner Truth, Justice John Marshall Harlan, and Eleanor Roosevelt. Which makes The Clone Codes a futuristic lesson in America's past, designed for readers ages 9-12.

Something brand-new: The McKissacks have been up to some "cloning" themselves: The Clone Codes marks the writing debut of their son John, a mechanical engineer living in Memphis.

Here's what the author, a native Memphian, had to say by phone from Washington, D.C., a week before she returns to her hometown to read from and sign copies of Wench at Rhodes College:

The epidemic was encephalitis lethargica, a brain disorder, which in the first half of the 20th century afflicted millions, from Europe to the U.S. No less an authority than Oliver Sacks, who wrote on the disease in his book Awakenings, has called Asleep "a brilliant, deeply moving account" of the patients who suffered from encephalitis and the doctors who sought to cure it.

Meet Molly Caldwell Crosby when she discusses and signs Asleep at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Memphis on Tuesday, March 2nd, at 6 p.m. Questions? Call the store at 901-683-9801. For more on Asleep and its author, see the March issue of Memphis magazine.

The event will take place on the school's Macon Cove campus inside the Bert Bornblum Library. The reading's at 12:15 p.m; the two-hour workshop begins at 1:30 p.m. Both the reading and workshop are free and open to the public.

And while it may be too late to submit a sample of your work for discussion, you can still attend the workshop as an auditor. For more information on auditing, contact Thad Cockrill at 333-4604.

"But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering."

Are you following?

Sandra Hamer — novelist, poet, playwright, teacher, and former broadcaster on Memphis television — signs her novel Glory ... The Hair on Saturday, February 6th, from 5 to 7 p.m. The place? Not a beauty shop but The Beauty Shop, the restaurant at 966 S. Cooper. It's your chance to get one thing straight, and it's got nothing to do with relaxer: What is "j"?

It's the story of a woman who died in 1951, but it's her surviving cell line that has made her "immortal" and the source of endless — and history-making — medical research. Skloot's book brings that story for the first time to full light. Or haven't you heard?

They're a trigger-happy twosome bent on revenge, and they're the subject of a book called Harpe. They're also, according to the book's subtitle, "America's first serial killers" in an era noted for all manner of killing: beheadings; hangings; hatchet jobs; throats slashed; heads blasted; a dog chopped to pieces; and a horse forced off a cliff (along with a couple of riders — two clergymen stripped naked and roped back-to-back).

Not that the brothers are responsible for all the mayhem in Harpe, but they do their big share of it — not least, Micajah, a nervous hothead who can only take so much of Wiley's newborn son, who won't stop crying. So Micajah slams the infant against a tree.

If you pre-ordered a signed copy of Ford County from Burke's Book Store, your order is ready. If you didn't pre-order, signed copies are still available through Burke's, but the supply is limited. Just don't expect a signature with a personalized greeting. Just the name of the author: John Grisham.

For a signed copy of Ford County, call Burke's at 901-278-7484, go by the store at 936 S. Cooper, or visit burkesbooks.com.

Erin Arvedlund: She didn't believe those profits either, so she investigated Madoff for Barron's back in 2001, but the SEC wouldn't follow up on her or anyone's suspicions. And now, Arvedlund's written about Madoff again. The book's called Too Good To Be True: The Rise and Fall of Bernie Madoff, and on Thursday, November 12th, at 7 p.m., Arvedlund is in Memphis to discuss Madoff and sign copies of her book at the Memphis Jewish Community Center.

Yakich at Burke's: No. Due to a family emergency, poet Mark Yakich was unable to travel to Memphis for tonight's booksigning. Look for word from Burke's that the Yakich reading has been rescheduled.