Cote Smith sets his debut novel in the prison town of Leavenworth, Kansas, drawing from his experiences growing up there. Hurt People revolves around two brothers, 9 and 11, and a stranger who befriends them at the same time the town is gripped by a convict’s escape. As the older boy and the charismatic stranger grow closer, the younger child detects danger and desperately tries to keep his brother from slipping away.

Smith, who teaches at the University of Kansas, joins novelist and Writers at Work series organizer Whitney Terrell in a public conversation about the haunting new book published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The Writers at Work series is organized by Terrell, an assistant professor of English at UMKC, and co-sponsored by the Writers at Work Round Table and the UMKC English Department.