Memphian Tara M. Stringfellow says she is currently counting down to two events:

The first is the publication of her debut novel, happening Tuesday, April 5.

The other is when Stringfellow heads to the Amalfi Coast in Italy to spend her summer and start writing her second novel. 

Or, in her words, “rent a house and push out a book.”

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Stringfellow will kick off the American tour for her first novel, entitled “Memphis” (Dial Press/Penguin Random House) with a celebration Tuesday at Novel in East Memphis. The event is complete with a specialty cocktail, the “Miss Dawn,” named for one of the book’s characters. It’s a take on a French 75 but with lavender syrup.

The 252-page “Memphis” follows artist Joan and several generations of women in her family.

From the beginning, Stringfellow knew she wanted the protagonist to be an artist.

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“I thought about all the different mediums I do,” Stringfellow said. “I thought about dance. I grew up playing violin, I thought maybe (Joan) could be in the orchestra. I also grew up painting as well. ... Everyone in my family can draw well. I thought that would better encapsulate the women in the neighborhood. ...

“With (visual) art, you have to go out and look at things. Landscape, you take your easel and your canvases and your brushes and you go out and paint. It forces you to be out in nature, in the neighborhood, talking to folks. People come out and ask you, ‘What you doing? What you drawing?’ People are naturally curious.”

Stringfellow said she wrote “Memphis” specifically for the Black women in the city and wants the book to be a gift to them. 

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“I really hope that Black women in Memphis know that they are loved and that every single thing I write will be for the beauty of them,” she said. “And I hope they like the book.”

Stringfellow is also a poet and a former attorney and has worked as a teacher in Memphis and Washington, D.C. She earned her Master of Fine Arts degree in both poetry and prose from Northwestern University. 

“I was born a poet,” she said. “You don’t become a poet. ... It’s a calling. I believe that my maker put me here on this earth to write Black stories.”

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She initially moved to Memphis as a child, after living in Okinawa, Japan, and also lived abroad for some time as an adult. But she moved back to the Bluff City most recently in July 2020. 

“I love my city,” Stringfellow said. “I’ve lived all over this world, but there’s a reason I choose to live in Memphis.”

After living “everywhere,” she said, it’s nice to live at home in a “beautiful, three-bedroom Victorian house in North Memphis.”

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Besides her second novel, Stringfellow says her book of poetry, “Magic Enough,” is set to be published in 2024.

In addition to the book itself, Stringfellow wants attendees of Tuesday’s event to anticipate something else:

“Y’all are not ready for what I have to wear for this book tour,” Stringfellow said. “Every single shoe is going to be red-bottomed (Christian) Louboutin. ... I have stylists all over the city booked. ... I’m gonna look like (“Memphis” character) Miriam on the day of the officer’s ball. I’m gonna be repping Memphis and Black hair.”

Stringfellow’s book tour has already had its European leg; after Memphis, she’ll stop in Jackson, Mississippi; Oxford; Evanston, Illinois; and Brooklyn.

“Memphis” launch party, is Tuesday, April 5, at 6 p.m. at Novel, 387 Perkins Ext.