Burnaway Launches Open Book Club with Austyn Wohlers's Debut Novel Hothouse Bloom

Burnaway kicks off Open Book, its first editorial book club, with Hothouse Bloom, the debut novel by Atlanta-born author Austyn Wohlers, published by Hub City Press of Spartanburg, South Carolina. The book club features two events led by Burnaway Editor and Artistic Director Courtney McClellan: a virtual session on Zoom on Tuesday, September 15 from 7–8PM EST, and an in-person gathering at Larakin in Atlanta on Wednesday, September 23 from 6–8PM EST. Hothouse Bloom follows Anna, a former city dweller and painter who inherits a small apple orchard and attempts to start anew. She seeks a slower, more intentional life in solitude, deciding to forgo painting entirely. Her isolation is interrupted by neighbors, two dogs, hired experts, and her friend Jan, who arrives to help on the farm while completing his own book. The novel has been called a "millennial pastoral" and engages with themes of self-reliance, escapism, and creative impulse. It is compared to Henry David Thoreau's Walden (1854), the survivalist TV show Alone (2015–), Caro Claire Burke's Yesteryear (2026), and Lauren Groff's The Vaster Wilds (2023). The narrative explores Anna's suppressed artistic vision, which manifests in lush, painterly descriptions of farm life. Open Book is a literary program for readers interested in stories touching on art and the South and Caribbean, aiming to foster critical thinking and community amid AI-generated content and declining reading habits.