Local writers' festivals

It's tempting to write off the big-chain-bookstores as the "bad guys" stealing all the business from small bookstores, but every now and then they do their bit to support local writers. A few years ago, I went to the Barnes & Noble in Durham, NC, that had a roundtable of local self-published authors. They talked about their books, and then the audience were able to buy signed copies.

Here's another example of the "local writers festival" at a B&N in Birmingham, AL. Let me know if you know of any other similar events.

Southern Writers' Festival
Author Signing
Come and support our wonderful selection of local authors in person during this eclectic event. With the collection of many genres, there is something for everyone.
Sunday October 24, 2010 2:00 PM
The Summit Birmingham
Summit Shopping Center,
201 Summit Boulevard Suite 100,
Birmingham, AL 35243,
205-298-0665

Blue Moon Cafe

My friend recently let me borrow Stories from the Blue Moon Cafe, a great anthology of short stories, essays, and poetry from writers all over the South. It's not new--it was published in 2002 as the result of a literary gathering called Southern Writers Reading in Fairhope, Alabama. Apparently, there's a whole series of them now.

Some of the writers in this first volume include: Rick Bragg, C. Terry Cline Jr., Patricia Foster, William Gay, Pat Controy, Silas House, and lots more. An especially humorous one is "S. Trident" by C. Terry Cline Jr, about the purchase of some old Cold War government property, told entirely in letters to and from the U.S. and Russian government.

New Indie Bookstore in Hillsborough

Let's hope it's a trend...a new independent bookstore opened in November in Hillsborough, NC. Purple Crow Books is a tiny nook that specializes in Hillsborough and NC authors. There's a cute little kids' room with great selections and a special "seat" made out of a claw-foot tub!

If you've heard of any new indie bookstores in the South, please let us know!

Southern-style book reviews

If you've not already checked out Southern Literary Review, here's another good reason ... their book review section. There's a good mixture of academic stuff, literary journals, and fiction. Fun to read for the recommendations or just as reading material in itself. Here's the website:

http://southernlitreview.com/category/reviews

Writing contest for study abroad

There's a new kind of writing prize at the University of New Orleans. Three contest winners will attend a writing program at the Ezra Pound Center for Literature in Dorf Tirol, Italy, or the Writing Workshops in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Prizes are given annually to a poet, a fiction writer, and a creative nonfiction writer. The award includes full tuition and lodging, and the winning works are published in the Pinch. The editors of the Pinch will judge. Using the online submission system at the link above, submit your work with a $25 entry fee by January 31. Visit the Web site for complete guidelines.

The Walker Percy Project

Have you read any Walker Percy? I came across this website dedicated to the Alabama-born author, winner of the 1962 National Book Award for his first novel The Moviegoer. The site is a literary center with lots of information, free to the public. It's a little hard to navigate, but if you're like me and hadn't heard of Percy, it may pique your curiosity about the unusual writer. There's even an online discussion group.

Here's a quote from the website, answering the question, "Who is Walker Percy?"

"novelist of ideas

philosophical novelist

comedic satirist

cautionary moralist

diagnostician

prophetic essayist

post-modern thinker

'existentialist' Southern gentleman

ex-suicide wayfarer-pilgrim

Martian castaway [...]

None of the above/all of the above"

Going Away Shoes

Check out NC author Jill McCorkle's new book of short stories, Going Away Shoes, published by Algonquin Books. If you haven't yet read McCorkle, this is a great way to start -- her stories have weight to them and are addictive because the characters are so real, with dark senses of humor and real faults -- like a wife who invites her ex and his new girlfriend for Christmas Eve and then wonders why she ever did such a stupid thing. Then the septic tank goes bust. What could be a better story??

Seeing STARS!

If you haven't yet heard about STARS (Southern Traveling Authors Registration Service), you might want to check it out: http://www.authorsroundthesouth.com/STARS/author.php

Authors and readers will benefit from this new service, launched in January by SIBA. Basically, STARS is a listing of Southern authors -- their websites, press kits, upcoming readings they're doing ... Each time they enter a trip on STARS, an announcement is sent to nearby SIBA stores, telling booksellers that the author will be in the area and is available for events, speaking engagements, book club discussions, etc. Great idea!

Back again ...

... after a short hiatus! Will be updating the events and contests section soon, along with more literary news from the South.

Current and upcoming reading list:
King of Lies, John Hart
Serena, Ron Rash

I'm obviously more familiar with the NC authors, so please feel free to share any other Southern authors that you know of.

Adventures in Pen Land

Adventures in Pen Land: One Writer's Journey from Inklings to Ink is North Carolina writer Marianne Gingher's fifth book and tells of her uphill slog toward writing success. Written in first person, this is a smooth, easy read with humorous anecdotes from Gingher's life, starting at age 6, and illustrations by Daniel Wallace. There's an interesting chapter called "The Southern Writer Thing" where she describes a trip to New York City to meet her literary agent and reflects on what it means to write, sound, and look "Southern."

Here's the blurb from the back of the book, which describes it much better than I can!

She invites us along on a raucous tour of soul-sucking jobs, marriage, and a teaching career, with accompanying disquisitions on blasphemous reading preferences, ’60s pop culture, writing workshops, and other amusing detours and distractions on the way to publication. She also shares her keen insights into the role of a Southern writer in American literary culture, the experience of writing as a mother, and the process of novel-writing as compared to a lengthy family car trip.