Book of the Year

World View, the international program for educators at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, has named GROUNDED GLOBALISM by James L. Peacock as its Book of the Year. World View's mission is to "help schools and colleges prepare students to succeed in an interconnected world in which the rules have changed for everyone."

In its citation World Views notes that, "if there were a dictionary entry for 'global Southerner,' Peacock’s photo would certainly appear right beside it." As the citation goes on to say, Peacock "asks the right questions and proposes a method for thinking about possible answers. Read it and open a discussion in your own community about our global/local lives together, and what the future holds."

A Trail That Never Grows Cold

USA Today has a story about recent archaeological discoveries in Georgia and what they may tell us about the much-debated route Hernando De Soto took across the Southeast more than 460 years ago. The work of UGA professor emeritus Charles Hudson is discussed at length.

Hudson is the author of KNIGHTS OF SPAIN, WARRIORS OF THE SUN: HERNANDO DE SOTO AND THE SOUTH’S ANCIENT CHIEFDOMS. As he maps out de Soto's route in the book, Hudson blends archaeology, history, and geography with a writing style that the Times Literary Supplement said "brought alive the world changed by Hernando de Soto and the consequences for those whose home it was."

The foremost authority on the Indians of the Southeast, Charles Hudson is the author or editor of numerous books, including BLACK DRINK: A NATIVE AMERICAN TEA and THE FORGOTTEN CENTURIES: INDIANS AND EUROPEANS IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH, 1521-1704. UGA Press has also just reissued two more works by Hudson that have been out of print: FOUR CENTURIES OF SOUTHERN INDIANS and THE CATAWBA NATION.

For a fascinating look at the nitty-gritty details of anthropological fieldwork, pick up a copy of LOOKING FOR DE SOTO: A SEARCH THROUGH THE SOUTH FOR THE SPANIARD'S TRAIL. Author Joyce Rockwood Hudson is a highly regarded layperson among professional anthropologists in the Southeast. She is also Charles Hudson's spouse and his longtime travelling companion.

Short Takes

Recent interviews:
Dave Kaufman, author of PEACHTREE CREEK, on Good Day Atlanta (Fox News).

C. M. Mayo, author of SKY OVER EL NIDO (and a tireless proponent of writing from Mexico) in the blog Women of the Web Wide Poetry World.

Recent reviews:
THE PALE OF SETTLEMENT on NPR's All Things Considered.

SUPER AMERICA in the New York Times Book Review.

PROPHET FROM PLAINS in the Christian Science Monitor, Atlanta Style and Design, and the Charlotte Observer.

TELL BORGES IF YOU SEE HIM in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

In the news:
The New Orleans Times-Picayune posted a recipe from CRAIG CLAIBORNE'S SOUTHERN COOKING, which we recently reissued.

We get blogged:
Ha Jin, whose Flannery O'Connor Award-winning short story collection, UNDER THE RED FLAG, was published in 1997, was recently the featured author on the blog of the Inkwell Bookstore (Falmouth, MA).

Show & Tell

Welcome to Show & Tell, an occasional feature that will highlight images that offer revealing glimpses into the Press: its books, its authors, its readership, and more. Click on each image for a more detailed view.



Poet Mark McMorris, author of THE BLAZE OF THE POUI, recently did a reading at the Pyramid Atlantic Art Center in Silver Spring, Maryland. Val Lucas, an area artist, produced a broadside for the event. Letterpress printing is just one of Lucas's mediums. You can see the old Colt's Armory press that she restored, and samples of her work at bowerbox.com. McMorris shared the stage—and the broadside—with Cathy Eisenhower.



Mary Frances Broach Woodside is the grandaughter of Mrs. S. R. Dull, the longtime cooking columnist for the Atlanta Journal and author of the classic cookbook SOUTHERN COOKING. Mrs. Woodside and her son, Jim Holmes, stopped by our offices to give us to a look at her grandmother's personal copy of SOUTHERN COOKING. It was just what you'd hope to see: broken at the spine, foodstained, and filled with handwritten notes and clippings. Mrs. Woodside is holding her treasured original copy; Mr. Holmes is holding our reissued edition.

The Louisiana Governor's Race As a Cultural Moment

We really can't say that Jim Peacock foretold Bobby Jindal's gubernatorial victory in his book GROUNDED GLOBALISM. Still, Peacock's observations about how local cultures and the global economy reverberate against each other in mutually sustaining and energizing ways seem downright prescient when applied to the Jindal story. If you want to better understand the changes that opened up the possibility that a child of immigrants from India could become governor of a Deep South state, get a copy of GROUNDED GLOBALISM.

In the days ahead, we will pass along the best of what may be said and written about Jindal's win as an instructive cultural moment. Much of what is out there right now understandably has a political focus. However, read this commentary, in a blog sponsored by Talking Points Memo, as just one example of how the cultural story is trying to break through.

Reading the Indian media's coverage of Jindal's victory is fascinating—and a good way to step outside one's familiar frame of reference. An editorial in the Times of India, titled "Rise of the Immigrant," sees Jindal as an examplar of the "global individual, one who can deliver and accept challenges in different circumstances anywhere in the world regardless of ethnic origin." More directly related to GROUNDED GLOBALISM is this opinion piece at CNN-IBN. It seems almost written to order in how it engages Jim Peacock's points about one's sense of self being rooted in place—and not simply in some physical locale but in the web of human relationships that give it significance. Titled "Diaspora Dilemma: Non-Indian but India's pride," the CNN-IBN piece asks if Indians are perhaps making too much of the accomplishments of Indian-Americans. One of the people interviewed in the article, an Indian employee of an American firm, has this reply: "It’s a matter of pride for us that Indian-Americans are doing well. It’s all about people-to-people relations, even in terms of business growth."

Images:
Left: Bobby Jindal's official 109th Congress photo
Right: Book jacket of Grounded Globalism by James L. Peacock

Technorati Tags: bobby jindal global economy

Short Takes

Recent interviews:
Mort Zachter, author of DOUGH, on Outlook, the BBC World Service radio show. Listen to the interview here. Visit Outlook here. If you're hooked, then read this excerpt from DOUGH in the Gotham History Blotter.

Dave Kaufman, author of PEACHTREE CREEK, on Atlanta's WABE 90.1.

Judith Ortiz Cofer, author of A LOVE STORY BEGINNING IN SPANISH, in Nashville Scene.

Frye Gaillard, author of PROPHET FROM PLAINS, in Atlanta Magazine.

Recent reviews:
TELL BORGES IF YOU SEE HIM in Library Journal (scroll to bottom of page).

GEORGIA'S FRONTIER WOMEN in Journal of American History.

A COMMON THREAD, also in Journal of American History.

In the news:
Susan Neville, whose story collection THE INVENTION OF FLIGHT was an early winner of the FLANNERY O'CONNOR AWARD FOR SHORT FICTION, is profiled in this piece about her ongoing writing career.

Our friends at The Georgia Review are bringing two distinguished poets, Natasha Trethewey and Stephen Dunn, to Atlanta and Athens.

We get blogged:
Lots of blogs, including Legends & Rumors, are picking up a story about the section of DIEHARD REBELS that deals with rumors.

Recommendation of an essay in COMING INTO CONTACT in Planetary.

Mention of BECAUSE I REMEMBER TERROR, FATHER, I REMEMBER YOU in Beyond the Tears.

Review of SENTIMENTAL CONFESSIONS in Allow Yourself To Be Awkward.

Kirby and Voigt on National Book Award Shortlist

The finalists for the 2007 National Book Awards have been announced. Two of the nominees in the poetry category also have published books with the UGA Press.

David Kirby, who is nominated for The House on Boulevard St., is also the author of WHAT IS A BOOK? and ULTRA-TALK.

Ellen Bryant Voigt, who is nominated for Messenger: New and Selected Poems 1976-2006, is also the author of THE FLEXIBLE LYRIC and the editor of HAMMER AND BLAZE.

Congratulations to both of these distinguished writers—and to all of the other NBA 2007 nominees.

Images:
Top left: David Kirby, photo by Barbara Hamby
Top right: Ellen Bryant Voigt, photo by Ted Rosenberg
Bottom left: Book cover for Ultra-Talk
Bottom right: Book cover for The Flexible Lyric




Technorati Tags: national book award
david kirby
ellen bryant voigt

Books and the News

In the new Ken Burns documentary, The War, Sascha Weinzheimer's story reminds us that not all American prisoners of the Japanese were in the armed forces. Weinzheimer was just a child when the Philippines, where she and her family lived, were invaded by Japan. The Weinzheimers were among the more than 5,000 American civilians living there who fell into enemy hands.

To learn more about the Japanese internment of American civilians in the Philippines during World War II, check out CAPTURED. This history recounts daily life in five internment camps, including the Santo Tomas camp, where the Weinzheimers were held. Supported by diaries, memoirs, war crimes transcripts, Japanese soldiers' account, medical data, and many other sources, CAPTURED presents a detailed and moving chronicle of the internees' efforts to survive overcrowding, heavy labor, malnourishment, and disease. The American Historical Review praised CAPTURED as a "truly remarkable and important book," and recommended it to "those interested in the wider American historical experience."


The refugee crisis along the Myanmar-Thailand border is only the latest episode of a decades-long problem. SINGING TO THE DEAD adds context to current headlines by recalling one woman's work alongside a group of Buddhist monks in Thailand who gave refuge to victims of the violence and oppression in Myanmar in the 1990s.

Booklist said that author Victoria Armour-Hileman chronicled her experience "with striking candor, confessing her sense of inadequacy in the face of so much pain and evil, her despair over the stark reality that indigenous people all around the world have been forced to the brink of extinction, and her inability to fathom the motives of those who commit atrocities. Observant, sweetly funny, modest, and compassionate, Armour-Hileman is a thought-provoking storyteller and an invaluable witness to what is both 'hideous and holy' in human nature."

Technorati Tags: ken burns world war ii myanmar burma human rights

Short Takes

Don't forget:
Our White Sale ends at 12 noon EST, Sunday, September 30.

Recent interviews:
Mort Zachter, author of DOUGH, on NPR.

Riché Richardson, author of BLACK MASCULINITY AND THE U.S. SOUTH on Psychjourney Audio Book Club.

Recent reviews:
PEACHTREE CREEK in Creative Loafing and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

THE RINGING EAR in Rain Taxi: "Offers a consistently strong showcase of Black voices and a compelling and accessible organization, and should persist as an important articulation of the Black experience of the American South . . . The genius of this book and of Cave Canem's importance is obvious."

GOOD OBSERVERS OF NATURE in the Feminist Review.

THE PALE OF SETTLEMENT in Booklist: "Singer’s tremendous debut ... weaves together strands of familial identity, history, and myth to create a fascinating, many-hued narrative fabric."

THE PALE OF SETTLEMENT in Publishers Weekly.

CIRCLING HOME in Booklist: "Lane’s forays took him from a posh country club golf course to the local sewage treatment plant, through an abandoned graveyard, and past a burned-out ironworks. Each locale inspired eloquent and esoteric essays about the archaeological and ecological wonders found beneath his feet. Taken together, his descriptive reports create a painstakingly intricate portrait of the land he lovingly calls home."

DEPTH THEOLOGY in the Modern Review

GEORGIA QUILTS in Southern Living: "It's nice to see what was once dismissed as 'women's work' finally getting it's due . . . GEORGIA QUILTS offers more than quilts. It gives us the women who made them and 200 years of the Georgia in which they lived. It shows that so-called women's work is as much a part of the fabric of our state's heritage as wars and politics. Amen to that."

In the news:
Judson Mitcham, whose latest book is A LITTLE SALVATION, was recently the featured poet on Poetry Daily.

JOHN ASHBERY AND YOU looks at the last twenty years of the mtvU laureate's poetic output.

The Southern Texts Society, whose book series we publish, has a new web site. The most recent volume in the series is MARY TELFAIR TO MARY FEW.

FAVORITE WILDFLOWER WALKS IN GEORGIA gets a nod in this Atlanta Journal-Constitution piece about about wildflowers that bloom in the fall.

Recent awards:
A chapter from Jason Phillips' DIEHARD REBELS will appear in the anthology Best American History Essays 2008. The piece, titled "The Grape Vine Telegraph: Rumors and Confederate Persistence," originally appeared in the Journal of Southern History.

We get blogged:
Recommendation of THE SPIRIT OF ISLAMIC LAW in Islam and Christianity.

Mention of THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN AMERICAN MEMORY in a review of another recent civil rights history on mdot.

Recommendation of WORDS ABOUT PICTURES in One-Minute Book Reviews.

Mention of THE RHETORIC OF EUGENICS IN ANGLO-AMERICAN THOUGHT in The Necromancer.

Who Gets to Be a Millionaire?

Listen to NPR's Weekend All Things Considered this Sunday, September 23, to hear an interview with Mort Zachter, author of DOUGH.

Zachter is a winner of the AWP Creative Nonfiction Award. His memoir centers on a small shop on Manhattan’s Lower East Side known in the neighborhood as “the day-old bread store.” It was a bakery where nothing was baked, owned by his two eccentric uncles who referred to their goods as “the merchandise.” Zachter grew up sleeping in the dinette of a leaking Brooklyn tenement. He lived a classic immigrant story—one of a close-knit, working-class family struggling to make it in America. Only they were rich. DOUGH chronicles Zachter's life-altering discovery made at age thirty-six that he was heir to several million dollars his bachelor uncles had secretly amassed in stocks and bonds.

For the interview, NPR host Jacki Lyden went with Zachter to the bakery that defined his family for so many years. They taped the interview inside the small store in an effort to capture the "bakery buzz in the background." NPR producers snapped some pictures while they were there. They will be posted on the NPR website, along with an excerpt from the book, after the interview airs. Check out your local NPR affiliate's web site to find out when Weekend All Things Considered airs in your area.

Images:
Top left: Book jacket for Dough
Bottom left: Uncle Joe and Uncle Harry in their store, 1960s (photo courtesy of the author)
Right: Mort Zachter, photo by David Ticktin

Technorati Tags: npr national public radio

In Memoriam: Edward J. Cashin (1927-2007)

We were saddened to hear that Edward J. Cashin passed away on Saturday, September 8. He was 80 years old. More information can be found in this Associated Press story in the Macon Telegraph.


Cashin, a native of Augusta, was a historian and author of more than thirty books. He had a long career at Augusta State University where he founded the Center for the Study of Georgia History. Cashin's main areas of interest were Georgia and the history of the southern frontier in the 18th century.

The Press published four books by Cashin: LACHLAN McGILLIVRAY, INDIAN TRADER, PATERNALISM IN A SOUTHERN CITY, GOVERNOR HENRY ELLIS AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF BRITISH NORTH AMERICA, and THE KING'S RANGER. The Press also recently reissued BERRY BENSON'S CIVIL WAR BOOK, a classic Civil War memoir that was newly edited by Cashin, who also contributed a greatly expanded introduction to the book.

Cashin won numerous awards for his books, including the 1992 Malcolm and Muriel Barrow Bell Award of the Georgia Historical Society for LACHLAN MCGILLIVRAY, INDIAN TRADER and the 1990 Fraunces Tavern Book Award of the American Revolution Round Table for THE KING'S RANGER. He also received the Governor's Award from the Georgia Humanities Council and the 1997 Hugh McCall Award from the Georgia Association of Historians.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution Decatur Book Festival Returns

The AJC-DBF is back this weekend, after its smashingly successful debut last year. Stop by Booth 502 and visit us.

Here's the who, when, and where for the participating authors who have published with the UGA Press. For the full story, visit the AJC-DBF web site.

No Sophomore Slump for These Two Poets

The National Poetry Series recently announced the winners of its 2007 competition. Two of the five winning poets published their first books with UGA Press: Oni Buchanan (WHAT ANIMAL) and Donna Stonecipher (THE RESERVOIR). Both books were published in the recently retired Contemporary Poetry Series.

Buchanan's National Poetry Series book, Spring, was chosen by Mark Doty and will be published by the University of Illinois Press. The Cosmopolitan, Stonecipher's National Poetry Series book, was chosen by John Yau and will be published by Coffee House Press.

Bin Ramke served as series editor of the Contemporary Poetry Series for twenty-two years, helping to establish the careers of an influential group of poets including Albert Goldbarth, Timothy Liu, Andrew Zawacki, and Mark McMorris. When Ramke retired as editor the Press also retired the series in tribute to its editor and guiding spirit.

Now, the Press's commitment to poetry has taken it in a new direction. We are excited to announce a new series partnership with the Virginia Quarterly Review. Ted Genoways will be series editor for the new VQR Poetry Series. Launching in spring 2008, the series will debut with four books: FIELD FOLLY SNOW by Cecily Parks, THE HISTORY OF ANONYMITY by Jennifer Chang, HARDSCRABBLE by Kevin McFadden, and BOY by Patrick Phillips. See this Publishers Weekly story for more details.

UGA Press also publishes every third winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, as part of a rotating system with Graywolf Press and the University of Pittsburgh Press. We now have three Cave Canem books on our list: Major Jackson's LEAVING SATURN, Kyle Dargan's THE LISTENING, and Dawn Lundy Martin's A GATHERING OF MATTER / A MATTER OF GATHERING. Our relationship with Cave Canem has also resulted in the anthology THE RINGING EAR: BLACK POETS LEAN SOUTH, edited by Nikky Finney.

Spring 2008 will also see the publication of two poetry volumes that fall outside of any UGA Press series. The poems in BLOOD TIES & BROWN LIQUOR by Sean Hill create a call and response across six generations of the fictional family of Silas Wright, a black man born in 1907 in smalltown Georgia. Ed Pavlic's WINNERS HAVE YET TO BE ANNOUNCED conveys the voices, surroundings, and clashing dimensions of the life of '70s soul singer Donny Hathaway. Some early readers have likened it to Coming Through Slaughter, Michael Ondaatje’s reimagining of the tumultuous life of jazz pioneer Buddy Bolden.

Images:
Left: Oni Buchanan, photo by Ryan Spoering
Right: Donna Stonecipher, photo by Laura Payton

Technorati Tags: national poetry series virginia quarterly review cave canem poetry prize donny hathaway

Short Takes

Don't miss it:
Join us at the State Botanical Garden of Georgia on Sunday, July 22, for "Celebrating Our Native Flora and Fauna." There will be presentations and book signings by Giff Beaton (DRAGONFLIES AND DAMSELFLIES OF GEORGIA AND THE SOUTHEAST), Hugh and Carol Nourse (FAVORITE WILDFLOWER WALKS IN GEORGIA), and Linda Chafin (FIELD GUIDE TO THE RARE PLANTS OF GEORGIA). The event is free and open to all, but reservations are encouraged (706-542-1244 or garden@uga.edu).


In the news:
Frank X Walker, a contributor to THE RINGING EAR has started Pluck! a new journal of Affrilachian arts and culture.

Blanche Marie Brawly Vandiver, whose work appears in GEORGIA QUILTS, is featured in a nice hometown story about mountain quilters.

Our modest contribution to Potter Mania: In "Waiting for Harry," a Barnes and Noble online book club devoted to you-know-who, the group moderator begins a discussion about the importance of snake folklore to the series by recommending our book, THE SERPENT’S TALE.


Recent awards:
Further to our 6/12/2007 posting about DEVOTION, Julia Oliver's novel based on the life of Winnie Davis, Daughter of the Confederacy: The Military Order of the Stars and Bars has now posted full details about the John Esten Cook Fiction Award, which DEVOTION has won.


Recent reviews:
"EVERYBODY WAS BLACK DOWN THERE" on H-Net.

NEW CULTURAL STUDIES on PopMatters and Feminist Review.

DEMOCRACY RESTORED in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.


We get blogged:
Read the poem "Zimmer Admiring Elephants," from CROSSING TO SUNLIGHT REVISITED, on the litblog Beatrice.com

Short Takes

Recent awards:
SHORT STORIES OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT won first place in the anthologies category of ForeWord magazine's 2006 Book of the Year awards.

REAL PUNKS DON'T WEAR BLACK won second place in the music category of ForeWord magazine's 2006 Book of the Year awards.

Perry Dilbeck has been named Georgia Author of the Year in the category of Creative Non-Fiction, Specialty Book, for THE LAST HARVEST.

DEVOTION is the winner of the 2007 John Esten Cooke Award for Southern Fiction, which is presented annually by the Military Order of the Stars and Bars to the author of the best historical novel dealing with the South.

SPIT BATHS was named a finalist for the 2007 Paterson Fiction Prize, sponsored by the Poetry Center at Passiac County Community College.

Judith Ortiz Cofer, author of A LOVE STORY BEGINNING IN SPANISH and other books published by UGA Press, has been awarded an honorary doctorate by Lehman College in New York in recognition of her “distinguished record of personal and professional accomplishments and service to society.”

Recent reviews:
THE HANGING OF ANGELIQUE was included in a group review of slavery titles for the "New in Paperback" section of the Washington Post Book World. It's in great company; the other books (by Adam Rothman, James T. Campbell, and Erskine Clarke, published by Yale, Penguin, and Harvard respectively) are among the most prestigious recent books on the topic.

NEW CULTURAL STUDIES in the Feminist Review.

ULTRA-TALK in Verse.

We get blogged:
TEACHING THE TREES in NatLands, the blog of the Delaware Valley's Natural Lands Trust.

THE SPIRIT OF ISLAMIC LAW in Islam and Christianity.

Short Takes

Recent interviews:
Mark Bixler, author of THE LOST BOYS OF SUDAN, in Pine Magazine.

Recent awards:
SHORT STORIES OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT is one of just twenty-eight "Best of the Best from University Presses" titles. This is a special recognition given by the American Library Association to books published by university presses in the preceeding year.

Follow-up to our April 16 Short Takes, in which we mentioned that the Georgia Review was a National Magazine Awards finalist: They've won, edging out such publications as the New Yorker and Smithsonian to take the prize in the Essays category.

Vin Carretta was recently awarded the University of Maryland's Kirwan Faculty Research and Scholarship Prize for his biography EQUIANO, THE AFRICAN. This is the first time that someone in the Humanities has received the highest award for individual achievement given by the University. Carretta has also been granted a Distinguished Visiting Fellowship at Queen Mary, University of London, for Spring 2008.

Recent reviews:
THE HANGING OF ANGELIQUE in the Feminist Review.

DRAGONFLIES AND DAMSELFLIES OF GEORGIA AND THE SOUTHEAST in Ode News.

THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN AMERICAN MEMORY in Southern Cultures: "Renee Romano and Leigh Raiford's collection of essays on [this] subject is a powerful beginning to fill the void. . . . This collection will inspire its readers to rethink the complexities of this important chapter of U.S. history and of how the story of the Civil Rights Movement is being told and retold as the actual events move further into the past."

THE TRUE AND AUTHENTIC HISTORY OF JENNY DORSET in Bookyeti.

FAVORITE WILDFLOWER WALKS IN GEORGIA in Macon Magazine: "[The Nourse's] in-depth knowledge of the flowers and their superb skills as photographers make FAVORITE WILDFLOWER WALKS IN GEORGIA valuable as a reference book as well as a trail guide for anyone interested in native plants and floral photography."

ULTRA-TALK in Creative Loafing. Author David Kirby also recently wrote a story for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel about a visit to Atlanta. There's more: Kirby's school, Florida State, has given him its distinguished teaching award.

We get blogged:
Mention of THE UNABRIDGED DEVIL'S DICTIONARY in Library Thing.

Recommendation of THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN AMERICAN MEMORY in Southern Pasts.

Recommendation of THE BLACK REEDS, as one of "five poetry collections you may not have read but certainly must," in Noctuary.

April 22 Is Earth Day

Earth Day celebrates our environmental citizenship. By paying closer attention to human impacts on the environment, we can make positive changes in the way we interact with the world around us. The University of Georgia Press publishes books about the natural environments of the South, including highly regarded books for outdoor enthusiasts that promote conservation through education and responsible exploration.

By Earth Day, some 58 species of dragonflies and 36 species of damselflies will be in flight throughout Georgia and beyond. DRAGONFLIES AND DAMSELFLIES OF GEORGIA AND THE SOUTHEAST by Giff Beaton is a comprehensive guide to the region’s odonates. Anyone who has seen these shimmering aerobatic daredevils that dart above the water can understand why many birders have taken to watching and identifying dragonflies and their generally smaller cousins, damselflies. Beaton’s stunning photographs detail more than 150 species found in the state. The survival of some of these species is threatened: cumulative land development has impacted the odonates’ aquatic habitats, clogging them with pollution and silt. Some odonate breeding and feeding areas have been eliminated altogether, which is even more detrimental to species with limited habitats. The book details how to observe these creatures without harming them or their environment, including the proper way to hold their wings. Beaton provides a list and map of good public sites in Georgia for watching odonates.

Most of the plants in Hugh and Carol Nourse’s FAVORITE WILDFLOWER WALKS IN GEORGIA will be in their peak flowering season from April to May. With this guide in hand, Earth Day should be a colorful time to explore fields and meadows. Valuable for the novice, the book also contains information of interest to more experienced wildflower enthusiasts. The book features walks in all five regions of Georgia on public land with fairly unrestricted access. Trail maps are accompanied by detailed descriptions of the walks in all seasons and by scenic photographs of the trails and the flowers found along them. The Nourses tell how we can respectfully enjoy wildflower habitats with minimal impact.

FIELD GUIDE TO THE RARE PLANTS OF GEORGIA by Linda G. Chafin recognizes that plant diversity is essential to earth’s biodiversity and stresses management and protection of rare species. The guide contains photographs by Hugh and Carol Nourse and information to facilitate quick recognition of rare and endangered Georgia plants. With its tough flexibind format, the guide is an ideal companion on hikes. Spend some time on Earth Day broadening your awareness of these plants' distribution and ecological significance. That’s a good first step toward helping to ensure their survival.

Dorinda G. Dallmeyer’s ELEMENTAL SOUTH is an anthology of southern nature writing that acknowledges humanity’s ties to the earth. Dallmeyer is a moving force behind the Southern Nature Project, which brings writers together to showcase their distinctive voices and common concerns about human interaction with the environment.

UGA Earth Day Celebration
Monday, April 23, 2007
Sponsored by the Energy Conservation Executive Committee, the Physical Plant, and UGA Unplugged. Showcasing hybrid vehicles, Planet Smoothie's biodiesel bus tour, energy conservation efforts at UGA, live music, activities, and giveaways to raise awareness of the need for energy conservation. 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. Tate Center Plaza.

Giff Beaton, Hugh and Carol Nourse, and Linda G. Chafin are reading and signing copies of their books on Sunday, July 22, 2007, 2-4 p.m., at the State Botanical Garden of Georgia.

Images:

Left (from top to bottom):
"Pacific Shows Signs of Morphing From Warm El Nino To Cool La Nina," 2/12/07, NASA/JPL Ocean Surface Topography Team
Cover of Dragonflies and Damselflies of Georgia and the Southeast
Hugh and Carol Nourse
Cover of Field Guide to the Rare Plants of Georgia
Homepage of Southern Nature Project's web site

Right (from top to bottom):
Giff Beaton in the field, photo by Dennis Paulson
Cover of Favorite Wildflower Walks in Georgia
Fringed Gentian, photo by Hugh Nourse, from Field Guide to the Rare Plants of Georgia
Cover of Elemental South

Research and writing by Sarah Sapinski

Technorati Tags: earth day wildflowers environment

Short Takes

Lots of good things happening here at the Press, so this is a not-very-short Short Takes

Don’t forget
. . . to sign up for our email news list.
. . . that our white sale is ongoing through August.


Recent interviews:
Paisley Rekdal, author of A CRASH OF RHINOS in Yellowworld.

Slurve, a new online magazine that is - and isn’t - about baseball, has interviewed David Kirby, author of ULTRA-TALK, for their first issue. Kirby has belted a double (apologies to Slurve) because Poetry Daily also recently featured an excerpt from ULTRA-TALK.


Recent awards:
Hugh Ruppersburg, coeditor of THE NEW GEORGIA ENCYCLOPEDIA COMPANION TO GEORGIA LITERATURE, and Philip Lee Williams, author of THE HEART OF A DISTANT FOREST, have been named winners of the annual Governor's Awards in the Humanities. These awards, which are sponsored by the the Georgia Humanities Council, go to individuals and organizations who build community, character, and citizenship in Georgia through public humanities education. Congratulations to the Georgia Review: it is also a winner of a Governor's Award in the Humanities - as well as a finalist in the Nationalist Magazine Awards.

Three of our books are finalists in ForeWord Magazine's 2006 Book of the Year Awards: DEVOTION (Historical Fiction), SHORT STORIES OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT (Anthologies), and REAL PUNKS DON'T WEAR BLACK (Music).


Recent reviews:
THE IMAGINARY LIVES OF MECHANICAL MEN in the Independent Weekly, which covers the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area of North Carolina.

DRAGONFLIES AND DAMSELFLIES OF GEORGIA AND THE SOUTHEAST in Argia, the journal of the Dragonfly Society of the Americas: "The newest submission to the flurry of dragonfly and damselfly field guides appearing in North America is Giff Beaton's DRAGONFLIES AND DAMSELFLIES OF GEORGIA AND THE SOUTHEAST. It covers more than 150 species found in Georgia in wonderful detail with over 400 color photographs. The book is well laid out and aesthetically pleasing. I applaud Giff for including damselflies in his guide. This is one of the few guides covering a relatively large fauna that includes both damselflies and dragonflies. The photographs are excellent and reproduced at a size that will really make them useful to the reader."

SPIT BATHS in the Virginia Quarterly Review.

ROMANCING THE VOTE in the Feminist Review.

The film Amazing Grace is bringing new attention to EQUANIO, THE AFRICAN. Author Vince Carretta has participated in some of the major events of the 2007 bicentennial commemoration of Britain’s abolition of the slave trade. The book is one of three titles officially recommended by the Mayor of London’s office as part of the bicentennial commemoration. Diverse: Issues In Higher Education acknowledges the debt of Amazing Grace to the work of Olaudah Equiano and the new information about his birthplace uncovered by Carretta.

NEW ORLEANS AFTER THE PROMISES in the New Orleans Gambit Weekly's piece on Mayor Ray Nagin's post-Katrina performance.

JOURNEY TOWARD JUSTICE in the Wall Street Journal: "This moving biography is indeed a portrait of one woman in one town; but Ms. Stanton . . . is clearly writing about Morgan to show generally what compassionate, thoughtful people can do in the face of oppression." More reviews of JOURNEY TOWARD JUSTICE in the Chattanoogan and Feminist Review.

GEORGIA QUILTS in the Gainesville Times and the Savannah Morning News.

Black Issues Book Review recently reviewed SHORT STORIES OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, saying that it "comes at a time when public awareness of life in the segregated South and of trials of the Civil Rights Era seem to be fading. With this anthology, [editor Margaret Earley] Whitt hopes to raise that awareness again, by introducing readers to one of the most intense periods of American history." By the way, the current issue of Black Issues Book Review includes an interview conducted by Dawn Lundy Martin. Her poetry collection, A GATHERING OF MATTER / A MATTER OF GATHERING, won the Caven Canem Poetry Prize. We will publish it in October 2007.

AN ORNAMENT TO THE CITY was reviewed by Don Noble on Alabama Public Radio.

We get blogged:
A combination review and think piece, featuring VOICES FROM THE MOUNTAINS, in Hillbilly Savants.

Recommendation of ANIMALS AND WHY THEY MATTER, as part of a reading list on animal ethics, in Fauxlosophy, A Phlog.

Recommendation of SLAVERY IN AMERICA, as part of a reading list on slave resistance, in Resistance Studies.

Hundreds of Title at a Huge Discount!

There's something for everyone at our white sale—whether your thing is civil rights or the Civil War, Erskine Caldwell or Jimmy Carter, fine arts or folklife, law or literature.

Save 75% on hundreds of our books, from now until the end of August.

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Congratulations to Cave Canem

The Cave Canem Foundation has just been awarded a three-year Lannan Foundation literary grant for $150,000. Cave Canem is an organization that supports African American poets, especially emerging poets. Founded by Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady, they recently celebrated their ten-year anniversary, and they have been an exciting force in the American poetry scene.

The University of Georgia Press and Cave Canem have strong ties. Each year Cave Canem awards a poet's debut collection with the Cave Canem Poetry Prize. UGA Press, the University of Pittsburgh Press, and Graywolf Press alternately publish these prize-winning books. UGA Press's volumes include Major Jackson's LEAVING SATURN, Kyle Dargan's THE LISTENING, and forthcoming this fall, Dawn Lundy Martin's A GATHERING OF MATTER / A MATTER OF GATHERING. We are also pleased to be publishing Kyle Dargan's second book of poems, BOUQUET OF HUNGERS, this fall, though not in direct association with Cave Canem.

Earlier this month we published THE RINGING EAR: BLACK POETS LEAN SOUTH, an anthology of southern Cave Canem poetry edited by Nikky Finney. Voices new to the scene appear alongside some of the leading names in American literature today, including Sonia Sanchez, Yusef Komunyakaa, Harryette Mullen, Nikki Giovanni, Kevin Young, and Al Young. The southern worlds opened up by these poets are echoed in how their poems are grouped, under headings like "Music, Food, and Work: Heeding the Lamentation and Roar of Things Made by Hand," or "Religion and Nature: The Lord Looks Out for Babies and Fools," or "Love, Flesh, and Family: The Hush and Holler Portraits." In a review in the March/April issue of The Bloomsbury Review, Ray Gonzalez says, "By writing about a region with its rich history and racial contradictions, these poets advance the impact of their poetry beyond historical and cultural boundaries. This is a timely, vital collection that insists the uses of poetry must be redefined and examined through the work of some of our best poets."

Images:
Upper left: Cave Canem Foundation logo
Upper right: Major Jackson
Middle left: Kyle Dargan, credit: Marlene Hawthrone
Middle right: Dawn Lundy Martin, credit: Stephanie Hopkins
Lower left: Nikki Finney, credit: Bradd Luttrell, Kentucky Kernel

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Raiding the 20th Century

Fans of all things avant-garde can find a wealth of free articles, poems, movies, interviews, sound clips, and more at UbuWeb. Hear Henry Miller read from Black Spring. Listen to a survey of 40 years of experimental Polish radio from Studio Warsaw. Explore the music of John Cage. It's a sprawling, open-access YouTube for intellectuals.

Featured on UbuWeb is an audio compliment to Paul Morley's WORDS AND MUSIC: A HISTORY OF POP IN THE SHAPE OF A CITY by DJ Food. DJ Food's project started out as an attempt to document the history of cut-up music in a radio show. When he realized the close affinities his project had with Morley's book, he decided to take the project many steps farther and convinced Morley to collaborate with him. The result is Raiding the 20th Century. It's a large audio file, but well worth the wait to download.

Morley is a former member of the influential music collective Art of Noise and a music and cultural critic. Think of WORDS AND MUSIC as Morley's guidebook for a tour through the history of popular music. You'll find Brian Eno, Wittgenstein, Ornette Coleman, and Alvin Lucier there. You'll also find Madonna, Kylie Minogue, Kraftwerk, and the ghost of Elvis Presley.

Images:

Upper left: UbuWeb homepage

Center right: Cover of WORDS AND MUSIC

Bottom left: Paul Morley, courtesy of Bloomsbury Publishing

Technorati Tags: avant gardenew media