Short Takes

THE INVISIBLES author Hugh Sheehy has a guest post over on Five Points (the blog). The Kenyon Review features both a story by Sheehy and an interview with him. "I have to keep working until there is a day when the story looks finished without my making any changes. Maybe then it is finished, but most likely not. These things take time, and it seems one must both remember this and learn it in a new way with each new big project." (Hugh Sheehy, Kenyon Review)

According to Donna Seaman for the Kansas City Star, Hugh Sheehy's THE INVISIBLES is "the beginning of what promises to be a brilliant writing career."

"[D]oes the faith of the president really matter?" The Washington Independent Review of Books reviews THE FAITHS OF THE POSTWAR PRESIDENTS by David L. Holmes.

COMPANION TO AN UNTOLD STORY author Marcia Aldrich reads selections from her new book in her recently released book trailer. Check it out below!

 

Coleman Hutchison's new book APPLES AND ASHES is "highly recommended" by Choice for being "the first volume devoted exclusively to [the] subject" of examining the literary history of the American Civil War.

Jeremy Vetter, of Environmental History, calls Albert G. Way's CONSERVING SOUTHERN LONGLEAF a "lively, readable book" that is "essential reading" for anyone "interested in changing models of land conservation and forestry during the twentieth century." He even describes Way's work as a "wonderful example of the insights that can be gained by situating the history of scientific knowledge production in its environmental context."

In a recent issue of Early American Literature, Gordon Sayre says of Thomas Hallock and Nancy Hoffmann's book WILLIAM BARTRAM, THE SEARCH FOR NATURE'S DESIGN, "Colleagues, cease for a moment your anxious complaints about the crisis in scholarly publishing, and bu and enjoy this book!" 

The American Book Review raves about Melinda Moustakis' debut collection, BEAR DOWN, BEAR NORTH: "Superbly crafted and trimmed to the nub. . . . Hope and truth shine through in this work, and it isn't the bleak, hard-white truth (the kind you'd expect to find in the hard white snow of Alaska) of the most minimal of minimalisms. It's a soft and human truth that overcomes the wild and the hard edge of the form she's chosen."

Short Takes

RUIN NATION author Megan Kate Nelson will be on C-SPAN3 on Saturday, August 25th discussing battlefield photography at the Battle of Antietam. The episode will air at 6:00pm and 10:00pm. Be sure to tune in!

North Country Public Radio interviews BLACK NATURE editor Camille Dungy about black poets writing about nature. "The fabulous editor at the University of Georgia Press just mentioned in passing, ‘I’d never really thought about African-Americans writing about the natural world. So this is the acquisitions editor of a press who had not seen, who had not been conscious of this presence. He said ‘do you think you can pull together a few more poets?’ There are 90 poets in this book, almost 200 poems, and there are more that I could have had." Listen to the interview here.

Be sure to check out the Late Night Library's close examination of Iain Haley Pollock's 2011 Cave Canem Poetry Prize winning collection SPIT BACK A BOY. In the show, guest co-hosts Doug Cornett and DJ Dolack interview Pollock while also discussing the themes of identity and in-betweenness, death and ritual, and connections between past and present that pervade his poems. Listen to the show here.

A recent review in the Greensboro News & Record lauds Karen Kruse Thomas for her book DELUXE JIM CROW: "Thomas traces in detail--minute, eye-watering detail with charts, tables and graphs--the history of this aspect of segregation. . . . surely the definitive [book] on this aspect of segregation. . . .This is outstanding scholarship."
Author Linda LeGarde Grover is venerated for her collection of short stories, DANCE BOOTS (re-released as a paperback this year), in a recent issue of Studies in American Indian Literatures. Michael Wilson writes, "Dance Boots is an elegantly written and often deeply moving collection of short stories. Like O'Connor's fiction these stories are regional, focusing on members of an Ojibwe community in northern Minnesota. And like O'Connor's fiction, very little in these stories is untouched by the history of racism in American. . . .When it comes to fiction, this is not just good manners—this is good art."

Jack E. Davis of The Civil War Monitor praises Lisa Brady's book WAR UPON THE LAND in a recent book review: "Brady's fine book. . . looks at the role nature played in the Civil War. . . . no one [else] has offered a comprehensive examination of the subject."

Books & Culture calls Vincent Carretta's PHILLIS WHEATLEY "simply superb--a welcome addition to the burgeoning literature on key 18th-century evangelicals."

Interview with Robert Paulett about his new book, An Empire of Small Places

Britain's colonial empire in southeastern North America relied on the cultivation and maintenance of economic and political ties with the numerous powerful Indian confederacies of the region. Those ties in turn relied on British traders adapting to Indian ideas of landscape and power. In AN EMPIRE OF SMALL PLACES, Robert Paulett examines this interaction over the course of the eighteenth century, drawing attention to the ways that conceptions of space competed, overlapped, and changed. He encourages us to understand the early American South as a landscape made by interactions among American Indians, European Americans, and enslaved African American laborers.

The Early American Places (EAP) series focuses on historical developments in specific places of North America. Though these developments often involved far-flung parts of the world, they were experienced in particular communities—the local places where people lived, worked, and made sense of their changing worlds. By restricting its focus to smaller geographic scales, but stressing that towns, colonies, and regions were part of much larger networks, EAP will combine up-to-date scholarly sophistication with an emphasis on local particularities and trajectories.

This is the fourth video featuring an EAP author. In each video, the author is asked three questions:
1) Why did you focus your research on this particular place/area/region?
2) Please tell us a little more about your book.
3) Is your study specific to your area or is it applicable to other places/area/regions?

Short Takes

Julian Brash, author of BLOOMBERG'S NEW YORK, comments on Michael Bloomberg's decision to have the city of New York enter into a "social impact bond" with Goldman Sachs. "Goldman Sachs has been very adept at getting involved in government policy that clearly serves its own self-interest. . . . It sees this as a way to develop a market in these bonds at a time when financial capital is having a hard time finding profitable investments, banks are sitting on huge amounts of money, and everyone is looking for the next bubble."—The Nation

The latest issue of The Living Church has a review of THE FAITHS OF THE POSTWAR PRESIDENTS by David L. Holmes. "THE FAITHS OF THE POSTWAR PRESIDENTS is easy, informative, interesting, and a balanced presentation of each president."

The largest Burmese python in Florida was recently discovered. At 17.7 feet, the python was also found carrying a record-breaking 87 eggs. National Geographic interviewed two University of Georgia Press authors about the story. "A Burmese python as big as the new titleholder 'should be able to eat nearly any native animal in South Florida'—even Florida panthers," said INVASIVE PYTHONS IN THE UNITED STATES co-author J.D. Willson. SNAKES OF THE SOUTHEAST co-author and UGA professor Whit Gibbons is also quoted.

The Civil War Monitor has a new video interview series, and RUIN NATION author Megan Kate Nelson is one of their first participants. Check out the video here!

The staff at ForeWord This Week recommend Linda M. Rupert's CREOLIZATION AND CONTRABAND, calling it "superb."

Short Takes

Hugh Sheehy's THE INVISIBLES receives a starred fiction review in Publishers Weekly which proclaims him "a wicked new talent."

The video trailer for Megan Kate Nelson's RUIN NATION is featured on Cosmic America.

Megan Kate Nelson contributes to the discussion on BackStory Radio's recent episode, "Beach Bodies: A History of the American Physique."

Congratulations to John Inscoe for winning another award! His book, WRITING THE SOUTH THROUGH THE SELF, has just been announced as one of the 2012 Lillian Smith Award winners.

In a recent article, the Oxford American explains the connections among CORNBREAD NATION 6, Vietnamese cuisine, and New Orleans' restaurants.

Marcia Aldrich, author of the forthcoming COMPANION TO AN UNTOLD, has been working on a video trailer for her book. Check out her blog to learn about her experience.

A columnist for the Anniston Star quotes a passage from ALABAMA GETAWAY by Allen Tullos in his column about the current movement in Anniston, AL to change its reputation.

Short Takes

WABE's City Cafe with John Lemley interviewed Ren and Helen Davis about their book ATLANTA'S OAKLAND CEMETERY. The interview focuses on the role of Oakland Cemetery during the Civil War's Battle of Atlanta. Listen to the interview here.

The Florida Times-Union calls Charles Seabrook's THE WORLD OF THE SALT MARSH a "masterful and comprehensive examination of what remains of [the] endangered and disappearing wetlands. . ."

When interviewed for a Savannah Morning News article about wrack accumulation, Kofi Moyo mentioned the relevance of THE WORLD OF THE SALT MARSH. "I recently read SALT MARSH (by Charles Seabrook, University of Georgia Press) and clearly urban sprawl as it reaches the nation’s shoreline has a deleterious impact on our marsh and waterways."

In an article on Indie vs. Traditional Publishing, the Huffington Post refers to PLEASE COME BACK TO ME author Jessica Treadway and her experience at UGA Press: "I had the benefit of brilliant, learned editors—that is, editors with whom I literally sat down or exchanged detailed messages—who definitely helped my manuscripts be better books."

Julian Brash, author of BLOOMBERG'S NEW YORK, is quoted in a recent Salon article about Mayor Michael Bloomberg's push for subsidized micro-apartments in New York. "'There’s a standard line on the left that [Bloomberg's development strategy] is just about shoveling money into the pockets of the rich,” says Julian Brash, an assistant professor of anthropology at Montclair State University. “I think it’s more complex. It’s about creating a city that’s hospitable to the type of people who Bloomberg thinks will be the motors of growth.'"

THE FAITHS OF THE POSTWAR PRESIDENTS author David L. Holmes will be interviewed on 89.3 KPCC's Patt Morrison Show. He will be answering questions about whether or not the United States has a history of being a Christian nation. The interview will air on Thursday, August 2nd at 2:00pm (PST).