Short Takes

From the new issue of Audubon magazine: "Written with disarming and compelling glee, ROSALIE EDGE, HAWK OF MERCY, by Dyana Z. Furmansky, tells the unlikely story of how a poor little rich girl became the most effective American conservationist between John Muir and Rachel Carson."

Karine Moe and Dianna Shandy (GLASS CEILINGS AND 100-HOUR COUPLES) will appear on "Showcase Minnesota" this Monday, December 12 at 10 am on KARE-11, the Twin Cities NBC affiliate; after it airs, view the segment here.

Robin Ekiss (THE MANSION OF HAPPINESS) is included in the annual debut poets feature in the new issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Newly released: THE NEW ROAD by photographer Rob Amberg. Amberg will sign books and discuss this documentary project at The Captain's Bookshelf in Asheville this Friday at 5:30 pm.

Joshua Poteat's "Illustrating" on Verse Daily today.

A review by Ron Slate of GHOSTBREAD.

From this month's Journal of American History: "Seth C. Bruggeman's impressive account of George Washington's birthplace deserves a wide audience. . . . HERE, GEORGE WASHINGTON WAS BORN is a compelling story about the changing fields of historic preservation, museum studies, and public history." From the Journal of Interdisciplinary History: "A fine addition to the memory studies and public-history canon."

From Rain Taxi: BLACK ELVIS "has something for all readers who sometimes doubt their own sense of direction, and even more for the reader with an ear and a love for music."

Andrew Porter (THE THEORY OF LIGHT AND MATTER) has received the Drake Emerging Writer Award in Short Fiction from Drake University. The paperback of his collection will release January 5 from Vintage.

Spring catalog and newsletter now available online

Can't wait for (or don't need) the print catalog? Check out our spring list online.

Highlights include:

FROM MUD TO JUG - "no one better understands Southern folk pottery than John Burrison”

SERIOUSLY FUNNY, an anthology compiled by Barbara Hamby and David Kirby to examine the incisive tool of humor in the best contemporary American poetry

The rapid evolution of CHARLOTTE, NC as seen from many angles, from transit to NASCAR

Biographies of writer and activist John Oliver Killens and songwriter Johnny Mercer

CORNBREAD NATION 5, tasty Southern food writing, from Sazeracs to hot chicken

While you're digitally browsing, check out our latest newsletter, featuring interviews with LeeAnn Lands (THE CULTURE OF PROPERTY) and Camille Dungy (BLACK NATURE) as well as background on the Gullah-Geechee culture that is the subject of our forthcoming AFRICAN AMERICAN LIFE IN THE GEORGIA LOWCOUNTRY.

Finally, if you're so inclined, take a look at our latest subject catalog (scroll down the page), featuring new and recent titles in history.

Short Takes

GLASS CEILINGS AND 100-HOUR COUPLES in the Wall Street Journal: "Glass Ceilings makes a prediction: Before long, businesses will see the folly of under-using a powerful resource and will design policies that better accommodate capable, educated women who happen to have children." The book was also reviewed in the December issue of Brain, Child.

The Asheville Citizen-Times reviews THE NEW ROAD; photographer Rob Amberg will speak and sign books at The Captain's Bookshelf in Asheville next Friday, December 18.

Southern Living's December issue notes SOUTH CAROLINA WOMEN as a great SC book to give this holiday.

Vernon Burton on the Lincoln Bicentennial and Atlanta's town hall meeting this past week.

Audio from Wendy Hamand Venet's lecture on SAM RICHARDS'S CIVIL WAR DIARY at the Atlanta History Center now available online from Forum Network.

NONPROLIFERATION NORMS reviewed in Parameters: "Maria Rublee's book is valuable as an antidote to a realist pessimism regarding whether nuclear proliferation can be contained."

From Georgia Historical Quarterly: "THE BIG TENT is first-rate--impressively researched, interpretive, and highly readable...Gregory Renoff has provided a model of how to study popular culture."

From Technology and Culture on ENTREPRENEURS IN THE SOUTHERN UPCOUNTRY: "Our understanding of the antebellum southerners' view of the economy is changing, and Eelman's important work contributes much to that understanding by joining antebellum and postbellum worlds in a single analysis."

The Poetry Society of America names Jennifer Chang among its 2009 New American Poets, which recognizes "some of the most interesting recent first book poets." Previous years have recognized Cecily Parks, Joshua Poteat, Dawn Lundy Martin, Oni Buchanan and Major Jackson.

A Joshua Poteat poem was featured Saturday on Poetry Daily.

BLACK ELVIS a "best of 2009" short story collection at The Book Fox.

A review of HARDSCRABBLE in New Letters praises "the pleasures of McFadden’s nimble wit and linguistic savvy"; the book is also reviewed in the Antioch Review.

Short Takes

An interview with Christine Keiner (THE OYSTER QUESTION) is scheduled to air tomorrow morning(12/4) at 9 AM on Public Radio Delmarva.

ForeWord praises GHOSTBREAD: "Livingston writes with an understated restraint and paints her past in careful detail. The result is captivating."

Anna Journey reviewed at Blackbird.

The Environmental Defense Fund recommends our biography of Rosalie Edge.

Robin Ekiss (THE MANSION OF HAPPINESS) was featured on Poetry Daily this Tuesday. She reads in Santa Cruz December 8 and at San Francisco's Inside Storytime December 17.

UGA Press author Jonathan Addleton presented his credentials to the President of Mongolia this week to complete his appointment as the U.S. Ambassador to Mongolia. His memoir, SOME FAR AND DISTANT PLACE, describes his experiences growing up in Pakistan as the child of Baptist missionaries from rural Georgia.

Wonderful profile of Art Rosenbaum (SHOUT BECAUSE YOU'RE FREE) and his broad spectrum approach to field collecting of music in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "Absorbing Rosenbaum’s rich collection requires some concentration, Cohen said. 'You have to work to digest it,' he said, adding that the payoff is a vivid impression of each performer’s world. 'You get a sense of place, time, the characters, the history,' he said. 'You can place the context of the music and what it means to the individuals.'"

Lori Ostlund makes some holiday shopping recommendations at the Emerging Writers Network.

Alan Wachman's article on "China's Lincolnophilia," adapted from a chapter in our forthcoming title SECESSION AS AN INTERNATIONAL PHENOMENON, appeared this week on the lively blog The China Beat.

BLACK NATURE launches in San Francisco

BLACK NATURE, a new anthology of African American nature poetry, launches today with editor Camille Dungy and contributors C.S. Giscombe, Patricia Spears Jones,devorah major, and Indigo Moor at the San Francisco State University Poetry Center and afterward at the Green Arcade.

The pathbreaking book will also be the focus of a three-day symposium at Berkeley in March, featuring contributors including Clarence Major, Harryette Mullen, Ed Roberson, Evie Shockley, Natasha Trethewey and Al Young.

As noted by contributor Evie Shockley:

This anthology is a major correction to a dismal record. It addresses the fact that the genre of "nature poetry" in this country has been constructed for hundreds of years as though African American poets had not produced any to speak of. With rare exceptions, if you look at collections of and scholarship/criticism about nature poetry throughout the last century and before, you will find very few black folks included or discussed -- often none.

There are reasons for this, which Dungy outlines, briefly and elegantly, in her introduction; one important one involves the need for us to understand "nature poetry" as a much broader category than the traditional pastoral. (Just because a poem is critical of nature doesn't mean it isn't about nature!) But those reasons do not include "because black poets don't write about nature," and Dungy gives us approximately 350 pages of proof that they (we!) do.

Look for a review of the book in the January/February issue of Orion magazine.