Short Takes

Interviews:
Peter LaSalle, author of TELL BORGES IF YOU SEE HIM, in Bookslut.

Major Jackson, author of LEAVING SATURN, on NPR's New Letters on the Air.

Authors in the news:
Mary Jo Bang, author of THE DOWNSTREAM EXTREMITY OF THE ISLE OF SWANS, has won the 2007 National Book Critics Award for Poetry for her collection titled Elegy.

David Crouse, author of COPY CATS, has won the Mary McCarthy Prize for Short Fiction for a short story collection that will be published in August by Sarabande Books.

Sue William Silverman, author of the memoir BECAUSE I REMEMBER TERROR, FATHER, I REMEMBER YOU, is also author of the novel Love Sick, which has been made into a movie by the Lifetime Network.

Awards:
SOUTHERN COMFORTS by Sudye Cauthen has won the bronze in Florida Nonfiction from the Florida Book Awards. Winning books and their authors will be featured in the July issue of the Florida Humanities Council's Forum magazine.

Three UGA Press titles have been named finalists for the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Award: THE RINGING EAR (Anthologies category), DOUGH (Autobiography/Memoir category), and PROPHET FROM PLAINS (Political Science category).

Reviews:
DOUGH in Jbooks.

SPRAWLING PLACES is part of a feature on modern architecture in a recent issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The spring issue of the Jewish Book World features a great review of THE PALE OF SETTLEMENT: "Singer writes clearly, succinctly, and effectively. The characters are believable, and the stories uplifting but realistic. Modern issues—terrorism and the second Lebanon war—intrude, but do not overwhelm, a testament to Singer’s skill and artistry."

The unaugural volumes in the VQR Poetry Series were featured in a full-page spread in a recent issue of Publishers Weekly:
- BOY (starred review): "This second collection from Kate Tufts Award–winner Phillips ... is haunted by memories, could-have-beens and what-ifs ... Phillips is consumed with his vulnerability as a parent and finds himself lost in the cyclical recurrences of time."
- THE HISTORY OF ANONYMITY: "[Chang] is at her best and boldest in raw poems ... The final section continues the narrative of the victimized child, her sister, and her mother, with frankness and a refreshing lack of melodrama."
- HARDSCRABBLE: "This debut showcases a wild and powerful wit in action."
- FIELD FOLLY SNOW: "The sharp, pastoral imagery of Parks’s debut is set ablaze by an ominous tone and the author’s fine musical ear. Her tight tercets and prose blocks convey a sense of isolation, which, when broken by the appearance of someone other than the speaker, is as jarring as a rock heaved into a still pond."

PROPHET FROM PLAINS by Frye Gaillard in the National Catholic Reporter.

GROUNDED GLOBALISM by James L. Peacock in the Nashville Tennessean.

THE PALE OF SETTLEMENT by Margot Singer in NewPages.com.

NEW ORLEANS AFTER THE PROMISES by Kent Germany in the American Historical Review.

We get blogged:
Sudye Cauthen, author of SOUTHERN COMFORTS, has a new blog.

Recommendation for THE UNABRIDGED DEVIL'S DICTIONARY by Ambrose Bierce in Etcetera Whatever

Praise for Michael Martone, author of RACING IN PLACE, in Zyzzyvaspeaks

Reflections on Erskine Caldwell's TOBACCO ROAD and GOD'S LITTLE ACRE in The View from Graustark

Mention of EQUIANO THE AFRICAN by Vincent Carretta in African Disapora, Ph.D.

Get to Know Donny Hathaway

For many fans of old school R&B, the music of Donny Hathaway is sacred. Hathaway's suicide in 1979 at the age of thirty-three ended a troubled and enigmatic life, but in that short time he left a body of compositions and recordings that continue to earn devoted fans around the world.

Hathaway continues to inspire musicians and his presence is being felt in more mainstream circles today. In Amy Winehouse's Grammy-winning hit "Rehab," she sings, "I'd rather be at home with Ray / I ain't got seventy days / Cause there's nothing / There's nothing you can teach me / That I can't learn from Mr. Hathaway." And recently on American Idol, contestant Chikezie sang Hathaway's "I Believe To My Soul." Not only did he perform Hathaway's music, but he did so with backing vocals by Kenya Hathaway, a daughter of Donny who is in the American Idol house band.

Poet Ed Pavlic has long been fascinated by Hathaway and his music. In WINNERS HAVE YET TO BE ANNOUNCED: A SONG FOR DONNY HATHAWAY, he uses poetry to get inside the performer's head and to portray how he saw and was seen by the world. "To capture the monumental paradoxes and prismatic genius of Donny Hathaway," says Michael Eric Dyson, "one must have an epic imagination and a sense of language that flames in poetry toward transcendent truth. Ed Pavlic rises to the task admirably."

If you don't know Hathaway's music and want to hear what all the fuss is about, check out the wonderful reissues on Rhino Records. Here's hoping that Hathaway is finally starting to get his due, more widely, for the musical genius he was.

Technorati Tags: Donny Hathaway

Book on New Orleans Is Finalist for Liberty Legacy Foundation Award

NEW ORLEANS AFTER THE PROMISES has been named a finalist for the 2008 Liberty Legacy Foundation Award given by the Organization of American Historians. This annual award recognizes the best book on any historical aspect of the struggle for civil rights in the United States from the nation's founding to the present.

In the book, author Kent Germany—a Louisiana native and a former New Orleans resident—looks back at the Great Society era of the 1960s and 1970s to offer a detailed look at one of the greatest transformations in the city's history. He tells how a few thousand New Orleanians put their faith in God and American progress to the test as they sought to conquer poverty, confront racism, establish civic order, and expand the economy.

In a review of the book in the Journal of American History, Michael K. Brown said that, "this balanced case study raises new questions about the outcome of the War on Poverty and the persistence of racial inequality in the twenty-first century. . . . This is a fine study that anyone concerned with racial justice in America should read."

Short Takes

Recent interviews:
Sudye Cauthen, author of SOUTHERN COMFORTS, in the Gainesville Sun.

Margot Singer, author of THE PALE OF SETTLEMENT, on Next Book.

Dave Kaufman, author of PEACHTREE CREEK, on the Georgia Podcast Network.

Recent reviews:
CIRCLING HOME in the Charleston Post and Courier.

THE PALE OF SETTLEMENT in the Miami Herald, Columbus Dispatch, and Venus.

DIEHARD REBELS in the Charleston Post and Courier.

AMERICAN WARS, AMERICAN PEACE in the Mobile Press-Register.

TELL BORGES IF YOU SEE HIM in the the Providence Journal.

PHARSALIA; GREENBACKERS, KNIGHTS OF LABOR, AND POPULISTS; EVERYBODY WAS BLACK DOWN THERE; THE NATION'S REGION; and NEW ORLEANS AFTER THE PROMISES, all in the December 2007 issue of the Journal of American History.

In the news:
DRAGONFLIES AND DAMSELFLIES OF GEORGIA AND THE SOUTHEAST got a nod from Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Walter Reeves.

Columnist Bill Maxwell mentioned DEEP IN OUR HEARTS in his piece about how recent presidential campaigning has politicized the history of the civil rights movement. Maxwell also mentions the murder of civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo, whose case is the subject of FROM SELMA TO SORROW.

Three RINGING EAR poets recently read their work at Seattle's Elliott Bay Book Co. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer called the book a "fine volume of verse."

Stephanie M. H. Camp, coeditor of NEW STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN SLAVERY, is featured as a “top young historian” on the History News Network.

Recent awards:
John Lane’s CIRCLING HOME and Sydney Landon Plum’s SOLITARY GOOSE are in the running for the 2008 Orion Book Award.

Three of our books were recognized for outstanding design in the 2008 Book, Jacket, and Journal Show organized by the Association of American University Presses: WRITING MATTERS, designed by Mindy Basinger Hill, won in the "Scholarly Typographic" category; DOUGH, designed by Erin Kirk New, won in the "Trade Typographic" category; and DRAGONFLIES AND DAMSELFLIES OF GEORGIA AND THE SOUTHEAST, designed by Mindy Basinger Hill, won in the "Reference" category.

GEORGIA'S FRONTIER WOMEN, by Ben Marsh, has won the Georgia Historical Society's 2008 Malcolm Bell, Jr. and Muriel Barrow Bell Award for the best book in Georgia history published in 2007.

A GATHERING OF MATTER / A MATTER OF GATHERING by Dawn Lundy Martin has been nominated for a Lambda Literary Award.

The Poetry Foundation picked DEPTH THEOLOGY for their end of the year "best of" list.

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.

We get blogged:
June Hall McCash, author of JEKYLL ISLAND'S EARLY YEARS has a new blog.

The blog of Galway, Ireland's public libraries recently featured ANOTHER BEAUTY.

MOTORING got a nice mention in Lincoln Highway News.