Short Takes

Nina Totenberg reviews ELBERT PARR TUTTLE on NPR.org: "In her thorough and engaging biography of Tuttle, Georgia State University law professor Anne Emanuel has documented Tuttle's extraordinary life. For those interested in America's racial history and transformation, this book is a must— a tour de force, covering not just Tuttle but the often violent times he lived in."

Starred review in Publishers Weekly for Vincent Carretta's new biography PHILLIS WHEATLEY.

The Charlotte Observer features Mike Dorcas and a very, very, very large snake on the occasion of the launch of INVASIVE PYTHONS OF THE UNITED STATES at Charlotte's Discovery Place.

A Q and A with David Vann on Inside Higher Ed about his account of the NIU school shooter, LAST DAY ON EARTH: "If universities really want to limit shootings, they’ll have to take a lot of steps that I can’t imagine them taking."

An interview with Charles Reagan Wilson about FLASHES OF A SOUTHERN SPIRIT aired on Mississippi Arts Hour on Mississippi Public Broadcasting and is now available as a podcast.

Washington Post on LITERARY CAPITAL.

Janisse Ray's DRIFTING INTO DARIEN in Atlanta Magazine and Library Journal: "In flowing, lyrical prose, Ray calls for increased safeguards for the Altamaha River, noting that its gifts—its moments, as she describes them—should be preserved for all time." Or, as the review in Flagpole puts it, "Ray is pissed, and believes you should be, too."

W. Fitzhugh Brundage calls WEIRDING THE WAR "an excellent collection with a terrible title" in the Civil War Monitor.

Mark Auslander recalls the "Mammy Memorial Movement" in a guest post on History News Network connected with his new book, THE ACCIDENTAL SLAVEOWNER.

Architectural Record on BLOOMBERG'S NEW YORK

Charles Horner and RISING CHINA on the John Batchelor Show

"Novelists might envy such a powerful, if disturbing, beginning — but the story Armstrong tells is all too true": St. Petersburg Times on Julie Buckner Armstrong's MARY TURNER AND THE MEMORY OF LYNCHING.

Congratulations to Linda LeGarde Grover, who has won this year's Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize from the University of Rochester's Susan B. Anthony Institute for her Flannery O'Connor Short Fiction Award-winning collection THE DANCE BOOTS. The award calls attention to the work of a promising but less established woman writer, and past winners have included Anne Tyler, Ann Patchett, Ursula Le Guin, and Toni Morrison, each before achieving fame.

Q&A and video with the authors of Invasive Pythons in the United States

Michael E. Dorcas and John D. Willson are the authors of INVASIVE PYTHONS IN THE UNITED STATES, which Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson calls “a much-needed examination of the growing impact of Burmese pythons as an invasive species in the United States.” In our latest newsletter, Inside UGA Press, Dorcas and Willson discuss the new book with editor Laura Sutton.

Sutton: Are we going to see pythons in Georgia anytime soon?

Willson: This is the most controversial aspect of the python situation. I think the short answer is that it is pretty unlikely that we’ll see pythons in Georgia anytime soon. If they can expand from Florida, it will take quite a while for the population to work its way north. How far north they can go is hotly debated and still remains an unknown. Certainly in their native range, they do inhabit some fairly temperate areas, such as central China and the foothills of the Himalayas in India and Nepal. We conducted a study in South Carolina where we brought pythons from Florida and wintered them in central South Carolina, and they did not survive.

Dorcas: There are multiple issues related to this question that we really don’t have answers for. For a lot of the snakes and also for most of the pythons that died in South Carolina, the reason they died was behavior, and the rate at which that behavior can evolve is unknown. The other thing we don’t know about is their origin. The snakes in Florida were clearly acclimated to Florida temperatures and climate. We don’t know what their ability to survive would have been if they had been raised in South Carolina. Typically when discussing this issue, people are talking about the spread of pythons from south Florida to more temperate areas, but there is also the possibility that additional populations could be established through release or escape into other parts of the southeastern United States.

Read the full Q&A on page 9 of our newsletter.

See Mike Dorcas and his students talk about their research while holding a giant python in this video.


Technorati Tags: Burmese Pythons   Invasive Species   Everglades

Fall Book Events in Athens

The University of Georgia Press invites you to the following fall events in Athens -- all are free and open to the public.

Tuesday, October 11
7:00 pm, Seney-Stovall Chapel, 201 N. Milledge Ave
Janisse Ray, author of Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, reads from her new book on the Altamaha River, DRIFTING INTO DARIEN. Cosponsored by UGA's Environmental Ethics Certificate Program, The Georgia Review, Georgia River Network, Oconee River Project of the Altamaha Riverkeeper, Southern Nature Project, and the University of Georgia Libraries.

Thursday, October 20
3:30 pm, Ecology Building, Auditorium Room 201
Bert Way discusses CONSERVING SOUTHERN LONGLEAF, about the approach to ecological conservation developed in the Red Hills region of south Georgia and north Florida. Reception to follow. Cosponsors: Joseph W. Jones Ecological Research Center, UGA’s Department of History, UGA’s Odum School of Ecology, and UGA’s Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources.

Friday, Nov. 4
3:00-5:00 pm, The Georgia Center, Pecan Gallery
Sonny Seiler and Kent Hannon sign copies of DAMN GOOD DOGS!,
an updated edition of the classic history of UGA's bulldog mascots with new material on Uga VI, Uga VII, Uga VIII, and Russ


Thursday, Nov. 10 and Friday, Nov. 11
9:00 am-4:00 pm and 9:00 am-3:00 pm, Tate Student Center Plaza
Buy slightly damaged books at deep discounts at the University of Georgia Press’s Dirty Book Sale.

Wednesday, November 16
7:00 pm, Cine, 234 W. Hancock Ave.
Joint book launch and film premier featuring John Lane, author of MY PADDLE TO THE SEA, and UGA filmmaker Chris Cogan, director of "River Time". See film trailer at rivertimefilm.com.

Melinda Moustakis named a National Book Foundation "5 Under 35" Young Fiction Author

Congratulations to Melinda Moustakis, named one of the National Book Foundation's "5 under 35" authors for this year! Her debut collection of stories set in Alaska, BEAR DOWN, BEAR NORTH, won the Flannery O'Connor Short Fiction Award and was released in September.

Now in its sixth year, the "5 Under 35" celebration of young fiction writers is the kickoff event for National Book Awards week. On Monday, November 14, at powerHouse Arena in Brooklyn, Moustakis will join fellow authors Shani Boianjiu, Danielle Evans, Mary Beth Keane, and John Corey Whaley for an event hosted by filmmaker, actor, writer and visual artist John Waters and DJed by poet and National Book Award finalist Patricia Smith. Finalists for the National Book Award will read November 15 and the awards will be presented November 16.

BEAR DOWN, BEAR NORTH has received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly ("In this sharply-crafted debut collection, Moustakis invites readers into a world filled with gruff characters, breathtaking wilderness, and a fierceness of spirit as crisp as the Alaskan winter") and Booklist ("The Kenai is the lifeblood that flows through Moustakis’ arrestingly concise, subtly poetic, and piercing short stories about several generations of an extended family.")

Moustakis is currently a visiting assistant professor at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington. She will be featured in two Alaska Book Week events in Anchorage next week: a discussion with former Flannery O'Connor Short Fiction Award winner Frank Soos and a workshop at 49 Alaska Writing Center.