Reading Local: Atlanta

The Margaret Mitchell House continues hosting its series of amazing author readings and signings in March:

Chris Cleave, Little Bee
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
7:00 PM

Told in turns in the first person by Little Bee, a Nigerian refugee just released from a UK detention center, and Sarah, a British journalist whose fate is braided with Little Bee’s through tragedy, the novel follows these two women as they struggle to save each other and themselves. Little Bee tries to make a life for herself in a totally alien land, while Sarah must come to terms with her personal and professional choices. United by their past and by love for Sarah’s young son Charlie, Little Bee and Sarah become indispensable to each other. But their bond will face the ultimate test when the system catches up with Little Bee, and each woman must make a devastating decision.

Lisa See, Shanghai Girls
Thursday, March 4, 2010
7:00 PM

In 1937 Shanghai is the Paris of Asia, a city of great wealth and glamour, the home of millionaires and beggars, gangsters and gamblers, patriots and revolutionaries, artists and warlords. Two sisters are forced to leave their cosmopolitan lives in Shanghai for a new start in Los Angeles. Suspenseful, provocative, and intelligent, Shanghai Girls is both a story about the adventures of two particular sisters and a story that reminds us all of the intense love, tension, and struggle inherent in every family. Lisa See is the New York Times-bestselling author of Peony in Love, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Flower Net (an Edgar Award nominee), The Interior, and Dragon Bones, as well as the critically acclaimed memoir On Gold Mountain. The Organization of Chinese American Women named her the 2001 National Woman of the Year.

Laura Skandera Trombley, Mark Twain’s Other Woman: The Hidden Story of His Final Years
Monday, March 29, 2010
7:00 PM

An enduring mystery of Mark Twain’s life concerns the events of his last decade, following the death of his wife of thirty-four years and up to his own death in1910. Despite many biographies, it is unclear how his experiences in those final years affected him, personally and professionally. It was believed Twain went to his death a beloved, wisecracking iconoclastic American, undeterred by life’s sorrows and challenges. Suspecting there was more to the story, Laura Skandera Trombley, the preeminent Twain scholar at work today, went in search of Isabel Lyon, the one woman who possibly held the answers to her questions about Twain’s life and writings. Following sixteen years of research, Mark Twain’s Other Woman reveals Lyon’s daily journals, the only detailed record of Twain’s last years that were overlooked by Twain’s previous biographers. Raised in Southern California, Trombley attended Pepperdine University where she earned her B.A. and M.A., and the University of Southern California, where she earned a Ph.D. in English literature. She is the author of Mark Twain in the Company of Women and is the president of Pitzer College in Claremont, California, where she lives with her husband and son.

We Were Dancing on a Volcano with Joe Gatins
Thursday, March 11, 7:30-9:00pm
Charis Books and More

Join Charis Books and More for a very special evening with historian Joe Gatins who chronicles his family’s remarkable history, including his great-grandfather who built and operated Atlanta’s famous Georgian Terrace Hotel and his French heiress grandmother, Egle Gatins, whose description of her own life between the wars in Paris gives the book its evocative title: We Were Dancing On a Volcano. In honor of women’s history month, Egle’s story will be the focus of Joe’s talk. Don’t miss this compelling discussion of the cross-currents of history and its effects on one Atlanta family.

Zainab Salbi
Emory University Women’s History Month Keynote Address
Monday March 1, 4:00pm Tull Auditorium, Emory Law School

Author (Between Two Worlds), activist, and social entrepreneur Zainab Salbi is the cofounder and president of Women for Women International. Since 1993, the organization has supported more than 120,000 women survivors of war. Salbi’s presentation is the keynote address for Emory University’s Women’s History Month sponsored by the Center for Women at Emory, with books provided by Charis.

Develop memorable characters and capture their settings like a pro
Date & Time: February 27, 1:00-4:00 p.m.
Location: Georgia Perimeter College-Dunwoody
Cost: The cost is $20 for this 3-hour seminar, open to all 2010 members of the Atlanta Writers Club. To join the club or renew your dues, click here.

Jack Riggs, the award-winning author of When the Finch Rises and The Fireman’s Wife, will present a seminar he’s calling “Oh Give Me a Home, Where My Characters Roam: The Importance of Character and a Sense of Place in Fiction.”

We all come from somewhere, and we are all on a journey to someplace else. During that time, the geography that surrounds us matters. It plays on our minds, affects our moods, thoughts, and actions.When writers create stories, they must be concerned with a sense of place and how it might affect the character. In this workshop, Jack will discuss ideas on how best to set character in a geography that not only feels right, but is authentic to the story and true in the reader’s mind.

To register for of this workshop, e-mail Atlanta Writers Club VP George Weinstein at gjweinstein@yahoo.com.

Upcoming Writing Workshops by David Fulmer:

WRITING HISTORICAL FICTION

After penning six critically acclaimed and award-winning historical novels, David Fulmer understands the special requirements of this fascinating genre. Setting, characters, dialogue, plot structure and the other elements of the novelist’s craft require a different approach when it comes to historical fiction. Whether it’s the Stone Age or the Disco Age, this three-hour workshop covers it all.

Date & Time: March 6, 1:00-4:00 p.m.
Location: Alston Student Center, Agnes Scott College
141 East College Avenue, Decatur, GA
Cost: $75 (includes lunch)
To Register, visit Agnes Writes

FICTION SHOP
Now in its third year, Fiction Shop is an intensive program designed for fiction–and non-fiction!–writers who want to improve and expand their skills. The goal of Fiction Shop is to develop, improve and refine the essential components of the craft: settings, dialogue, characters, plotting, and the other critical narrative skills.

Brief class exercises and short between-class
assignments augment the learning curve, and you will receive an in-depth critique of 20 pages of your manuscript. Discussions of the writing discipline and techniques to land agents and publishers
will also be included.

Dates & Times: March 15 – May 3 (Mondays), 6:15 – 8:15 p.m.
Location: Eagle Eye Book Shop
2076 North Decatur Road
Decatur, GA. 404-486-0307
Cost: $225
To Register and for Additional Information, e-mail David Fulmer: davidfulmer@bellsouth.net.

THE PITCH: Query Letters, Synopses, and Treatments Done the Right Way

After all the hard work is done, what matters is getting in an agent’s or editor’s door. “The Pitch” covers all the essential strategies for pitching fiction and non-fiction books in the most effective–and productive–way.

Date & Time: March 20, 1:00-4:00 p.m.
Location: Alston Student Center
Agnes Scott College, 141 East College Avenue, Decatur, GA
Cost: $75 (includes lunch)
To Register, visit Agnes Writes

Create your most emotionally powerful prose: The Writing Past Grief Workshop
By the time she was nine, Jessica Handler had begun to think of herself as the “well sibling.” She lost both of her sisters due to hereditary illnesses, and vowed to dedicate a book to her family. Moreover, she wanted to understand the girl she was–her questions, fears, and triumphs–so she wrote Invisible Sisters to remember her family entirely, both the bad times and the good.

Based on Jessica’s Pushcart Prize-nominated essay, Invisible Sisters is a “clear-eyed, candid work [that] portrays the immense emotional toll that two daughters’ illnesses take on a family living in Atlanta,” according to Publisher’s Weekly. Jessica spoke to the club in October 2009 and now will present a 2.5-hour workshop on confronting the hardships in your life so you can produce your most powerful work ever.

Date and Time: April 24, 1:00-3:30 p.m.
Location: Georgia Perimeter College-Dunwoody
Cost: $20. Open to all 2010 members of the Atlanta Writers Club. Click here to join or renew.

Workshop Description
Robert Frost said, “no tears for the writer, no tears for the reader,” but how does a writer work effectively with emotionally difficult material, moving through his or her own trauma to create powerful and effective writing that serves the larger narrative?

In this seminar, the author will draw from the work of leading nonfiction authors to examine the rewards for the writer–and the reader–in confronting tears, finding joy, and meeting on the page the little known continuation of Frost’s quote: “No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.” Participants will create new work or expand existing work through a variety of in-workshop writing exercises. This workshop is open to fiction and nonfiction writers at all levels.

To register for of this workshop, e-mail Atlanta Writers Club VP George Weinstein at gjweinstein@yahoo.com.

Book Launch Party for David Fulmer’s The Fall
Dates & Times: March 12, 7:00 p.m.
Location: Eagle Eye Book Shop
2076 North Decatur Road, Decatur, Georgia
404-486-0307

The Atlanta Writers Club is co-sponsoring the launch party for David Fulmers’s seventh novel, The Fall: “When a vintage song and a random phone call draw Richard Zale back to his hometown, he encounters a puzzle that entwines threads of suspense, pangs of a lost love, and deep bonds of friendship.”

On the last weekend in February, Macon will be flooded with nationally recognized authors and the writers who aspire to learn from them at the second Crossroads Writers Conference. This year marks the debut of the Crossroads Literary Festival, a free public series of readings and presentations that will run concurrently with the conference in the College Hill area. The conference starts early Saturday, Feb. 27 in Mercer’s Knight Hall at 7:30 am with a social breakfast where writers can mingle and network. More than 50 panels, workshops, roundtable talks and readings will follow, culminating in a big closing ceremony featuring a mini Poetry Slam, dramatic presentations and a music-heavy reading by Random House author Steve Almond. The conference offers topics ranging from the traditional (fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction) to edgier forms (screenwriting, blogging, spoken word, Steampunk fiction).

Registration includes all 50+ panels, workshops, roundtable talks and readings as well as breakfast, lunch and a book tote. The literary festival, including a book fair at Centenary Church, will run on Saturday at 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. at various locations around College Hill: Sidney Lanier Cottage, Jittery Joes Coffee, Centenary Church and the Golden Bough Bookstore. Details on the schedule will soon be available online at www.CrossroadsCon.org

Visiting authors include Steve Almond, Candyfreak; Judith Ortiz-Cofer, A Love Story Beginning in Spanish: Poems; Mara Shalhoup, Editor in Chief of Creative Loafing; former Maconite Ad Hudler, Househusband; Middle Georgia native Lauretta Hannon, The Cracker Queen; Megan Sexton, Under the Rock Umbrella; Emilie Bush, Chenda and the Airship Brofman; and Fulvia Lindsay, writer for television show CSI. For a complete list of authors, visit the Web site.

Local authors include Ed Grisamore, Josephine Bennett, Bill Shanks, Phillip Ramati, Kevin Cantwell, Anya Silver, Andy Silver, Robert Fieldsteel, Rick Hutto, Louise Stamen, William Rawlings, Michael McGouirk, Rick Maier, Camara Fontenot, Jared Wright, Luke Goddard and several others. Macon writer Gena Courtney attended the last conference and plans to attend once again. “The most important thing I learned at the first conference was to consider writing as a job…Work at it, everyday. Some days will be terrible, but you must write through them, to the other side, where the days may be terrific and satisfying,” Courtney said.

Crossroads is a not-for-profit civic endeavor that is completely operated by a volunteer board and a volunteer staff. The conference is funded generously by The Knight Neighborhood Challenge, the State of Georgia, City of Macon and the Macon State Foundation as well as supported by the Community Foundation of Central Georgia, Macon State College, Mercer University and Mercer Press. Information and online registration is available at www.crossroadscon.org. Registration will be open the day of the conference only if space is available.

Susan Choi, Reading
Wednesday, Mar 17 (2010) 6:30p
at Robert W. Woodruff Library, Atlanta, GA
Reading followed by a book signing

Fiction writer Susan Choi is the author of two novels, The Foreign Student (winner of the Asian-American Literary Award and the Steven Turner Award for the Novel) and American Woman (Pulitzer Prize finalist), and co-editor of the anthology Wonderful Town: New York Stories from ‘The New Yorker’.