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.

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’.

As longtime Atlanta area residents know, Java Monkey coffee house hosts Poetry Atlanta’s readings every Sunday night. Now, Blue Elephant Book Shop is exploring hosting a regular event for emerging authors, from the ultra successful to the self- and not-quite-yet-published. This will be a chance for authors to read from their work, and perhaps sign copies. The gang at Blue Elephant isn’t quite sure how this will work—they may ask a local pub or coffee shop to host the event once or twice a month. If you have any ideas, or if you’d like to participate, stop by the shop and let them know. This is the kind of local literary community-building activity that Read Local was born to support.