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Dearest Readers,

There is a small glass hummingbird feeder that hangs from her ladyship, the editor’s front porch, where she can see it if she sits in her favorite chair at her library table. It was a source of such delight when she first spied the small creatures hovering over it, dipping their beaks delicately into the garishly bright plastic flowers at its base. First there was one, a female ruby throat, and then there was another, and then two more. Her ladyship was feeling quite complacently smug about the success of her feeder, until she heard an odd sound one morning and glanced up to see…a brawl. Truly, her ladyship can think of no other way to describe it. The hummingbirds—these tiny, delicate, jewel-like creatures—were at each other’s beautiful ruby throats, each attempting to claim the feeder for their own, and to drive away all poachers.

Her ladyship, inexperienced in the ways of hummingbirds, was taken aback. Even distressed. And she did the first thing she always does when she is distressed. She called her mother. “Oh yes,” said her ladyship’s mother, who is very wise in the ways of hummingbirds and many other thing, “they are quite aggressive. I was forced to put out two feeders, one at the front of the house and one at the back, so they would stop fighting.” Did it work, her ladyship wondered. “No, not really,” her mother admitted.

So now, when her ladyship settles into her library chair to read, she often hears the buzzing wings of the birds who have come to the feeder. Sometimes, she looks up to watch them, for they are still a marvel to her.  But sometimes, along with the buzz of a hovering bird with wings moving too fast to see, there comes also a thump and a series of small angry shrieks. Then her ladyship winces, and keeps her eyes trained upon the page. For while nature is always a source of wonder, it is not always comfortable to watch.

Her ladyship, the editor

Authors 'Round the South

Authors Round the South is the home of one of the most extensive listings of literary events in the South, including author readings & appearances, book club meetings, book & literary festivals, open mics, poetry slams and writing groups. No matter what part of the South you live in, you can find a bookstore and author appearance near you!

Reader, meet writer: STARS authors on the road

The following authors are traveling this month and open to meeting with book clubs, talking to schools and participating in library programs. To find out more information click on the author's name to see their profile and request them for an event. There are hundreds of authors in the STARS directory, and new writers and trips are added every day. Visit the STARS directory at Authors Round the South for more information.

Book Festivals & Special Events

North Carolina Literary Festival
September 10 - 13
Noted North Carolina authors Lee Smith and Jill McCorkle, along with acclaimed Nashville musicians Matraca Berg and Marshall Chapman, will perform together the original works that inspired the "Good Ol' Girls". Created in 1998, the musical "Good Ol' Girls" debuted at the first North Carolina Literary Festival, continues to be staged by regional repertory companies and a production most recently appeared on UNC-TV. Readings and discussions by Smith and McCorkle, describing some of their best known scenes and characters, will alternate with selections rendered vocally and on guitar by Berg and Chapman.  Venue and ticket information available in August.

Carolina Mountains Literary Festival
Location: Burnsville
Date: September 11-12, 2009
This festival is noticeably different from most. Their mission is to bring together authors, readers, novice writers, listeners, and learners in small, intimate settings for discussions with the intent of raising “awareness of works of literary significance from smaller presses . . . to create a little literary community which is in dialog with readers, aspiring writers, and established authors about craft and ideas of sustaining merit.” Thus, there are no outside vendors. Authors are encouraged to roam the town, attending sessions they like. The events are spread out all over the town, and most are within walking distance. Intimacy is key here, and what a great idea it is!

Bookmarks Book Festival   
Location: Winston-Salem, NC
Date: September 12, 2009
A one-day festival that nevertheless offers a rich variety of events. The authors, readings, panels, storytelling, demonstrations, writing workshops, book signings, interactive activities such as Games Readers Play and Literary Parties, reading-related exhibitors and food vendors all work to make this a very special events.

Novello Festival of Reading   
Location: Charlotte, NC
Date: September 26-October 31, 2009
“A festival celebrating books and learning” is the tagline for this four-week long fair which offers evenings with various authors, a Carolina Writers Night, a Book Brunch, a WordPlay Saturday, book signings and readings and more. 

Fall for the Book Festival
Location: Fairfax , VA
Date: September 21-26. 2009
This week-long event includes lectures, talks, receptions, readings, a used book sale, music, children’s entertainment, all of which revolve around writing, reading, books, current events and more. 

West Virginia Book Festival  
Location: Charleston, WV
Date: October 10-11, 2009
Authors, publishers, book vendors, the Festival Marketplace, a special section just for children, a used book sale, Meet the Author events, workshops and panel discussions highlight this book festival.

Southern Festival of Books
Location: Nashville, TN
Date: October 9-11, 2009
A three-day literary festival that gathers together more than 200 authors covering every genre, offers panel discussions, readings and book signings, includes more than 50 book-related exhibitors, a cooking stage and two performance stages, and special children’s events with book characters.

Tennessee Williams Festival
Location: Clarksdale, MS
Date: October 16-17, 2009
This literary festival celebrates the role that Clarksdale, its cultural heritage, and its people had on this great American playwright. Each year, the festival focuses on one play, and invites Williams scholars, theatre professionals, and artists to present lectures, readings, and dramatizations. One-act plays are presented on front porches of homes in the historic neighborhood where receptions also take place. Winners of an acting contest recreate their performances at a Saturday festival finale.

Book ‘Em: Buy a Book and Stop a Crook
Location: Waynesboro, VA
Date: October 17, 2009
A unique idea for a book festival, but one that works extremely well! Its purpose is to raise funds for organizations dedicated to increasing literacy  rates, decreasing crime rates, helping police solve crimes, and  raising public awareness of the link between high illiteracy  rates and high crime rates. The Waynesboro Police Department is the primary host for this fair which features dozens of authors in many genres who talk about writing, the publishing industry and other topics of interests and entertainment for children.

Georgia Literary Festival
Location: “Moveable”; it moves to a new location within the state each year.
Date: October 17, 2009
This festival focuses though not exclusively on homegrown authors. Over the course of three days, it offers readings, storytelling, theatre, a book sale, lectures, author appearances and signings, craft demonstrations, children’s activities, exhibitors and more.

Louisiana Book Festival   
Location: Baton Rouge, LA
Date: October 17, 2009
Featuring a wide array of authors covering many genres from Arts to Westerns, and activities specially for children and teens (including a Young Readers Pavilion), cooking demonstrations and an entertainment stage.

Festival of Reading
Location: St. Petersburg, FL
Date: October 24, 2009
With a large array of authors, quite a few vendors and a special Children’s Storyland with costumed characters, games and activities, this festival is one not to be missed if possible.

New Orleans Book Fair
Location: New Orleans, LA
Date: November 7, 2009
More of a street fair than an organized book festival, this one offers vendors who populate the 500-600 blocks of Frenchman Street with tables, handmade signs, books, and a lot of fun. It’s obviously a casual drop-in affair with amusing overtones.

Dahlonega Literary Festival
Location: Dahlonega, GA
Date: November 7-8, 2009
This festival has the usual—author appearances and signings, talks, panel discussions, a choice of luncheons with various authors as well as a wonderful Welcoming Reception, and IQ Quiz and Scavenger Hunt, and a Sunday Country Club Breakfast Buffet.

Miami Book Fair International   
Location: Miami, FL
Date: November 8-15, 2009
This rather amazing festival goes all out with a Children’s Alley with storytelling, puppets, theatrical performances, games and activities; an International Village featuring literature, fine arts, culture, wines and folkloric traditions from around the world; the three-day street fair (November 13-15) with hundreds of booksellers and exhibitors; an Antiquarian Annex with exhibitors specializing in collectibles; and a Write Out Loud café that showcases writers, performance artists and monologuists.

Great Smoky Mountain Book Fair
Location: Sylva, NC
Date: November 14, 2009
More than fifty authors will be attending this book fair including a balladeer, poets, novelists, nonfiction authors, humorists, journalists, playwrights, translators, publishes, news editors, and more. Their schedule is coming soon.

[with thanks to BiblioBuffet.com for the list and descriptions]

Literary Gossip & News

To celebrate her 80th birthday, the family of Mildred Council—better known to people in the Piedmont, North Carolina as “Mama Dip”—has created a "Share the Love" fund to inspire and encourage underprivileged youths.  Although not quite as long-lived as Mama Dip, several bookstores celebrated their birthdays this month. Osondu Booksellers (Waynesville, NC) turned five. Bienville Books (Mobile, AL) turned seven. And Dee Gee’s in Morehead City, NC is seventy-five years old this summer—making them the oldest continuously operating bookstore in the Tarheel state.

Elsewhere, James Wolcott thinks the best place to read the Oxford American Southern Literature issue is “in a hammock strung between two trees in the backyard with a cool drink within easy reach and the neighbor's daughter parading around next door on the patio in cut-offs and shorty top. . .” The same Oxford American issue also released a list of the best Southern novels of all time, no doubt just to cause a ruckus when readers notice what has been left off.

The Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi has launched a new online literary magazine with the mellifluous name of Squid Quarterly. There is also a new issue of the North Carolina Literary Review. And, the next issue of New Stories from the South (2009) will be edited by Madison Smartt Bell.

Science News suggests that it is possible to have Better BBQ Through Chemistry. Her ladyship doubts this. And speaking of BBQ, B’s Barbecue in Greenville, NC has just been added to the Southern BBQ Trail. Her ladyship, the editor, was not aware that there was such a thing as a Southern BBQ Trail, but if you do not hear from her until spring it is because she is conducting a thorough investigation.

From the Blogs

The Authors

A Good Blog is Hard to Find:. The firemen are coming tomorrow. That's why we're hunched over the kitchen table on a school night, trying to wrestle a raw egg into a nest of bubble wrap and tape. My son, who's nine, adds some newspaper around his egg, named "Bob," for extra protection…read more

Dead Mule School of Southern Literature: Nick McRae’s Rabbit Tobacco (A Long Poem): Southern Legitimacy Statement: I've eaten more kinds of greens than most Yankees have ever heard of…read more

Janis Owens: In Defense of Atticus Finch: As an American and a Southerner (not always in that order) I have to admit that I never thought I’d take up a pen in defense of the liberal white Southerners who helped turn the world upside down when I was a child in the deep South…read more         

Fried Chicken and Coffee: Having come to Boston for grad school, light years away from  the small rural community in Appalachian Pennsylvania that I grew up and went to college in, I suffered more than a bit of culture shock. I sat in my first grad workshop with a ballcap on that I'd stolen from my brother-in-law. The cap said 'Redneck Express Trucking.' I had on a flannel shirt over a pocket t-shirt, old jeans, and some high-top sneakers, a look coming into style then courtesy of the grunge movement located in Seattle. I was sort of hip, until people found out I'd been dressing that way my entire life. Then I became strange, or felt that way, anyway….read more

Wanda’s Wonderful Book Blog: “How a Jersey Girl Became a Southern Writer” by Diane Chamberlain.  by Diane Chamberlain:  I recently took a Facebook quiz that posed the question, “How Southern are You?” The answer I received? “You are a true daughter of the South.” I was surprised, amused . . . and absolutely delighted. I grew up in New Jersey, where we were taught that Southerners were backwards, bigoted, and almost as evil as communists. . .read more

The Booksellers

A Reading Life: “All used books should avoid Greeneville, Tennessee,” he writes of the General Morgan Inn dining room, “. . . its ‘library’ decor turned out to be faux. Instead of shelves lined with books, the owners just tacked up thin boards, like ornamental baseboards, to look like shelves. Moreover, they had torn the cloth spines off books and glued them on the fake shelves to make a grand fake library . . . it was disturbing—like trying to eat in a room decorated with kitten skins. . .” read more

Consuming Books: The Crying Tree  (Broadway Books, 2009) is the debut  novel by Naseem Rakha.   It is about a tragedy that befalls the Stanley family and how they each cope with the loss of fifteen-year-old Shep, the son and brother.  The murderer is tried and convicted and sentenced to death row.   The story takes the reader through every feeling of outrage, pain, sorrow and eventually,  love, redemption and forgiveness.  Rakha is an award-winning journalist whose stories have been heard on NPR’s All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Marketplace Radio, Christian Science Monitor, and Living on Earth. . . read more

Hooray for Books: Rebekah’s Pick of the Day: Little Beauty. This beautiful story of friendship was written and illustrated by Anthony Browne. It was inspired by a true story  about a gorilla at the San Diego Zoo who learned sign language.  The Gorilla had everything he needed and could communicate with the zoo keepers.  The Gorilla realized that even though he had all of these things he was very sad and lonely.  He asked the keepers for a friend and they brought him the most unlikely little friend named Beauty.  I absolutely love the illustrations in this book as they paint us a beautiful picture of an unusual and pure kind of friendship. . .read more

Page 854: This fall, Yale University Press will publish, The Cartoons That Shook the World, a book about the Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad which caused such a huge -- and deadly -- uproar a few years back. However, the cartoons themselves will not actually appear in the book. In fact, the book will contain no images of Muhammad whatsoever. This seemingly odd decision was made after the publisher said it consulted with two dozen different authorities on Islam who reached the unanimous conclusion that publishing the cartoons could be inflammatory. . .read more

The Regulator:  Brad Pitt raises chickens! You should, too. In celebration of our collective ability to raise chickens. . .Top Selling Chicken Books in Durham… read more

Bookchick - Unedited: On Watchmen: A woman was flailing her arms about The Watchmen. She had taken her 12 year old grandchild and his little girlfriend (!) to see it. She had major issues with all of the male frontal nudity. I didn't know what to say. I said, "It's blue...I don't think it counts". . .read more

Read This!
recommended reading from your neighborhood southern booksellers

[via IndieBound]

Await Your Reply: A Novel by Dan Chaon
(Ballantine, $25, 9780345476029)
"Await Your Reply is an unsettling, heartbreaking examination of identity and relationships. Dan Chaon skillfully weaves three separate stories together, and, through well-drawn characters and fascinating subplots, he makes the reader both audience and sleuth, eager for the solution to the mystery, yet reluctant to leave the magic of the prose."  --Leslie Reiner, Inkwood Books, Tampa, FL

The Meaning of Matthew: My Son's Murder in Laramie, and a World Transformed by Judy Shepard
(Hudson Street, $25.95, 9781594630576)
"More than 10 years after her son's murder in Wyoming, Judy Shepard tells Matthew's story with eloquence. Her memoir is both a moving portrayal of a strong family dealing with the grief of their loss and a powerful testimony for human rights and the full inclusion of gay and lesbian people in society." --Blake Hardy, Outwrite Bookstore & Coffeehouse, Atlanta, GA

Stardust: A Novel by Joseph Kanon
(Atria, $27.99, 9781439156148)
"I always look forward to a new Joseph Kanon novel, and Stardust does not disappoint. This novel of Hollywood, political intrigue, and the beginning of the McCarthy era should fascinate every reader who cares about the darker sides of America. And, as always, Kanon's writing is superb." --Deal Safrit, Literary Book Post, Salisbury, NC

Lady Banks’ Commonplace Book

“In water so fine, a few minutes of bad memory all but disappear downstream, washed away by ten thousands belly busters, a million cannonballs. Paradise was never heaven-high when I was a boy but waist-deep, an oasis of cutoff blue jeans and raggedy Converse sneakers, sweating bottles of Nehi Grape and Orange Crush, and this stream. I remember the antidote of icy water against my blistered skin, and the taste of mushy tomato and mayonnaise sandwiches, unwrapped from twice-used aluminum foil.  I saw my first water moccasin here, and my first real girl, and being a child of the foot washers I have sometimes wondered if this was my Eden, and my serpent. If it was, I didn’t hold out any longer than that first poor fool did.”

--Rick Bragg, The Prince of Frogtown (Knopf, 2008)

Lady Banks’ Bookshelf

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