News from the University of Georgia Press

Short Takes

noreply@blogger.com (ddesjard@ugapress.uga.edu) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:49:00 +0000

An article about how UGA Press is planning for tightened state budgets appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution this morning.

Reviewed this weekend:

TENNESSEE WOMEN in the Knoxville News-Sentinel (“a terrific and timely contribution to Vol history”)

WILLIAM FAULKNER AND THE SOUTHERN LANDSCAPE in the Mobile Press-Register

A PORTRAIT OF HISTORIC ATHENS AND CLARKE COUNTY in the Athens Banner-Herald

A recent article in Asia Times prominently mentions Charles Horner’s RISING CHINA AND ITS POSTMODERN FATE.

Four UGA titles have strong reviews in the most recent Journal of American History:

THE BIG TENT -- "superb and revelatory"

ENTREPRENEURS IN THE SOUTHERN UPCOUNTRY -- "Well-argued and linked to broad historical issues, it is a model community study that deserves a wide readership."

CLOSER TO TRUTH THAN ANY FACT -- "Refreshingly lucid and cogent . . . . I look forward to periodically rereading 'Closer to the Truth Than Any Fact' and to wrestling with its conclusions."

CARRY IT ON -- "A brief review cannot do justice to Ashmore's skill in weaving together the economic and political aspects of a still-unfinished effort to remake Alabama along more just and egalitarian lines. Her book, like Kent Germany's NEW ORLEANS AFTER THE PROMISES, signals a new level of breadth and sophistication in civil rights scholarship."

The Asheville Citizen-Times recently reviewed WHAT VIRTUE THERE IS IN FIRE.

Early press for our forthcoming AWP Creative Nonfiction Award winner GHOSTBREAD recently appeared in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

The July 2009 issue of The Writer Magazine features full-page reviews of Sue William Silverman’s FEARLESS CONFESSIONS and Barbara Shoup and Margaret-Love Denman’s NOVEL IDEAS.

Poetry news:

Zoland Poetry Series reviews FIELD FOLLY SNOW.

Poets & Writers online includes Anna Journey’s collection of poems IF BIRDS GATHER YOUR HAIR FOR NESTING on their summer reading list.

A poem from WINTER SKY by Coleman Barks ran in Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry column last week.

Ed Pavlic (WINNERS HAVE YET TO BE ANNOUNCED) received the Georgia Author of the Year Award in poetry this month. The book was recently reviewed at Coldfront : “one can only imagine the kind of mad-trip Pavlic must have taken his own self on in order to write this thing.”

Blackbird reviews Kevin McFadden’s HARDSCRABBLE.

Slashfood reviews and recommends CRAIG CLAIBORNE’S SOUTHERN COOKING using pimiento cheese and biscuits as a test case: “There's only one right way to make either of these Southern staples and that's the way your mother, her mother, her mother's mother, ad infinitum did. That said, these'll definitely do in a pinch. For those sans Mississippi ancestry, your new Uncle Craig's renditions of this pepper-kicked cheese spread and deeply savory, lard-rich biscuits is all you'll need. Instructions are thorough, simple and forgiving of variances.”

Photographer launches book on Joe Webb cabins in Highlands

noreply@blogger.com (ddesjard@ugapress.uga.edu) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:14:00 +0000

As noted in the Asheville Citizen-Times, author and photographer Reuben Cox launched his new book THE WORK OF JOE WEBB in a number of locations in western North Carolina this weekend, including Asheville, Sylva, and his hometown of Highlands, North Carolina. The book is an artist's exploration of the architectural legacy left by cabin builder Joe Webb, who worked in the early decades of the twentieth century. The photographs, made with a large-format view camera and printed using exposure to the sun and what may be the last commercially manufactured printing out paper in existence, involve technologies that date back to Joe Webb's era. The resulting images offer rich, beautifully textured glimpses of these unusual structures and spaces.

Joe Webb lived and worked in Highlands, and a number of people who attended Thursday’s book event at the newly opened Bascom Center for the Arts or Saturday’s signing at Cyrano’s Bookstore either own or are in some way connected to a Joe Webb cabin. Joe Webb’s grand-niece attended Thursday and told Cox a few new stories about her builder relative. Others remembered living in particular structures when they were young, or related how their families had sold cabins decades ago for modest amounts relative to the high value of the properties today. Cox’s former art teachers, math teachers, and bus drivers also came out to celebrate the publication of the project.

Athens-Clarke Heritage Foundation commends new Portrait of Historic Athens

noreply@blogger.com (ddesjard@ugapress.uga.edu) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:28:00 +0000

At their annual meeting last week, the Athens-Clarke County Heritage Foundation awarded the new edition of PORTRAIT OF HISTORIC ATHENS AND CLARKE COUNTY their 2009 Outstanding Publications and Programs award, which honors publications in the field of preservation that possess a high degree of graphic design integrity and/or wide use or impact.

A reception and book signing featuring the author, Frances Taliaferro Thomas, will launch the book on Tuesday, June 30, at the Taylor-Grady House (634 Prince Avenue in Athens). The reception begins at 5:30; presentation and signing will follow at 6:15. The event is free and open to the public, but please RSVP to 706-353-1801 by Wednesday, June 24 if you plan to attend as space is limited.

In PORTRAIT, originally published in 1992, Thomas brings her deep interest, commitment and experience writing about historic preservation to a study of her own town: Athens, Georgia. A founding member of the Athens Historic Preservation Commission, Thomas has created a guide to historic Athens that takes into account people, environment and economics as a framework for understanding the richness and significance of Athens’s built environment. Now in paper, the new edition features color photographs and a new chapter exploring developments in Athens in the last two decades.

Tune in to WUGA (91.7/97.9 FM or online) for news director Mary Kay Mitchell’s interview with Thomas, which will air Monday, June 29 at 4:06 pm.

Coleman Barks Featured on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

noreply@blogger.com (ddesjard@ugapress.uga.edu) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:47:00 +0000

The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer recently aired a feature about how the work of the mystic poet Rumi serves as an all-too-rare cultural bridge between people in the United States and Afghanistan. Coleman Barks, a bestselling translator of numerous books of Rumi's poetry, is interviewed and prominently featured in the segment. Barks is also a poet and author of the recently published WINTER SKY: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS 1968-2008.

Technorati Tags: Coleman Barks Rumi

Craig Claiborne celebration in NYC

noreply@blogger.com (ddesjard@ugapress.uga.edu) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:31:00 +0000

The Southern Foodways Alliance, the state of Mississippi and the New School will celebrate the life and work of Craig Claiborne with two events this week in New York City.

A sold-out discussion and champagne toast on Friday evening (6/12) will include David Kamp of Vanity Fair and food celebrity Jacques Pepin commenting on Claiborne's quarter-century career at the New York Times and his role in America's changing approach to food. Lauded Mississippi chefs will serve "Tastes of Claiborne's Mississippi."

There may still be time to squeeze in to a Thursday evening (6/11) panel on "Craig Claiborne and the Invention of Food Journalism" sponsored by the Food Studies Program at The News School. The panel will feature, among others, food writers Betty Fussell and Molly O'Neill; call 212-229-5488 or e-mail boxoffice@newschool.edu for tickets.

The University of Georgia Press brought the celebrated CRAIG CLAIBORNE'S SOUTHERN COOKING back into print in 2007.

Short Takes

noreply@blogger.com (ddesjard@ugapress.uga.edu) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 21:00:00 +0000

The Los Angeles Times reviews Anna Journey’s IF BIRDS GATHER YOUR HAIR FOR NESTING.

The Jewish Daily Forward covers the premier of Ben Loeterman’s new PBS documentary on the Leo Frank case. Matthew H. Bernstein’s SCREENING A LYNCHING is prominently mentioned.

An interview with Mary Odem on LATINO IMMIGRANTS AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE U.S. SOUTH aired May 17 on Georgia Public Broadcasting’s Georgia Weekly television show; video is available.

Wisconsin Public Radio's University of the Air aired an hour-long interview with James Lorence (THE UNEMPLOYED PEOPLE’S MOVEMENT) aired May 17: “Few of us would single out Georgia as a hotbed of labor unrest, but during the Depression it was.”

Listen to a podcast featuring Macalester professor of anthropology Dianna Shandy on the forthcoming title GLASS CEILINGS AND 100-HOUR COUPLES.

Andrew Porter’s THE THEORY OF LIGHT AND MATTER was named ForeWord’s Book of the Year for 2008 in the category of Short Fiction. The book was also shortlisted for the Paterson Prize for a first book and longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award.

Victoria Chang’s SALVINIA MOLESTA is a finalist for the California Book Award in poetry, with the winner to be announced tonight; an interview with Chang appeared recently in New Letters and is reprinted on Poetry Daily.

At the Virginia Historical Society’s recent annual meeting, James R. Sweeney received the Richard Slatten Award for Excellence in Virginia Biography in 2008 for RACE, REASON AND MASSIVE RESISTANCE.

The Southwest Journal of Cultures reviews HERE, GEORGE WASHINGTON WAS BORN: “Bruggeman’s account of Washington’s birthplace provides an engaging tour through our longstanding, perhaps innate, fixation on relics and pilgrimage sites as well as the complicated process of remembering the past.”

NOVEL IDEAS is featured in the inaugural issue of Gotham Writers Workshop’s new e-newsletter “The Writer’s Bookshelf."

Southern Quarterly reviews GROUNDED GLOBALISM, noting that “What is most compelling about Peacock’s thesis is that his new paradigm depicts an altered sense of self for the southerner” and praising his “varied approach” and “the balance he achieves among different perspectives.” In the same issue, DIXIE EMPORIUM is praised as an “excellent collection,” with particular attention to contributions from Huber, Ketchell, Giggie and Eskew.

Black Power and American History

noreply@blogger.com (ddesjard@ugapress.uga.edu) — Thu, 14 May 2009 12:39:00 +0000

Now on YouTube-- hear Vanderbilt University history professor Devin Fergus discuss his new book:

Part 1 │ Part 2

In this clip, Fergus is interviewed by colleague Gary Gerstle about LIBERALISM, BLACK POWER AND THE MAKING OF AMERICAN POLITICS, 1965-1980.

In the interview, Gerstle presses Fergus to explain how his book relates the recent resurgence of scholarship on the Black Power movement in the U.S. Fergus makes a case for the need to reinsert Black Power into a broader narrative of American history. In particular, Fergus argues that it is important to find an account of the Civil Rights Movement and the decades that followed that "asserts the agency of black Americans," placing Black Power more centrally in that history.

The book will launch at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville on Tuesday, May 26 at 7 pm.

Coverage of a recent visit to Oklahoma can be found here.

In further news, Fergus has been awarded a fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars for the 2009-2010 academic year.

Technorati Tags: Black Power Liberalism Civil Rights Movement

Short Takes

noreply@blogger.com (ddesjard@ugapress.uga.edu) — Fri, 08 May 2009 19:40:00 +0000

The Paperback Row column in this Sunday’s New York Times will feature Anne Panning’s SUPER AMERICA.

Philip Levine recommends BOY by Patrick Phillips in this month's Ploughshares.

Hear poets from THE RINGING EAR with Cave Canem founders Toi Derricote and Cornelius Eady on New Letters on the Air.

The May/June issue of Orion Magazine includes a review of AN EVERGLADES PROVIDENCE; the book is also featured in a piece in the St. Petersburg Times by reporter Jeff Klinkenberg, who wrote frequently about Marjory Stoneman Douglas during her lifetime: “When she encountered Reubin Askew in 1971, she felt the need to remind the popular new governor that ‘your predecessors gave Florida land away like drunken sailors.’ Askew may have enjoyed a pro-environment reputation with voters, but by God, she wanted him to know he was on probation with her.”

The Spring 2009 issue of Fourth Genre reviews Michael Martone’s RACING IN PLACE: “Intellectual playfulness is, in fact, one of Martone’s strengths, and as I read his book, I found myself making comparisons to Montaigne, the granddaddy of the form, who wondered once in an essay whether he was playing with the cat or the cat with him.”

In a lengthy review, the Newnan Times-Herald calls WHAT VIRTUE THERE IS IN FIRE a “ground-breaking” account of the Sam Hose lynching.

The San Antonio Express News interviews Jeanne Campbell Reesman, author of JACK LONDON’S RACIAL LIVES. Reesman will be signing books at The Twig in San Antonio this Saturday.

MARGARET FULLER: WANDERING PILGRIM appears in a round-up review in the New York Review of Books.

Library Journal named TURTLES OF THE SOUTHEAST one of the best science reference books of the year.

Measured Perspectives on Latino Immigration in the South

noreply@blogger.com (ddesjard@ugapress.uga.edu) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 18:45:00 +0000

The Southern Poverty Law Center has just released the report "Under Siege: Life for Low-Income Latinos in the South." The study finds that Latino immigrants--both legal and illegal--are routinely targets of wage theft and racial profiling and cites anti-immigration sentiment as a driving force behind these and other abuses. The debate over immigration, especially illegal immigration over our southern border--has grown increasingly heated and confrontational in recent years.

LATINO IMMIGRANTS AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE U.S. SOUTH is a newly-published collection of essays edited by Mary E. Odem and Elaine Lacy that offers a measured perspective on the larger topic of Latino immigrants in the South. Contributors draw on social science and historical approaches to show the wide array of changes the South has undergone as the Latino population has more than doubled over the past decade. Southern food, religion, race relations, schools, and work places are all dramatically different than they were twenty years ago.

"Odem and Lacy effectively take the pulse of one of the nation's most significant--and unplanned--social experiments: the Latino invasion of Old South states, 1986-2006," comments historian Leon Fink. "Nine essays and a splendid introduction capture a unique tapestry of opportunity, fear, aspiration, and resentment."

If you're looking for more information about the rapidly changing South and Latino immigrants, these books may also interest you:

GROUNDED GLOBALISM: HOW THE U.S. SOUTH EMBRACES THE WORLD by James Peacock

LATINO WORKERS IN THE CONTEMPORARY SOUTH edited by Arthur D. Murphy, Colleen Blanchard, and Jennifer A. Hill

Technorati Tags: Southern Poverty Law Center Latino Immigration

Get to Know the Women Who Helped Shape South Carolina History

noreply@blogger.com (ddesjard@ugapress.uga.edu) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:32:00 +0000

The symposium South Carolina Women: Their Lives and Times offers an excellent opportunity to spend a day hearing the fascinating stories of the women who helped shape South Carolina history. Held in Columbia, South Carolina, the June 4 event will feature the editors of, and contributors to, the three-volume anthology SOUTH CAROLINA WOMEN: THEIR LIVES AND TIMES, which is published by the UGA Press. Volume 1 is currently available, Volume 2 is scheduled to appear in January 2010, and Volume 3 will follow later in 2010 or in 2011. Attendees will learn about a Native American queen, enslaved and free black women in the Old South, plantation mistresses, abolitionists, Revolutionary and Civil War heroines, suffragists, civil rights leaders, politicians, artists, scientists, teachers, jurists, and athletes. The symposium is sponsored by the University of South Carolina College of Arts and Sciences, The Southeastern Institute for Women and Politics, and The Alliance for Women.

The event will be held in the Daniel-Mickel Center on the eighth floor of the Moore School of Business on the University of South Carolina campus. Tickets are $40 per person (includes lunch and parking). For more information and to register, visit the University's Conferences and Event Services online, or call them at(803) 777-9444.

The symposium kicks off the Eighth Southern Conference on Women’s History, which will be held June 4–6 on the campus of the University of South Carolina, Columbia. Go online for more information, or call (803) 777-9444.

The South Carolina Women volumes are part of Southern Women: Their Lives and Times, a series of biographical, life-and-times histories of women from the various southern states. Each book in the series, which is published by the UGA Press, is a collection of insightful essays focused on the lives of individuals or small groups of women that address larger issues in the history of the state, the South, and the nation. These individual profiles also contribute to an understanding of the history of women and gender roles in American society.

Other currently available, or soon forthcoming, titles in the series cover women in Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee.

Vincent Carretta Wins Guggenheim Fellowship

noreply@blogger.com (ddesjard@ugapress.uga.edu) — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:52:00 +0000

Vincent Carretta has received a Guggenheim Fellowship to help fund his research for a biography of the pioneering African American poet Phillis Wheatley, which the Press will publish. He has also recently been awarded a one-month American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Fellowship at the Library Company of Philadelphia, which he plans to take in the fall to search for evidence of Benjamin Rush's familiarity with Wheatley and her writings.

Carretta, who is a Professor of English at the University of Maryland, began his career studying transatlantic verbal and visual literary and political satire. His early books include "THE SNARLING MUSE": VERBAL AND VISUAL SATIRE FROM POPE TO CHURCHILL and GEORGE III AND THE SATIRISTS FROM HOGARTH TO BYRON.

More recently Carretta has focused on the literature, history, and culture of eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century Anglophone authors, particularly those of African descent. Carretta has edited an impressive array of authoritative editions of these author's writings that includes:
- OLAUDAH EQUIANO, THE INTERESTING NARRATIVE AND OTHER WRITINGS
- LETTERS OF THE LATE IGNATIUS SANCHO, AN AFRICAN
- QUOBNA OTTOBAH CUGOANO, THOUGHTS AND SENTIMENTS ON THE EVIL OF SLAVERY AND OTHER WRITINGS
- PHILLIS WHEATLEY, COMPLETE WRITINGS
- UNCHAINED VOICES: AN ANTHOLOGY OF BLACK AUTHORS IN THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING WORLD OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

His most recent book is EQUIANO, THE AFRICAN: BIOGRAPHY OF A SELF-MADE MAN which provides a portrait of the man who wrote one of the most widely-read and earliest slave narratives to include an account of the Middle Passage from Africa to the Americas. In the course of researching the book Carretta made the significant and surprising discovery that Equiano was most likely not born free in Africa as he claims in his narrative, but rather that he may have been born a slave in South Carolina. The book was widely praised by critics and scholars, and it won the American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies 2004-06 Annibel Jenkins Prize for Best Biography of the Year. Penguin bought the paperback rights to the book.

In addition to his forthcoming biography of Wheatley, Carretta and Ty M. Reese have co-edited THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF PHILIP QUAQUE, THE FIRST AFRICAN ANGLICAN MISSIONARY, which UGA Press will publish in spring 2010. This is the first edition of the correspondence of Quaque, one of the most prolific writers of African descent in the eighteenth century and the first African ordained as an Anglican priest.

Technorati Tags: Guggenheim Fellowship Phillis Wheatley Olaudah Equiano

Short Takes

noreply@blogger.com (ddesjard@ugapress.uga.edu) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:27:00 +0000

PIONEERING AMERICAN WINE was featured on the front page of the Lifestyle section of the Charleston Post and Courier.

Hear Matthew H. Bernstein (SCREENING A LYNCHING) on WABE’s Between the Lines.

Business news site Global Atlanta provides advance notice of Marko Maunula’s GUTEN TAG, Y’ALL, due out in August.

The University of Georgia Press celebrates Earth Day:
Following an appearance at the Alabama Book Festival, Elizabeth Shores (ON HARPER’S TRAIL) will lecture and sign books at the Hoole Special Collections Library in Tuscaloosa April 20.

Paul Sutter and Christopher Manganiello (ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY AND THE AMERICAN SOUTH) will appear April 21 at the Gwinnett Environmental Heritage Museum, and Manganiello will fly solo at a Georgia Center for the Book sponsored event April 22.

Jack E. Davis (AN EVERGLADES PROVIDENCE) appeared this week on The Kathy Fountain Show on Fox TV in Tampa, and will be the guest on Gulf Coast Live! on WGCU radio (Fort Myers) on Earth Day, April 22.

Shep Krech (SPIRITS OF THE AIR) will be visiting the Georgia coast the following week, including an event at Jekyll Books at the Old Infirmary on Friday, May 1.

Short Takes

noreply@blogger.com (ddesjard@ugapress.uga.edu) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:47:00 +0000

A particularly engaging review of Jakle and Sculle’s MOTORING appears in this month’s Rain Taxi online: “To dig into the bedrock of history and assumptions our roads are built on, spend some time with John Jakle and Keith Sculle’s MOTORING: THE HIGHWAY EXPERIENCE IN AMERICA. The promise of the road and its reality are very different, as Jakle and Sculle demonstrate in this well-researched book.”

“Frogs: The Thin Green Line,” a PBS documentary that aired this week features John Jensen (AMPHIBIANS AND REPTILES OF GEORGIA) on the rapid disappearance of gopher frogs from the highly compromised longleaf pine ecosystem in the coastal plain of Georgia and five other states. Watch the full episode online.

Matthew H. Bernstein’s SCREENING A LYNCHING gets a plug on Curled Up With a Good Book. Interviews with Bernstein will air on a number of radio programs in Atlanta, including WABE “Between the Lines” with Valerie Jackson, Radio Sandy Springs, AM 1690 “The Voice of the Arts” with David Lewis, and the Fulton County Library Channel; a new PBS documentary on the Leo Frank case premieres in Marietta April 30.

A collection of poems by Mitchell Douglas devoted to Donny Hathaway is just out from Red Hen Press; see it thoughtfully compared with Ed Pavlic’s WINNERS HAVE YET TO BE ANNOUNCED at Post No Ills.

ON TARZAN was included – alongside other university press books on Batman and Tony Soprano -- in a popular culture column in the Toronto Globe and Mail: “Vernon excels at historical context, weaving Tarzan's countless reincarnations into everything from the Nazis to Vietnam.”

New Play by UGA Press Author Debuts in Early May

noreply@blogger.com (ddesjard@ugapress.uga.edu) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:13:00 +0000

Jeff Fields, author of the novel A CRY OF ANGELS, will debut his first-ever play at the historic Elbert Theatre in early May. Trying to Matter is a hilarious account of a matriarch's attempts to control the lives of her children.

The play's venue is a nice fit for Fields, who has strong ties to Elberton, Georgia. He grew up in the northeast Georgia community and, long ago, even worked as a projectionist at the same theatre at which his play is being staged. It's an open secret as well that Elberton was an inspiration for Quarrytown, the setting of Fields's novel A CRY OF ANGELS.

Trying to Matter opens on May 1, with subsequent performances on May 2, 3, 8, 9, and 10. For more details, visit the Elbert Theatre online or call (706) 283-1049.

Short Story Collection to Appear in French Translation

noreply@blogger.com (ddesjard@ugapress.uga.edu) — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 17:19:00 +0000

French rights for Andrew Porter's THE THEORY OF LIGHT AND MATTER have just been bought by Éditions de l’Olivier. The publisher is widely regarded as the most prestigious source for American fiction in French translation. It is home to such authors as Cormac McCarthy, Richard Ford, Jeffrey Eugenides, Jonathan Franzen, Andrew Sean Greer, and Adam Haslett. THE THEORY OF LIGHT AND MATTER received the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction and was first published in 2008 by the University of Georgia Press. U.S. paperback rights have been bought by the Knopf Group; it will appear later this year as a Vintage paperback.

In other recent news, Porter's book has been announced as a finalist for the Steven Turner Award, which is given annually by the Texas Institute of Letters for the Best Book of First Fiction.

Photo of Andrew Porter by Kris Krajcer

Short Takes

noreply@blogger.com (ddesjard@ugapress.uga.edu) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:54:00 +0000

Jack E. Davis launched AN EVERGLADES PROVIDENCE in Miami this week to a crowd of 77 at the Coral Gables Books & Books. Environmental reporter Curtis Morgan reviewed the book and profiled Douglas in the Miami Herald: “Mostly she led a life of the mind in Miami. She loved books, banter, sherry, scotch; disliked dolts, callow reporters, prevaricating politicians. She stubbornly clung to anachronistic practices, never learning to drive and writing longhand in the warming light of her backyard garden.” The Herald also ran a Q&A with Davis.

The Lakeland Ledger also ran an extensive review of the book: “In her 1947 best-seller The Everglades: River of Grass, Marjory Stoneman Douglas wrote there is no other Everglades in the world…After reading AN EVERGLADES PROVIDENCE by Jack E. Davis there is no doubt there was no one in the world like Douglas, either.” WGCU in Fort Myers ran an excerpt from the book in their magazine Expressions and will air an interview with Davis on Earth Day, April 22.

April is National Poetry Month – Anna Journey’s IF BIRDS GATHER YOUR HAIR FOR NESTING and Ed Pavlic’s WINNERS HAVE YET TO BE ANNOUNCED are both named as favorite books in this feature on the popular poetry blog by Ron Slate. Pavlic reads in Atlanta tomorrow as part of the Poetry@Tech series; Journey will read later this month in Houston and in Austin with Susan B.A. Somers-Willett (QUIVER). Kevin McFadden (HARDSCRABBLE) receives the George Garrett New Writing Award this week at the Conference on Southern Literature in Chattanooga; Victoria Chang (SALVINIA MOLESTA) takes part in this month’s LA Times Book Festival.

WHAT IS A CITY?: RETHINKING THE URBAN AFTER HURRICANE KATRINA inspires this column in the Hartford Courant.

HERE, GEORGE WASHINGTON WAS BORN receives a thoughtful review from a retired National Park Service historian at H-Net Reviews (H-FedHist): “Seth Bruggeman has provided an important and provocative case study of the construction of historical meaning at the birthplace of a figure who occupies first place in American history and mythology. He convincingly demonstrates that the Memorial House at Popes Creek is significant less for what it tells us about Washington the man than as a monument to his public memory.”

Short Takes

noreply@blogger.com (ddesjard@ugapress.uga.edu) — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:14:00 +0000

NPR’s Studio 360 will feature the poem “Night Hunting” from FREE UNION in this weekend’s show. The spot is called “Good Poet Hunting”: “John Casteen IV teaches poetry at Sweet Briar College in Virginia. He’s also an avid hunter. Jesse Dukes went deep into the woods with Casteen to track deer and talk poetry.”

The American Book Review notes that although the short story is falling into increasing disfavor in the publishing world, “The University of Georgia Press’s Flannery O’Connor Award...takes this as its challenge and has released some of the most challenging and rewarding short fiction of the last three decades.” Their review of DROWNING LESSONS and THE THEORY OF LIGHT AND MATTER concludes: “Both these collections, Porter’s more deeply and more consistently, are able to cut…to the emotional quick of the human experience with stunning compression. That is the short story’s role, what it exists to do—though maybe, in a country most comfortable with the easy narrative of the sitcom and reality show, also its undoing. It’s lucky for the small readership that will find these books that the University of Georgia Press still produces them.” The submission period for this year’s competition opens April 1.

In the most recent issue of Southern Cultures, Leon Fink writes: “There have always been several Souths. It is precisely those already nationally integrated that will most easily and successfully accommodate to globalist influences and identities… GROUNDED GLOBALISM is a testament to just how rich a life can be led through such experience and opportunity.”

From The Journal of the Early Republic: “In EQUIANO, THE AFRICAN: BIOGRAPHY OF A SELF-MADE MAN, Vincent Carretta has culminated a remarkable historical inquiry that has already yielded Unchained Voices, a superbly annotated anthology of Anglo–Atlantic black literature, as well as equally well-researched editions of Ignatius Sancho and Ottobah Cugoano.”

Two UGA faculty members honored with Creative Research Awards this week have ties with the press. Hugh Ruppersburg, author or editor of several UGA Press titles, most recently THE NEW GEORGIA ENCYCLOPEDIA COMPANION TO GEORGIA LITERATURE, received the Albert Christ-Janer Award for research in the humanities. Andrew Herod, co-editor of the press’s new Geographies of Social Justice series, received the William A. Owens Award for research in the social and behavioral sciences.

UGA Press Receives Grant from the Mellon Foundation

noreply@blogger.com (ddesjard@ugapress.uga.edu) — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 12:25:00 +0000

Three university presses have received a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support Early American Places, a new scholarly book series devoted to early North American history. The University of Georgia Press, New York University Press, and Northern Illinois University Press will receive $648,000 over five years to publish twelve series titles annually.

The goal of the series is to publish books written by first-time authors that root developments in early North America to the specific places where they occurred. Each press will focus on the region where they have particular expertise: UGA Press on the southeastern colonies, the Gulf South, and the Caribbean; NYU Press on the northeastern and middle Atlantic colonies; and NIU Press on the Great Lakes and Upper Mississippi Valley.

"All three presses collaborating on the series are sensitive to the transnational turn in the study of early North America," commented Derek Krissoff, senior acquisitions editor at UGA Press and a coauthor of the grant. "But we're also sensitive to the things that are particular to where we live and work. The idea behind Early American Places is to combine the two—to look at how specific cities and counties and colonies and regions experienced, and contributed to, global phenomena like migration, trade, and war. Scholarship undertaken at this scale can capture a level of texture that often gets lost in 'bigger' books."

The grant, which is being administered by UGA Press, will fund a shared, centralized, external editorial service dedicated to the editing and production of books. The three presses will also combine marketing efforts. An editorial board of leading scholars of early American history who will help recruit outstanding manuscripts is currently being assembled.

"We are honored that Mellon has chosen to lend us their support," said Nicole Mitchell, director of UGA Press. "It's gratifying to work collaboratively with our colleagues at other university presses, and this grant will be invaluable help to us all."

Technorati Tags: Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Scholarly Grant

Short Takes

noreply@blogger.com (ddesjard@ugapress.uga.edu) — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 17:01:00 +0000

Rick Van Noy and A NATURAL SENSE OF WONDER -- winner of the 2009 Reed Award for Environmental Writing from the Southern Environmental Law Center -- as well as four poets with new and recent titles in the VQR Poetry Series (Susan B.A. Somers-Willett, QUIVER, John Casteen, FREE UNION, Victoria Chang, SALVINIA MOLESTA, and Ted Genoways, ANNA, WASHING) will be featured in the Virginia Festival of the Book, which begins today in Charlottesville and runs through the weekend.

From the latest issue of Herpetological Review: "AMPHIBIANS AND REPTILES OF GEORGIA is a tremendous resource to herpetologists and naturalists working in Georgia and throughout the southeastern United States and should be on every bookshelf."

Poet Martha Ronk has selected FIELD FOLLY SNOW as a finalist for the Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award. Parks was recently interviewed about the experience of publishing a first book.

Andrew Porter’s THE THEORY OF LIGHT AND MATTER is a finalist in the short story category for ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year. An interview with him appeared this week online.

Upcoming area events:
Thursday, April 2, 5:00 pm
Emory University Bookstore
Matthew H. Bernstein will give a short presentation and sign copies of SCREENING A LYNCHING.

Friday, April 3, 7:00 pm
Ed Pavlic (WINNERS HAVE YET TO BE ANNOUNCED) will be reading with Kevin Young as part of the Poetry@Tech reading series.

Rick Van Noy Wins Reed Environmental Writing Award

noreply@blogger.com (ddesjard@ugapress.uga.edu) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:11:00 +0000

Rick Van Noy’s A NATURAL SENSE OF WONDER has been awarded the 2009 Phillip D. Reed Memorial Award for Outstanding Writing on the Southern Environment from the Southern Environmental Law Center. The prize, given to one newspaper or magazine article and one nonfiction book each year, seeks to “enhance public awareness of the value and vulnerability of the region’s natural heritage by giving special recognition to writers who most effectively tell the stories about the South’s environment.” The award will be presented Saturday in Charlottesville as part of the Virginia Festival of the Book.

ON HARPER'S TRAIL by Elizabeth Shores was a finalist for this year's award, and several University of Georgia Press titles are former winners of the prize:
WHERE THERE ARE MOUNTAINS by Donald Edward Davis (2001),
ZORO'S FIELD by Thomas Rain Crowe (2006), and
PEACHTREE CREEK by David Kaufman (2008).

In 2005, the SELC gave special recognition to the University of Georgia Press "for its consistent commitment to publishing works about the southern environment."

Technorati Tags: Southern Environmental Law Center

Short Takes

noreply@blogger.com (ddesjard@ugapress.uga.edu) — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 11:32:00 +0000

The Florida Humanities Council features Jack E. Davis and AN EVERGLADES PROVIDENCE in Forum, “the magazine for thinking Florida,” and on Florida Public Radio. Listen here.

Devin Fergus, author of the forthcoming LIBERALISM, BLACK POWER AND THE MAKING OF AMERICAN POLITICS, 1965-1980, has been awarded a fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington next year.

Swampland.com praises UGAP’s music titles in its listing of the best music books of 2008 – even books not published in 2008:“The university presses of Georgia, Louisiana, the already mentioned Mississippi, and, more recently, Tennessee remain some of this country’s best for books about music, and I’m going to give myself a bit of temporal leeway in discussing them….Issued two years ago in paperback, both DIXIE LULLABY by Mark Kemp and REAL PUNKS DON’T WEAR BLACK by Frank Kogan, and also the 2005 GOIN’ BACK TO SWEET MEMPHIS, edited by Fred J. Hay, demand a place on the shelves of any Swampland.com reader. And for something truly rich and strange, try this year’s WINNERS HAVE YET TO BE ANNOUNCED, a series of prose poems by Ed Pavlic.”

From the American Historical Review: On ENTREPRENEURS IN THE SOUTHERN UPCOUNTRY: “Recent, compelling works by Mark Smith, Chad Morgan, and Jonathan Daniel Wells have revealed tremendous economic, social, and even political antecedents for the postwar South in its formative antebellum years. Bruce W. Eelman’s book builds upon this literature to establish quite convincingly how so much that seemed new or ‘modern’ in the postwar South originated decades before secession.”

On ATLANTIC LOYALTIES: “McMichael succeeds in providing an updated assessment of the Baton Rouge district under Spanish rule. His analysis is more objective regarding Spain’s administration of the region than those of many past investigators. Slavery is examined in much greater detail than in previous accounts and the author ably supports his claim that the presence of a vibrant Spanish legal culture ‘places West Florida…in something of an exceptional position with regard to U.S. history.’”

From the Journal of Southern History: On GROUNDED GLOBALISM: “This well-crafted book offers optimistic expectations not only for the U.S. South but also for international and transnational relationships. Peacock’s engaging observations are supported by many anecdotes about his own life experiences, and the book has appeal for both scholars and an interested public.”

On MARY TELFAIR TO MARY FEW: “Telfair’s ruminations on men (‘the Insipids’), marriage (‘married life requires a double portion of energy’), and motherhood (‘a very difficult task’) illuminate women’s reasons for remaining single, while her reflections on her daily activities suggest the rewards of single life…Mary Telfair’s letters are a valuable—and now, thanks to editor Betty Wood, a readily accessible—source for those interested in learning about the daily lives and inner worlds of single women in the antebellum South.”

The Spring issue of Reform Judaism magazine presents THE PALE OF SETTLEMENT and an interview with Margot Singer.

And, finally, Alex Vernon gives ON TARZAN the Page 99 test (“Open the book to page ninety-nine and read, and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you” – Ford Madox Ford).

Short Takes

noreply@blogger.com (ddesjard@ugapress.uga.edu) — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 21:40:00 +0000

Poetry Daily will feature John Casteen’s poem “Chain Song” from FREE UNION on Wednesday, March 11.

Tamala Edwards of 6abc Action News in Philadelphia posted an interview with Sharon White about VANISHED GARDENS in advance of her appearance at the Philadelphia Flower Show this weekend.

Our YouTube channel now features video of Dave Kaufman speaking about PEACHTREE CREEK:

Andrew Porter’s THE THEORY OF LIGHT AND MATTER is a finalist for the Texas Institute of Letters' Award for Best Work of First Fiction. Winners will be announced at a ceremony in April.

From the Harvard Business School’s Business History Review: “MOTORING is a lively and entertaining account of driving in America. Jakle and Sculle should be commended for employing a wide range of academic and nonacademic sources.”

From the North Carolina Historical Review:“The combination of Phillips’s engaging writing style and viable primary accounts makes DIEHARD REBELS a quick and delightful read for anyone interested in Southern culture, the Civil War, and the ways in which the two intersect.”

James Peacock Wins the James Mooney Award

noreply@blogger.com (ddesjard@ugapress.uga.edu) — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:49:00 +0000

James Peacock has won the 2008 James Mooney Award for GROUNDED GLOBALISM: HOW THE U.S. SOUTH EMBRACES THE WORLD. The award is given annually by the Southern Anthropological Society to recognize distinguished anthropological scholarship on the South and southerners. Peacock will be given the award at a ceremony during the SAS meeting in Wilmington, NC, on Saturday, March 14.

GROUNDED GLOBALISM is a paradigm-shifting study of globalism's impact on a region legendarily resistant to change. The U.S. South, long defined in terms of its differences with the U.S. North, is moving out of this national and oppositional frame of reference into one that is more international and integrative. Likewise, as the South goes global, people are emigrating there from countries like India, Mexico, and Vietnam--and becoming southerners. Much has been made of the demographic and economic aspects of this shift. Until now, though, no one has systematically shown what globalism means to the southern sense of self. Peacock looks at the South of both the present and the past to develop the idea of "grounded globalism," in which global forces and local cultures rooted in history, tradition, and place reverberate against each other in mutually sustaining and energizing ways.

Peacock is the Kenan Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He was president of the American Anthropological Association from 1993 to 1995. In 1995 Peacock was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2002 the American Anthropological Association awarded him the prestigious Franz Boas Award for Exemplary Service to Anthropology. His visiting professorships have taken him to Princeton University, Yale University, Oxford University, University of California at San Diego, and the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. Dr. Peacock has authored or edited more than fifteen books, including the widely taught overview The Anthropological Lens. His articles, papers, reviews, commentaries, and other writings number in the hundreds.

Images:
Left: James L. Peacock, photo by Artie Dixon, Chapel Hill, NC, 2006
Right: Jacket of Grounded Globalism

Technorati Tags: James Peacock James Mooney Award Southern Anthropological Society

Authors Win Major Geography Book Award

noreply@blogger.com (ddesjard@ugapress.uga.edu) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:06:00 +0000

CIVIL RIGHTS MEMORIALS AND THE GEOGRAPHY OF MEMORY has won the 2008 Globe Book Award for Public Understanding of Geography. The book is published by the Center for American Places at Columbia College Chicago, and distributed by the UGA Press.

Sponsored by the Association of American Geographers, the Globe Book Award is given annually for "a book that conveys most powerfully the nature and importance of geography to the non-academic world."

CIVIL RIGHTS MEMORIALS AND THE GEOGRAPHY OF MEMORY offers the first critical reading of the monuments, museums, parks, and streets dedicated to the black struggle for civil rights. Geographers Owen J. Dwyer and Derek H. Alderman use extensive archival research, personal interviews, and compelling photography to examine memorials as cultural landscapes, interpreting them in the context of the movement's broader history and its current scene. In paying close attention to which stories, people, and places are remembered and which are forgotten, the authors present an unforgettable story.

Praise for the CIVIL RIGHTS MEMORIALS AND THE GEOGRAPHY OF MEMORY has come from both academic and public sectors. Historian Kenneth E. Foote, author of Shadowed Ground: America’s Landscapes of Violence and Tragedy, has called the book "a very strong work that is well-organized and readable," and Jacket Copy, the book blog of the Los Angeles Times recently said that "the book takes a thoughtful approach to all the questions it examines, including tensions, in the planning of memorials, over whether the work and sacrifice of those who stood with King has been overshadowed by King himself."

Images:
Top left: Jacket of Civil Rights Memorials and the Geography of Memory
Right: Owen J. Dwyer by De-D Hutchins
Bottom left: Derek H. Alderman by Cliff Hollis, East Carolina University

Technorati Tags: civil rights geography public memory

Short Takes

noreply@blogger.com (ddesjard@ugapress.uga.edu) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:32:00 +0000

Philadelphia-based Lord Breaulove Swells Whimsy, author of The Affected Provincial’s Companion and The Perils of Sportswear, reviews Sharon White’s VANISHED GARDENS on his blog this week: “White has a gift for evaporating history. Her writing allows her settings to exist in all their incarnations simultaneously: a marsh, a grand estate, a factory, and a community garden… For many, reading this book will be like acquiring a new sense; it will enrich the way you experience this city.”
White will appear at the Philadelphia Flower Show and as a speaker at the Fairfield Works Interpretive Center in Philadelphia next week.

A thoughtful and comprehensive essay in International Studies Review describes FROM SUPERPOWER TO BESIEGED GLOBAL POWER as "accessible to a wide audience" and "extremely informative." The reviewer notes, "Each of the state and regional case studies serves as a mini-primer on contemporary politics.”

Peter Blaze Corcoran and A VOICE FOR EARTH: AMERICAN WRITERS RESPOND TO THE EARTH CHARTER appear prominently in a top news story in yesterday's Fort Myers Florida Weekly.

The most recent Studies in American Fiction praises John A. McClure’s PARTIAL FAITHS: “McClure makes a compelling case that a viable alternative has emerged between the mutually exclusive certainties of religion and secularism and that fiction is an important part of this cultural transformation. . . . McClure devotes the balance of his book to tracking, in clean and convincing prose, how this project plays out in divergent works of American fiction.”

We've just posted two new audio podcasts to the UGA Press YouTube channel. Andrew Porter reads the story "Departure" from his collection THE THEORY OF LIGHT AND MATTER and Victoria Chang reads three poems from her collection SALVINIA MOLESTA.

Upcoming area events
Sunday, March 8, 4:00 pm
Matthew H. Bernstein will discuss his just-released SCREENING A LYNCHING at The Breman Jewish Heritage & Holocaust Museum in Atlanta. Their exhibit on Leo Frank closes at the end of March and will travel to New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, where Bernstein will speak on May 13.