Toi Derricotte & Cornelius Eady co-founders of Cave Canem
Tue, March 29, 6pm
Woodruff Library Emory University
Toi Derricotte is the author of four books of poetry - "Tender" (1997), winner of the 1998 Paterson Poetry Prize; "Captivity" (1989); "Natural Birth" (1983); and "The Empress of the Death House" (1978). Her literary memoir, "The Black Notebooks" (1997), won the 1998 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Non-Fiction. She is working on a new book of poetry, "The Undertaker's Daughter," and teaches in the creative writing department at the University of Pittsburgh.

Cornelius Eady often writes about race, family, and jazz, and his poems have a musical quality drawn from jazz and the blues. A poet and playwright, Eady has published eight books of poetry, including "Hardheaded Weather" (2008); "Brutal Imagination" (2001), a finalist for the 2001 National Book Award in Poetry; "You Don't Miss Your Water" (1995); "The Gathering of My Name" (1991), nominated for the Pulitzer Prize; and "Victims of the Latest Dance Craze" (1986), winner of the Lamont Prize from the Academy of American Poets in 1985.

The two noted poets co-founded Cave Canem, a nonprofit organization fostering the talents of black poets, in 1996.
A selection of books and a limited edition broadside will be available for purchase and signing at the reading.

Kathryn Stockett and Susan Rebecca White
Wednesday, March 30, 6:30 p.m.
SCAD Atlanta
The Savannah College of Art and Design will begin its spring 2011 Ivy Hall Writers Series with Kathryn Stockett and Susan Rebecca White as guest lecturers. Both belong to "a new wave of Southern female writers who might look like belles but who write fearlessly," according to Vanity Fair (February 2011). The two will appear together Wednesday, March 30, from 6:30-8 p.m. at SCAD Atlanta, 1600 Peachtree St. The event is free and open to the public.
"We are thrilled to present two young Atlanta authors who write about the Southern experience through new, intriguing voices," said Georgia Lee, director of Ivy Hall. "Both Kathryn Stockett and Susan Rebecca White resonate with local and national readers alike. As popular, acclaimed authors who are also hometown favorites, they are a perfect pair for the Ivy Hall Writers Series."
Kathryn Stockett delighted readers with her thought-provoking novel, "The Help." A movie based on the book is scheduled for release in August. "The Help," on the New York Times Bestseller list for 79 weeks, is a tale of three ordinary Mississippi women taking one extraordinary step together despite complications of living in a segregated town. The 1960s setting reflects Stockett's childhood experience in Jackson, Miss., with a black caregiver.

After graduating from the University of Alabama with a degree in English and creative writing, Stockett moved to New York City, where she wrote her first novel. She now lives in Atlanta with her husband and daughter.
Atlanta native Susan Rebecca White also made the New York Times Bestseller list with her critically acclaimed novel "Bound South," followed by "A Soft Place to Land." She is known for translating human flaws into traits that evoke compassion in her readers. White lived in San Francisco before returning to Atlanta with her husband. She teaches creative writing at Emory University.

40th Annual Agnes Scott College Writer's Festival
Jennifer Nettles Performance
Thu, March 31, 8pm
Agnes Scott College, Gaines Chapel, Presser Hall
This year marks Agnes Scott College’s 40th annual Writer’s Festival. The festival which will be held this year from March 31st to April 1st hosts acclaimed writers of poetry, prose and for the first time this year songwriting come to Agnes Scott to give readings, performances, and lead workshops for the Festival’s magazine. At the end of the festival the writers then pick winners in the magazine’s categories of poetry, prose, playwriting and songwriting. This is an amazing time for Agnes Scott students and the Decatur community to rub elbows with the literary world’s elite. Past writers have included Junot Diaz, Joyce Carol Oats, Anita Desai, Yusef Komunyakka, Rita Dove, John Updike, Margaret Atwood and many more!
And this year’s writers won’t disappoint either! This is the first year where a featured writer and (Agnes Scott alum!) is a songwriter, a new category that was added to this year’s Festival creative writing competition. Maybe you’ve heard of her? The one and only Grammy award winning Jennifer Nettles of the hit group Sugarland! She cut her teeth on performing music right here in Decatur at Eddies Attic. Jennifer Nettles will be performing Thursday, March 31, 8 p.m. Gaines Chapel, Presser Hall. Ticket required.

“This Is a Story About Music”: A Creativity Conversation with Rita Dove, Alvin Singleton, and Robert Spano
Monday March 21, 6pm
Presentation Room, Oxford Rd Building, Emory University
Rita Dove is the Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1987 and was Poet Laureate of the United States from 1993 through 1995. A canonical figure in American and African American literature, Professor Dove is known for her interdisciplinarity and her collaborative ventures with composers, musicians, and other artists.

Rita Dove talks with Alvin Singleton, the prize-winning composer who has adapted Dove’s work to music, and Robert Spano, music director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and an Emory University Distinguished Artist in Residence. Moderated by Lois Reitzes, host of Second Cup Concert on WABE 90.1.

And Still Peace Did Not Come: A Memoir of Reconciliation by Agnes Kamara-Umunna
Jimmy Carter Presidential Library
Thursday, March 24, 7pm
Some stories may seem better left buried under piles of time, hidden in the dark void of silence. But Agnes Kamara-Umunna knows better. A survivor of the unfathomably brutal Second Liberian Civil War, she has for years dedicated her life to bringing her country's painful past into the light of day, where some sort of reconciliation can take root.

In 2004, Kamara-Umunna helped start a United Nations-sponsored radio show in Monrovia called "Straight From The Heart," immersing herself in the city's slums and using the show as a vehicle to coax confessions out of former child soldiers. Now, in the book And Still Peace Did Not Come: A Memoir of Reconciliation, written along with Emily Holland, she steps back to tell her remarkable tale of investigating the horrors that ripped her homeland apart. On Thursday, March 24th at 7 p.m. at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, Kamara-Umunna will take the stage to speak about the still-unfolding toll of Liberia's civil wars and the healing process she has been trying so hard to foster.

Kamara-Umunna began her quest collecting narratives on behalf of the Monrovia-based Liberia Truth & Reconciliation Commission. She found she had a talent for connecting with the tortured former torturers, and so a few years ago she left Liberia to move to New York, where she took on the difficult task of questioning refugee victims and former soldiers in Staten Island's Park Hill neighborhood.

"A lot of stories, a lot of stories I hear," she told The New York Times in 2007, looking back on her work. "Some are victims telling me how hurt they are, especially seeing the perpetrators walking the streets of Liberia or living in the same community with them."

"I feel that these boys were like used," she added, "and they were victims and turned to perpetrators."

These days, Liberia is on a path toward progress, led by Africa's first female president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. But, as Kamara-Umunna reminds us in And Still Peace Did Not Come, much work remains to be done to heal the country's deep wounds.

The event is free and open to the public. Following Ms. Kamara-Umunna's talk, she will sign copies of her book.

Fiona Zedde: Dangerous Pleasures
Outwrite Bookstore & Coffeehouse
Thursday, Mar. 24th 7:30 PM
This event is free and open to the public
Free of a demanding ex-husband who left her feeling worthless, Renee Matthews is starting over and she is ready for a purely physical connection, on her terms: Sex in the dark with a total stranger – a night of breathless passion without complications. No exchange of words. No pressure. No pretense.

An online ad leads to the first of many anonymous trysts, but when one partner takes her into a darker realm of pleasure, Renee discovers hungers she never knew she possessed. Even though she knows these encounters are risky, nothing has ever compared to such exhilarating desire. But as the excitement escalates, so does the danger. Renee soon discovers that walking away from her midnight lover may be more difficult than she ever expected
FIONA ZEDDE, author of Hungry For It, Every Dark Desire, Bliss and A Taste of Sin, is a transplanted Jamaican currently living in Tampa. Her short stories have appeared in many collections and magazines including Issues, Eleanor’s Eyes and Clikque Magazine.

Don't forget to listen to Daren in conversation weekly onWABE's City Cafe with John Lemley to promote book and author events around the region.

Frances Mayes: Every Day In Tuscany
Tuesday March 15, 7pm
First Baptist Church, Decatur
Prize-winning author Frances Mayes, a Georgia native who is one of America's most popular writers ("Under the Tuscan Sun," "Bella Tuscany") and whose work is represented on the Georgia Center for the Book's new list of "25 Books All Georgians Should Read." will be in town to talk about her latest book, Every Day in Tuscany: Seasons of an Italian Life, a lovely, inspiring look at her favorite place in the world. She offers a wonderful tour through the gentle, occasionally violent, undulations of the seasons, from winter to summer, from her Tuscan home.

Critics say "Mayes's affectionate and warm memoir vividly celebrates the lush abundance and charm of daily life in the Italian countryside." There will be copies of her books for sale and signing on hand.

Walter Mosley: When the Thrill is Gone
Thursday March 17, 7pm
Jimmy Carter Library
With more than thirty-four diverse, critically praised books to his credit, Walter Mosley has written acclaimed literary fiction, science fiction, short fiction, young adult fiction, political essays, erotica, plays, and scripts for film and television. His work has earned him numerous awards, including PEN America's Lifetime Achievement Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Award, an O. Henry Award, and a Grammy. Widely regarded as a cultural statesman of the black community in particular, Mosley has also taken an active role in various literary, cultural, and educational organizations, including the National Book Foundation, the Mystery Writers of America, and the Poetry Society of America.

When the Thrill is Gone finds McGill attempting to locate the missing wife of a Fifth Avenue billionaire – an African-American woman from humble roots who has become a successful artist. She's most likely in trouble – big trouble.
On top of that, one of the most ruthless mobsters in America – the kind of people McGill is desperately trying to get away from as he seeks to redeem the sins of his former life, which included framing innocent people – has asked him for a personal favor. Since the man was one of his vanished father's best friends, McGill can hardly say no, but the errand has got him stewing over unresolved issues from his youth. And although McGill's America is emphatically multiracial, it is assuredly not postracial. He still gets hassled by the cops simply for standing on the sidewalk in the middle of the day in a residential neighborhood.
When the Thrill is Gone is quintessential Mosley, sure to delight his longtime fans and expand his ever-growing audience. As the Los Angeles Times has written of his previous work, "Mosley’s wild and wooly pacing, the events and the larger-than-life characters are refreshing examples of why the best pulp fiction continues to be so revered." And as the Austin Chronicle has observed, –Mosley is one of the most humane, insightful, powerful prose stylists working today in any genre. He's also one of the most radical . . . . Immerse yourself in the work of one of our national treasures."

Jodi Picoult: SING YOU HOME
Monday March 21, 7:30 pm
Outwrite Bookstore
Bestselling author of seventeen novels, including HANDLE WITH CARE, CHANGE OF HEART and MY SISTER’S KEEPER – now a major motion picture - has written a novel about Zoe and Max, whose marriage breaks apart when Max can’t handle their problems with miscarriages and infertility issues.

In the aftermath of their divorce, Zoe is surprised to find herself falling in love with school counselor, Vanessa. After they wed in Massachusetts, Vanessa offers to carry one of the fertilized embryos Zoe and Max have stored. Max, however, refuses to give his permission. Told from the perspective of all three characters, the book explores what it means to be gay in today’s world, how reproductive science has outstripped the legal system and what constitutes a “traditional family”.
Don't forget to listen to Daren in conversation weekly onWABE's City Cafe with John Lemley to promote book and author events around the region.

Lang Whitaker: In the Time of Bobby Cox: The Atlanta Braves, Their Manager, My Couch, Two Decades, and Me
Tuesday, March 8, 8pm
Manuel’s Tavern
With pitchers and catchers about to report and spring training just around the hot corner, what better way for Atlanta Braves fans to prepare for the season than with In the Time of Bobby Cox: The Atlanta Braves, Their Manager, My Couch, Two Decades, and Me
That's the managerial manifesto of a memoir by Lang Whitaker, a former Atlantan, now an award-winning New York sportswriter, a lifelong Braves fan and a hardball acolyte of Bobby Cox. Cox retired after last season as the fourth-winningest manager in baseball history, having taken the Braves to one last postseason. This, after guiding Atlanta to a record 14 consecutive division titles from 1991-2005, five World Series and the 1995 World Championship.

Whitaker will autograph copies of his book on Tuesday, March 8, beginning at 7:00 p.m. at Manuel's Tavern. In Whitaker, Braves fans will recognize one of their own. From In the Time of Bobby Cox: "I understand that sports fans can be partially (if not fully) obsessive. We feel like we have to be constantly on guard, lest some horrible evil befall our franchise. And, in turn, fall on us. Not to the Braves. Not on my watch."

For Whitaker, that watch seemed eternal. From April through September, and on into October, his weeknights and Sunday afternoons meant one thing: Bobby and his Braves. Whitaker's watched far more than 1,000 games in Cox's tenure, many while fast-forwarding the recorded game after his wife had gone to sleep. Sunday was a day of real-time worship, with a few bottles of water and the best seat in the house: on his couch.
If Bobby opted to hit and run, Lang chose to sit and wonder about the meaning of it all. For him, the old manager became a life coach of sorts, imparting lessons in persistence (Mark Lemke), consistency (Chipper Jones at the plate) and Cox's greatest attribute: his faith in, and loyalty to, his players (Is that Greg Norton in the on-deck circle again?).
Ultimately, Whitaker realized Cox had as much influence on his life as just about anyone else. Even while being ejected 161 times – the most in major-league history and just one game shy of a full season. And yet, ever notice how rarely any of Cox's players were ejected? Whitaker did.
He noticed everything, and wrote about it, too.

Eudora Welty: Exposures and Reflections
Saturday, February 05, 2011 - Sunday, May 08, 2011
Atlanta History Center
One of the nation’s great literary voices, Eudora Welty revealed the lives and struggles of the rural South, earning her a Pulitzer Prize and the title of First Lady of Southern Literature. Many Americans, however, are not familiar with her accomplishments as a photographer working for the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression while traveling the state of Mississippi. Welty’s photography and her writing came from the same impulse to create a dramatic narrative, and the combination of her images and her prose develop a more complete view as the themes, genres, people, and places she knew comes into focus.

Eudora Welty: Exposures and Reflections creates a tie between the two art forms, demonstrating the relationship of Welty’s regional literary works to scenes from her photographic catalogue, resulting in a provocative view of the Depression-era South.

This exhibit is included with general admission, and is free to Atlanta History Center members. For more information, please call 404.814.4000.

Mark Childress: Georgia Bottoms
Tuesday March 8, 7pm
Margaret Mitchell House
Georgia Bottoms is known in her small community of Six Points, Alabama, as a beautiful, well-to-do, and devoutly Baptist Southern belle. Nobody realizes the family fortune has disappeared, and a determinedly single woman like Georgia needs a discreet means of income. In Georgia’s case, it is six well-heeled lovers, none of whom knows about the others. But when the married preacher who has been calling decides to confess their affair in front of the whole congregation, Georgia takes drastic measures to stop him.

With Georgia Bottoms, Mark Childress displays his unmistakable skill for the hilarious and absurd to reveal the workings of the human heart.

Mark Childress was born in Monroeville, Alabama, and is the author of six novels, including Crazy in Alabama and One Mississippi, and three books for children.

Don't forget to listen to Daren in conversation weekly onWABE's City Cafe with John Lemley to promote book and author events around the region.

This year marks Agnes Scott College’s 40th annual Writer’s Festival. The festival which will be held this year from March 31st to April 1st hosts acclaimed writers of poetry, prose and for the first time this year songwriting come to Agnes Scott to give readings, performances, and lead workshops for the Festival’s magazine. At the end of the festival the writers then pick winners in the magazine’s categories of poetry, prose, playwriting and songwriting. This is an amazing time for Agnes Scott students and the Decatur community to rub elbows with the literary world’s elite. Past writers have included Junot Diaz, Joyce Carol Oats, Anita Desai, Yusef Komunyakka, Rita Dove, John Updike, Margaret Atwood and many more!

And this year’s writers won’t disappoint either! This is the first year where a featured writer and (Agnes Scott alum!) is a songwriter, a new category that was added to this year’s Festival creative writing competition. Maybe you’ve heard of her? The one and only Grammy award winning Jennifer Nettles of the hit group Sugarland! She cut her teeth on performing music right here in Decatur at Eddies Attic! Jennifer Nettles will be performing Thursday, March 31, 8 p.m. Gaines Chapel, Presser Hall. Ticket required.
The featured fiction writer will be none other than Danzy Senna, the bestselling author of the novels Caucasia, and Symptomatic and the memoir Where Did You Sleep Last Night?: A Personal History. Her debut novel Caucasia, the story of two biracial sisters growing up in racially charged Boston during the 1970s, was the winner of the BOMC Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction, the Alex Award from the American Library Association and The Los Angeles Times’ Best Book of the Year Prize. Her memoir explores the forces of history at work in the power and failure of her parents’ unlikely union. Ms. Senna will be giving a reading of her work Thursday, March 31, 4 p.m. in the Winter Theatre of the Dana Fine Arts Building. Make sure you stick around for the book signing and reception to follow.
The featured poet at the festival will be Arda Collins. Her collection of poems, It Is Daylight, won the 2008 Yale Series of Younger Poets prize. Judge Louise Gluck describes the volume as “a book of astonishing originality and intensity, unprecedented, unrepeatable.” Her poems have recently appeared in The New Yorker, American Poetry Review and A Public Space. A former Glenn Schaeffer Fellow at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she is pursuing a Ph.D. in poetry at the University of Denver. Arda Collins will be giving her reading Friday, April 1, 1 p.m. in the Winter Theatre of the Dana Fine Arts Building. There will be a book signing and reception to follow. Books of both writers will be available for purchase at the events.

All three writers will participate in a Q&A Session on Thursday, March 31, 1-1:50 p.m., Winter Theatre, Dana Fine Arts Building. Ticket Required.

Tickets have been available to the public beginning Monday, February 7 at the information desk in the Alston Student Center on the Agnes Scott Campus, 141 E. College Ave., Decatur, GA 30030. The Agnes Scott campus is just a short stroll from downtown Decatur so come and pick up your tickets today before they’re all gone!

Behind the Dream: Clarence B. Jones
Mon, February 28, 7pm
Jimmy Carter Presidential Library
"I have a dream." When those words were spoken on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, the crowd stood, electrified, as Martin Luther King, Jr. brought the plight of African Americans to the public consciousness and firmly established himself as one of the greatest orators of all time.

Behind the Dream is a thrilling, behind-the-scenes account of the weeks leading up to the great event, as told by Clarence Jones, co-writer of the speech and close confidant to King. Jones was there, on the road, collaborating with the great minds of the time, and hammering out the ideas and the speech that would shape the civil rights movement and inspire Americans for years to come.

Chris Abani: The Virgin of Flames
Thu, March 3, 6:30pm
SCAD Atlanta
An L.A. artist's search for identity forms the core of the diffuse but haunting new novel by Nigerian-born poet and Graceland novelist Abani.
Black is a 36-year-old muralist living hand to mouth behind the Ugly Store cafe in a bleak area of L.A. He's depressed and in an existential rut: engrossed in his latest work drawing on Catholic iconography (beaten into him as a child by his Salvadoran mother), and still smarting from the disappearance when he was a child of his African father (a NASA engineer) on a Vietnam-era space-related mission, Black feels he's being followed by ghosts—namely, the biblical Gabriel, the angel of annunciation. Sometimes he converses with Gabriel in the spaceship he has constructed in honor of his father above the cafe. Black is also deeply conflicted about his sexuality; a frequenter of female prostitutes, he has recently become obsessed with a local transvestite stripper, Sweet Girl. But Black's malaise may also stem from a curse—involving a malevolent spirit that kills male children—that his father wrote him about.

Lisa Gardner: LOVE YOU MORE
Sat, March 12, 7pm
Gwinnett County Public Library
Lisa Gardner is the New York Times bestselling author of twelve novels. Her Detective D. D. Warren novels include The Neighbor, Hide, and Alone. Her FBI profiler novels include Say Goodbye, Gone, The Killing Hour, The Next Accident, and The Third Victim.

Lisa will visit Gwinnett during her national book tour to promote her new book, Love You More.

Boston PD Sgt. Det. D.D. Warren (after Live to Tell), D.D.'s former partner and one-time lover, Det. Bobby Dodge, of the Massachusetts State Police, asks her to look into what appears to be a clear-cut homicide case. The evidence suggests that Tessa Leoni, a state trooper colleague of Bobby's, shot and killed her abusive husband, Brian Darby, who may have kidnapped her six-year-old daughter, Sophie. But Tessa won't talk about her bruises, her husband, or what might have happened to her child. D.D. examines every detail about the family, while Tessa uses her skills to manipulate the investigation. From Tessa's point of view, we learn about her and Brian's courtship, his affection for Sophie, and how the marriage began to disintegrate. Gardner sprinkles plenty of clues and inventive twists to keep readers off-kilter as the suspense builds to a realistic, jaw-dropping finale.

This event is free and open to the public.
For more information, please visit www.gwinnettpl.org or call 770.978.5154.

Great Works of Fiction Made Into Great FilmsMon. February 21, 7:30pm,through Mon. March 21Emory University, White Hall 208

A series of films curated and introduced by Salman Rushdie
Distinguished Writer in Residence Department of English, Emory University

- 2/21 PATHER PANCHALI (1955), 115 minutes By BIBHUTIBHUSHAN BANDOPADHYAY, Film directed by SATYAJIT RAY. Print restored by the Satyajit Ray Preservation Project at the Academy Film Archive with funding from the Film Foundation. Print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive.
- 2/28 THE DEAD (1987), 83 minutes By JAMES JOYCE, Film directed by JOHN HUSTON.
- 3/14 CONTEMPT (1963), 103 minutes By ALBERTO MORAVIA, Film directed by JEAN-LUC GODARD.
- 3/21 LOLITA (1962), 152 minutes By VLADIMIR NABOKOV, Film directed by STANLEY KUBRICK

All films start at 7:30 p.m. and are screened in 35mm.

Wayne Rogers: Make Your Own RulesTues February 22, 7:00 PMBarnes & Noble, Buckhead
It’s hardly a secret that the corporate ladder is no longer the path to success it once was. Wayne Rogers—star of the classic TV series M*A*S*H*—has had even more success as a businessman and entrepreneur than as an actor. Applying his own unique viewpoint to a wide range of businesses (a restaurant, a vineyard, a chain of convenience stores, the world of banking, real estate, a film distribution company, and even a famous bridal boutique), the iconoclastic star has steadfastly refused to accept limitations, and boldly forged a path for himself beyond the stifling constraints of the corporate system.
Filled with insights and engaging stories, Make Your Own Rules paints a fascinating portrait of how Rogers excelled precisely because he didn’t have prior experience in each of these businesses…or any preconceived notions of how they should be run. Rogers reveals the keys to his success over the past four decades—lessons that are even more important today. After all, in the current economic climate, learning to be creative, challenge convention, and seize unexpected opportunities is not only liberating—it can make all the difference to success.

Terry Kay: THE BOOK OF MARIE
Wed, February 23, 7:00
Georgia Perimeter College, Clarkston Campus
Terry Kay, author of the Townsend Prize-winning The Valley of Light discusses his latest novel, The Book of Marie. Marie, a Northerner and outspoken critic of all things Southern joins the senior class of Overton High in 1954 and is shunned by her classmates except for Cole, the popular football quarterback and very traditional Southern male. Their friendship is traced through letters that chronicle the impact of the civil rights movement and integration.

The Midwest Review says, “The Book of Marie is as much about personal bonds and knowing a place as home as it is about turbulent history.” Books will be available for purchase and signing at this event.

Don't forget to listen to Daren in conversation weekly on WABE's City Cafe with John Lemley to promote book and author events around the region.

Belva Davis: Never in my Wildest Dreams
Tue, February 15, 7pm
Jimmy Carter Presidential Library
Belva Davis is no stranger to adversity. Born to a fifteen-year-old Louisiana laundress during the Great Depression, and raised in the overcrowded projects of Oakland, CA, Davis suffered abuse, battled rejection, and persevered to achieve a career beyond her imagination.

Published to coincide with Black History Month 2011, her memoir, Never in My Wildest Dreams: A Black Woman's Life in Journalism unfolds the story of an extraordinary life in extraordinary times.
As the first black woman TV reporter-anchor on the West Coast, Davis reported many of the most explosive stories of the last half-century, including the Berkeley student protests, the rise of feminism, the birth of the Black Panthers, the Jonestown massacre, the Moscone-Milk murders, the onset of the AIDS epidemic, and from Africa, the terrorist attacks that first put Osama bin Laden on the FBI's Most Wanted list. Along the way, she encountered a cavalcade of cultural icons: Malcolm X, Frank Sinatra, James Brown, Nancy Reagan, Huey Newton, Mohammed Ali, Alex Haley, Fidel Castro, Dianne Feinstein, Condoleezza Rice, and others.

A reporter for almost five decades she has seen the world change in ways she never could have envisioned, from being verbally and physically attacked while reporting on the Republican National Convention in San Francisco 1964 to the election of Barack Obama in 2008. During her career, she soldiered in the trenches in the battle for racial equality, and brought stories of black Americans out of the shadows and into the light of day. As a result, she has won five local Emmys and a Lifetime Achievement Award. Now in her seventies, Davis, the "Walter Cronkite of the Bay Area," hosts a weekly news roundtable and special reports at KQED, one of the nation's leading PBS stations.

Davis is a journalist who helped change the face and focus of TV news, and her story is one buoyed by tenacity, dignity, and hope.

Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels by Kevin Young
Wed, February 16, 7pm
Jimmy Carter Presidential Library
Born in 1970, Kevin Young is widely regarded as one of the leading poets of his generation. But it is with this latest work, Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels, that he outshines his considerable accomplishments. Written over the course of twenty years, this poetic epic is a tapestry of interwoven narratives, voices and lamentations – all of which add up to tell the story of the Africans who mutinied on board the slave ship Amistad, and form a beautiful and terrible exploration of the rebellion’s aftermath. The author of six books of poems, and editor of five others, Young’s work has been frequently featured on National Public Radio and in The New Yorker, Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, Callaloo, and other journals and anthologies, including the Best American Poetry 2008, 2009, and 2010. Young often finds meaning and inspiration in African American music, particularly the blues, as well as in the complexities of American history and heartbreak.

The late poet Lucille Clifton selected Young’s first book, Most Way Home, as part of the 1993 National Poetry Series (William Morrow, 1995). Most Way Home also went on to receive the John C. Zacharis First Book Prize from Ploughshares magazine. His most recent book of poetry is Dear Darkness, released by Knopf in September 2008, and featured on National Public Radio and in The New Yorker as one of the best books of the year. Dear Darkness also went on to win the Southern Independent Bookseller’s Award in poetry. Young’s Jelly Roll: A Blues (Knopf, 2003) was a named finalist for both the National Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and winner of the Paterson Poetry Prize.

Kevin Young has been the recipient numerous awards and fellowships, including a Stegner Fellowship in Poetry at Stanford University, a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a NEA Fellowship, and a MacDowell Colony Fellowship. He is currently Atticus Haygood Professor of Creative Writing and English and Curator of Literary Collections and the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library at Emory University.

This event is FREE and open to the public.

Ellen F. Brown and John Wiley Jr., Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind: A Bestseller's Odyssey from Atlanta to Hollywood
Wed, February 16, 7pm
Margaret Mitchell House
The Atlanta History Center's Margaret Mitchell House celebrates the 75th anniversary of the publication of Mitchell’s acclaimed novel, Gone With the Wind, presenting a variety of exclusive public programs throughout the 2011 anniversary. Celebrations begin with this revealing evening lecture featuring authors Ellen F. Brown and John Wiley Jr. discussing the debut of their new book, Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind: A Bestseller’s Odyssey from Atlanta to Hollywood.

In the seventy-five years since Gone With the Wind's publication, millions of people the world over have speculated about what happened after Rhett Butler told Scarlett O’Hara he didn’t give a damn. Whether Margaret Mitchell envisioned reconciliation for her famous lovers is one of many intriguing questions surrounding the legendary novel and its enigmatic creator. Granted unprecedented access to Gone With the Wind records and correspondence, Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind: A Bestseller’s Odyssey from Atlanta to Hollywood examines the biggest mystery of them all: how a disorganized and incomplete manuscript by an unknown Southern writer was discovered by a major New York publisher and became one of the most popular, profitable, and controversial novels in literary history. Various Mitchell biographies and several compilations of her letters tell part of the story, but until now no single source has delved into the full saga.

Ellen F. Brown is a rare book dealer and award-winning freelance writer from Richmond and John Wiley Jr. owns one of the largest collections of Gone With the Wind memorabilia in private hands, including every American edition of the novel and more than 700 foreign editions. For almost twenty-five years, Wiley has published a quarterly newsletter, now called The Scarlett Letter, for GWTW fans and collectors.

It's been quite a while since we've rolled out a new Eddie & Agnes concert, but we've just scheduled a great one for March 25th at Presser Hall on the Agnes Scott Campus.
The Flatlanders are Butch Hancock, Joe Ely, and Jimmy Dale Gilmore: Each of them stand as a legend in the Texas songwriting world. I would call them a Tejas songwriting supergroup, but I've always thought a "supergroup" is something formed after the members are already famous, and these guys have been playing together for over three decades.
So come out for this great show. Tickets just went on sale today.

Connor Grennan: LITTLE PRINCES
Mon, February 7, 6pm
Cathedral of St. Philip Bookstore
LITTLE PRINCES: One Man’s Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal (William Morrow; January 25th)— is a debut memoir that chronicles Conor Grennan’s harrowing, inspirational and—at times—disarmingly funny story a young man's decision to take a stand for children and families everywhere. Soon after settling in at Little Princes Children’s Home as a volunteer, Conor discovered a shocking truth: The orphans he had grown to love in such a short period of time weren’t orphans at all, but victims of human trafficking. This horrific realization made Conor determined to reunite as many children as he could with their rightful families. He created Next Generation Nepal, a non-profit organization committed to raising awareness and aiding those who have been separated from their families by human trafficking. Since starting NGN in 2006 and graduating from the NYU Stern School of Business in May 2010, Conor has helped reunite more than 300 Nepali families.

Wayne Greenhaw: Fighting the Devil in Dixie
Tue, February 8, 7:15pm
Decatur Library Auditorium

Prize-winning veteran journalist Wayne Greenhaw joins us for a discussion of his provocative new book, ”Fighting the Devil in Dixie: How Civil Rights Activists Took on the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama.” His new book examines how the Klan, empowered by Governor George Wallace’s defiance of civil rights laws, grew more violent until confronted by a courageous, determined coalition of blacks and whites. Greenhaw tells the full story, from the Klan’s bombings and murders in the 1950s to Wallace’s run for a fourth term as governor in the early 1980s, when he asked for forgiveness and won re-election with the black vote.
Greenhaw wrote about Alabama government for 17 years as a reporter in Montgomery, and in 2006 he received the Harper Lee Award as Alabama’s distinguished writer.

Mike Glenn: The First Black Boxing Champions: Essays on Fighters of the 1800s to the 1920s
Wed, February 9, 7:15pm
Decatur Library Auditorium

We are pleased to join the Friends of the Decatur Library in hosting a delightful program by one of Atlanta’s best-known sports authorities, Mike Glenn. Mike, the former Atlanta Hawks star and now NBA broadcaster, will be discussing a new book in which he plays a part titled ”The First Black Boxing Champions: Essays on Fighters of the 1800s to the 1920s.”
The book is edited by Mark Scott and Colleen Aycock, and has just been published. We will have copies for sale and signing. We invite you to come learn more about these amazing boxers whose stories have been virtually unknown until recent years.