Alabama17th annual Writers Symposium & Sinners SaintsApril 24-26, 2014 • Monroeville, Alabama

www.WritersSymposium.org Alabama17th annual Writers Symposium Saints & Sinners

Join Us In Beautiful Monroeville, Alabama, April 24-26, 2014 with Koethi Zan, Charles McNair, Sena Jeter Naslund and more! Explore the theme “Saints and Sinners” – to challenge your preconceived ideas of good and evil, of real and imagined places, and of where you believe stories begin and end. The lively weekend of literary offerings features readings, signings, an award-winning production of , the renowned Readers’ Theatre performed by Alabama’s best and presentation of the 2014 Harper Lee Award for Alabama’s Distinguished Writer and the 2014 Eugene Current-Garcia Award for Alabama’s Distinguished Literary Scholar. From Koethi Zan’s timely and explosive tale of women trapped in a torturer’s basement to Charles McNair’s centenarian runaway, we explore survival, salvation, and the need to seek revenge and redemption. Saints and sinners are familiar themes in Alabama’s stories and songs, but this year’s artists find modern perspectives through poetry, personal history, fiction, and film. You’ll be held captive by Sandra Jaffe’s documentary about racially divided schools performingTo Kill a Mockingbird fifty years after its publication, and wonder if it’s okay to laugh when Andrew Hudgins admits that he simply cannot stop telling bad, old jokes. Widows and Wallace-era politics resurface in Robert Inman’s The Governor’s Lady, and Glenn Feldman looks at The Irony of the Solid South. Sena Jeter Naslund and Roy Hoffman share the stories of those we love and those left behind. We’ll celebrate the discovery of secrets, long hidden, when May Lamar shares Sidney Lanier’s struggles and Bobby Horton brings his authentic Civil War-era instruments and songs along with his warm and entertaining style.

Accommodations

Monroeville is easily accessible from Interstate 65 and Highway 84. The hotels listed are conveniently located on Highway 21. For reservations, please call the hotels directly. The following hotels will hold a block of rooms:

n The Mockingbird Inn & Suites n Monroeville Inn n The Country Inn & Suites (251) 743-3297 (251) 575-3312 (251) 743-3333 $65.95 plus tax for king $40 plus tax for double rooms $85.95 plus tax for king or two queens or two queens

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Richard Anderson is Professor Wayne Flynt is Professor Council on the Arts Literature Fellowship and has been Emeritus of English, Huntingdon Emeritus of History at Auburn a Seaside Institute “Escape to Create” artist in residence. College. He lives in Montgomery, University and author or coau- She currently teaches in the Honors Alabama, where in retirement he thor of eleven books, including College and is at work on a biography of Sara Mayfield. continues to pursue his interest in Alabama in the Twentieth Cen- Her article on Mayfield, “Sara Mayfield: A Woman of American fiction, especially that tury; Alabama Baptists: Southern Her Times,” has recently been accepted for publication in of the American South. Baptists in the Heart of Dixie; Alabama Heritage magazine. A graduate of the Universities Poor But Proud: Alabama’s Poor of Washington and Lee, Virginia, and South Carolina, Whites; Alabama: The History of Bobby Horton was born and he taught for thirty years at Huntingdon. In his first years a Deep South State; and Taking raised in Birmingham, Alabama. there, he was privileged to encounter a student named Christianity to China: Alabama His life long passion for music Andrew Hudgins, who has been his friend ever since. Missionaries in the Middle King- and history began at an early age. Dr. Anderson is best known in Alabama literary circles dom, 1850-1950. He has been recognized with numerous With a trumpet playing father as the spouse of Nancy Grisham Anderson of Auburn awards and honors, including the Lillian Smith Book and a banjo-playing grandfather, University Montgomery. Award, the Clarence Cason Award in Nonfiction Writing, he was exposed to a varied menu the James F. Sulzby Book Award (twice), and the Alabama of music – from the sound of Mark Childress was born in Monro- Library Association Award for nonfiction (twice). Flynt is the big bands, jazz combos and eville, Alabama, and grew up in , the 2014 recipient of the Eugene Current-Garcia Award classical to the old time sounds of , , , and for Alabama’s Distinguished Literary Scholar. Southern gospel, sacred harp, and Alabama. He is the author of seven “hillbilly” music. A seasoned performer, Horton is a multi- novels: A World Made of Fire, V For Anita Miller Garner, Professor instrumentalist, composer, producer, and music historian. Victor, Tender, Crazy in Alabama, of English and Creative Writing, He has performed with the musical- comedy trio Three Gone for Good, One Mississippi, and is the current Laura Harrison On a String, throughout the United States and Canada for Georgia Bottoms. His articles and re- Professor of English at the 35 plus years. He has also produced and performed music views have appeared in The New York University of North Alabama scores for thirteen PBS films by Ken Burns including “The

Times, , The Times of Dutkowski Photo by Richard where she teaches courses in Civil War” and “Baseball,” two films for The A&E network, London, San Francisco Chronicle, Saturday Review, Chicago literature, creative writing, and and sixteen films for The National Park Service. His series Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, Travel and Leisure, and literary editing. She is the author of recordings of authentic period music has been acclaimed other national and international publications. After gradu- of two collections of short fiction, by historical organizations and publications through ation from the University of Alabama in 1978, Childress Undeniable Truths (2009) and America and Europe. was a reporter for The Birmingham News, Features Editor Southland (forthcoming 2014). She blogs about Southern of Southern Living magazine, and Regional Editor of culture at www.amgarner.blogspot.com. Her website is Andrew Hudgins was born The Atlanta Journal and Constitution. He has been writing www.amgarner.com. in Killeen, Texas, in 1951 and fiction full-time since 1987. Childress is the 2014 recipient educated at Huntingdon College of the Harper Lee Award for Alabama’s Distinguished Roy Hoffman’s new novel, Come and the University of Alabama. Writer. Landfall, is about three women He earned his M.F.A. from the on the Mississippi coast, the University of Iowa in 1983. His Kirk Curnutt is the author of men they love, and the wars that volumes of poetry include Ecstatic thirteen books of fiction and shape them. He is also author of in the Poison; Babylon in a Jar; criticism, including two novels, the novels Almost Family, winner The Glass Hammer: A Southern Breathing Out the Ghost and of the Lillian Smith Award for Childhood; The Never-Ending: Dixie Noir, along with several fiction, andChicken Dreaming New Poems, a finalist for the studies of Ernest Hemingway, Corn, endorsed by Harper Lee, National Book Awards; After the Lost War: A Narrative, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Gertrude and the nonfiction collections, which received the Poetry Prize; and Saints and Strangers, Stein. As professor and chair Back Home, and Alabama After- which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He is also the au- of English at Troy University’s noons. His articles and reviews have appeared in the New thor of a book of essays, The Glass Anvil. Hudgins’s awards Montgomery Campus, he cur- York Times, Fortune, Southern Living, and his hometown and honors include the Witter Bynner Award for Poetry, rently serves as president of the newspaper in Mobile, the Press-Register, where he was a the Hanes Poetry Prize, and fellowships from the Bread Alabama Writers’ Forum. His long-time staff writer. A graduate of Tulane who worked Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, most recent book is Brian Wilson, a critical introduction to as a journalist and speechwriter in New York City before and the National Endowment for the Arts. the Beach Boys’ mastermind in Equinox Publishing’s Icons moving back south to Fairhope, he received the Clarence of Pop Music series. Cason Award in career nonfiction from the University of Robert Inman is the author of Alabama, and is on the faculty of the Spalding University five novels:The Governor’s Lady Glenn Feldman is the author or Brief Residency MFA in Writing Program in Louisville, KY. (2013), Home Fires Burning, Old editor of nine books of original, Dogs and Children, Dairy Queen blind, peer-reviewed scholar- Jennifer Horne is the author of Days and Captain Saturday. He ship. He has also published 150 a collection of poems, Bottle Tree is also the author of Coming articles and reviews, including (2010), a short story collection, Home: Life, Love and All Things 37 blind, peer-reviewed journal Tell the World You’re a Wildflower Southern and The Christmas Bus. articles and book chapters. His (forthcoming from UA Press in Inman has written screenplays for work has been nominated for 2014), the editor of Working the six motion pictures for television, the Bancroft Prize in American Dirt: An Anthology of Southern two of which have been “Hall- history. He sits on a National Poets (2003), and co-editor, mark Hall of Fame” presentations. His script for Endowment for the Humani- with Wendy Reed, of All Out The Summer of Ben Tyler, a Hallmark production, won ties (NEH) board on “Thinking of Faith: Southern Women on the Writers’ Guild of America Award as the best original About Race Critically” project and co-edits The Modern Spirituality (2006) and Circling television screenplay of 1997. His other Hallmark feature South book series for The University of Alabama Press. Faith: Southern Women on Spirituality (2012). Her story was Home Fires Burning, a 1989 adaptation of his novel. “The Other Shoe” appears inThe Shoe Burnin’: Stories of He is also the author of seven stage plays, including two Southern Soul (2013). She has received an Alabama State musicals, published by Dramatic Publishing Company. Sandra Jaffe was born in Birming- of America, the UNA Alumni Association Faculty/Staff creative writing, Southern literature and critical theory and ham, Alabama, and graduated Service Award, the Alpha Lambda Delta Outstanding has won numerous teaching awards. Her poetry collection from one of the high schools Teaching Award, the Black Student Alliance Teacher of the American Happiness is forthcoming from New South featured in her documentary, Year, and Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers. In 2001 Books. She currently chairs the Department of Languages “Our Mockingbird.” Her first and 2002, she received the President’s Award of Excellence and Literatures at Alabama State University. film, “Jazz In The Magic City,” is a from UNA President Robert L. Potts. In 2009, she was 16mm short, about the legacy of the recipient of the Eleanor Gaunder Teaching Excellence Adam Vines is an assistant jazz musicians who were trained Award given by the UNA chapter of the Honor Society of professor of English at the by strict disciplinarian bandleader Phi Kappa Phi. University of Alabama at John “Fess” Whatley at Industrial High, Birmingham’s Birmingham, where he is editor only black high school at that time, said to be the largest in New York Times bestselling of Birmingham Poetry Review. America. The film is permanently housed at the Alabama author Sena Jeter Naslund’s most He has published recent poems Jazz Hall of Fame in Birmingham, where it has been seen recent novel is The Fountain of in Poetry, Southwest Review, by many thousands of visitors. Sandra Jaffe is also a screen- St. James Court; Or Portrait of The Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast, writer and currently teaches screenwriting at Northeastern the Artist as an Old Woman. Her among others. He is the author of University in Boston. “Our Mockingbird” was featured, earlier books include the short The Coal Life. The Alabama State pre-release, in The Washington Post and on MSNBC and story collections Ice Skating at the Council on the Arts awarded will be widely distributed in 2014. North Pole and The Disobedience him a 2013 Individual Artist Fellowship. During the of Water, and the novels Adam & summers, he is on faculty at the Ada Long Creative May Lamar is an award-winning Eve, Abundance, A Novel of Marie Writing Workshop for high school students and is on newspaper reporter and advertis- Antoinette, The Animal Way to staff at The Sewanee Writers’ Conference. ing copywriter whose career goal Love, Sherlock in Love, Ahab’s to write fiction full time was Wife and Four Spirits. With Elaine W. Hughes, Naslund Jason Walker is a graduate realized three years ago. Brother is coauthor of a stage version of her civil rights novel Four student at the University of Sid, A Novel of Sidney Lanier is Spirits, commissioned by the Alabama Shakespeare Festival Alabama at Birmingham, where Lamar’s first published novel. Theatre and fully produced at the University of Alabama- he interns for Birmingham Poetry Other published books include Huntsville. Naslund is a recipient of the Harper Lee Award, Review and helps read for the popular regional classic, the Hall-Waters Southern Prize, the Southeastern Library poemmemoirstory. Recent Hunting, The Southern Tradition, co-written by Rich Don- Association Award, and the Alabama Library Associa- writings have appeared in nell with photography by Chip Cooper. Lamar currently tion Award. Naslund is currently Writer in Residence and Monkeybicycle, Hawai’i Pacific is at work on the historical novel, Book of Gifts, a story of Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Review, and Cellpoems. Alabama-born painter Anne Goldthwaite that starts as the Louisville, Program Director of the Spalding University Creek Nation vanishes, moves through the War Between brief-residency Master of Fine Arts in Writing, and editor Koethi Zan is an Alabama native the States to the American Girls’ Club in Paris and ends in of Spalding’s Fleur-de-Lis Press and The Louisville Review, whose international best seller, a beer-filled Greenwich Village hospital room. which she founded in 1976. The Never List, is being adapted for television and being produced Charles McNair, a native of the Don Noble, Professor Emeritus by CBS Television Studios. Born Yellowhammer State of Alabama, of English at UA, has been the in Opp, Alabama, Zan attended released his first novel,Land O’ host of the Emmy-nominated Birmingham-Southern College Goshen, to critical acclaim. Land Alabama Public Television liter- and Yale Law School. Then, while O’ Goshen was a nominee for the ary interview show Bookmark Senior Vice President & Deputy Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1994. since 1988. Since 2002 his General Counsel at MTV, Zan His long-awaited second novel, weekly reviews of fiction and decided to fulfill a lifelong dream Photo by Pieter M. van Hattem Pickett’s Charge, was published in nonfiction, mainly Southern, on the side, and in the early September 2013 from the have been broadcast on Alabama mornings she wrote a crime novel, The Never List. Koethi, University of West Alabama’s Public Radio. He has published her husband, Stephen Metcalf, and their two daughters,

Livingston Press. McNair Photo by Jeff Roffman widely in American literature, live in an old farmhouse in a rural community in upstate currently lives in Atlanta where especially Southern literature. In 2000, Noble received the New York. he writes full-time, combining freelance literary duties Eugene Current-Garcia Award for Alabama’s Distinguished with assignments for corporations and businesses, includ- Literary Scholar, and in 2013 he received the Wayne ing “Power of Storytelling” workshops. Since 2005, he Greenhaw Service Award in Recognition of Exemplary has served as Books Editor for Paste magazine and has Service from the Alabama Humanities Foundation. With shared his reviews on Atlanta radio station WMLB 1690 Brent Davis, he received a regional Emmy in 1996 for AM. McNair is currently at work on his third novel, The Excellence in Screenwriting for the documentary, I’m in the Epicureans. Truth Business: William Bradford Huie.

Lisa Graves Minor is a gradu- Jacqueline Allen Trimble began her writing life the day ate of the University of North she heard the word “swiftly” in Mrs. Edna T. Mosley’s first Alabama, where she received grade class. It seemed a perfect blend of sound and sense. the bachelor of science degree A few years later, she discovered Edgar Allan Poe and T.S. with highest honors. In 1980, Eliot and decided to become a poet. After winning a few The iconic images of saints and sinners from around she furthered her education at writing contests in high school, she earned gas money as Vanderbilt University in Nash- a Huntingdon College English major by charging a dollar Alabama appear courtesy of The George F. Landegger ville, Tennessee, where she earned a line for customized occasional verse. Though her heart Collection of Alabama Photographs in Carol M. the Master of Arts and Ph.D. belonged to poetry, pragmatism, if one may make such an Highsmith’s America, Library of Congress, Prints and degrees in English literature. association in this case, led her to earn an MA and a PhD Photographs Division. Dr. Minor is Professor of in English from the University of Alabama. For almost English at the University of North Alabama. Dr. Minor’s three decades, she has taught composition, American The baptism photo is Zion Baptist Church, c. 1913, honors and awards include Outstanding Young Women literature, African-American literature, women’s literature, from Samford University Special Collection. SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

Events will be held on the campus of Alabama Southern Community College, at the Monroeville Community House and the Monroe County Museum in downtown Monroeville. Registration will take place Thursday afternoon and Friday morning at Alabama Southern. In addition to the events listed below, the schedule will include art exhibits, music and booksellers. Thursday, April 24 12:30-2 p.m. Awards Luncheon: Presentation of the Concurrent Sessions: 1-5 p.m. Registration & Exhibit of Alabama Artists Harper Lee Award for Alabama’s Distinguished 7-9 p.m. Live performance of To Kill a Mockingbird Location: Nettles Auditorium on the campus of Writer 2014 and of the Eugene Current-Garcia 7-8:30 p.m. Readers’ Theatre Alabama Southern Community College Award for Alabama’s Distinguished Literary 8:30-11:30 p.m. “Light Jazz and Heavy Conversation” 1 p.m. Historical Downtown Walking Tours Scholar 2014, Location: Monroeville featuring the band “Second Coming” at the Vanity 6-8:30 p.m. Hospitality Hour and Opening Community House Fair Golf and Tennis Club Reception with Koethi Zan 2:30-4:30 p.m. Afternoon Sessions, Location: Location: Monroeville Community House Nettles Auditorium, Science Building and Saturday, April 27 Library Building 8:30-11:30 a.m. Light Refreshments and Morning Friday, April 25 2:30-3 p.m. Andrew Hudgins with moderator Sessions at the Old Courthouse 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Registration and Literary Coffee Richard Anderson, Location: Nettles Auditorium 8:30-9:05 a.m. May Lamar with moderator Jennifer House, Location: Nettles Auditorium and 3:10-3:40 p.m. Glenn Feldman with moderator Horne Alabama Southern Community College Library Jacqueline Trimble, Location: Nettles Auditorium 9:10-9:40 a.m. Roy Hoffman with moderator 8:30-11:55 a.m. Morning Sessions, Location: 3:50-4:30 Panel Sessions, Location: The Science Bldg. Lisa Graves Minor Nettles Auditorium • The Art and Craft of Writing with Adam Vines 9:45-10:15 a.m. Robert Inman with moderator 8:30-10 a.m. Documentary with Sandra Jaffe and Jason Walker Anita Miller Garner and moderator Wayne Flynt • Alabama Media Book Club 10:20-11:20 a.m. Mark Childress with moderator 10:05-10:15 a.m. Refreshment Break 4:40-5:30 p.m. Book Signings, Location: Library Don Noble 10:20-10:50 a.m. Charles McNair with moderator at Alabama Southern Community College 11:45 a.m.-1 p.m. Concluding Brunch with Kirk Curnutt 5:45-6:45 p.m. Picnic on the Monroeville Sena Jeter Naslund 11-11:50 a.m. Musician Bobby Horton Courthouse lawn

2014 Alabama Writers Symposium Registration Form Registration Deadline Friday, April 4, 2014 • Mail completed registration form to: Alabama Writers Symposium • Alabama Southern Community College • P.O. Box 2000 • Monroeville, AL 36461 Contact Donna Reed (251) 575-8223/ Fax: (251) 575-5356 • email: [email protected] • www.WritersSymposium.org

Name______2014 REGISTRATION FEES Fees are listed per person Business Name______o Comprehensive Ticket • April 24-26...... $155 Includes all meals and events except Address______To Kill a Mockingbird play on April 25

o Thursday Ticket • April 24...... $50 City ______State ______Zip______Includes reception and “An Evening with Koethi Zan”

o Historical Downtown Walking Tour...... FREE Daytime Phone______o Friday Ticket • April 25...... $70 Includes awards luncheon, picnic and more

Email______o Saturday Ticket, April 26...... $50 Admission to discussion sessions is free to all registered participants; however there is a charge for other Includes morning courthouse sessions and brunch with Sena Jeter Naslund events. You will receive registration confirmation in the mail. The schedule of events is subject to change without notice. Registration fees are non-refundable. o To Kill a Mockingbird ticket...... $50 Friday, April 25 only PAYMENT METHOD o Discussions only...... FREE o Check enclosed payable to Alabama Writers Symposium or PLEASE NOTE: To Kill a Mockingbird tickets are limited. First priority will be given to those who purchase o o Please bill my VISA or Mastercard comprehensive tickets. Please register early!

Card #______exp. date______Total Registration...... $______Signature of card holder______ALABAMA WRITERS SYMPOSIUM A project of the Alabama Center for Literary Arts Alabama Southern Community College P.O. Box 2000 • Monroeville, AL 36461 www. WritersSymposium.org

Sinners SaintsAlabama Wr&iters Symposium April 24-26, 2014 • Monroeville, Alabama

Iconic Alabama haunts of saints and sinners – Prattville’s Cross Garden, the Gulf Coast’s Flora-Bama Lounge & Cullman’s Ave Maria Grotto Thank You To Our Sponsors! Alabama Southern Community College • George Landegger • Alabama Humanities Foundation • Alabama State Council on the Arts • Radley’s Fountain Grille • The City of Monroeville The Symposium is produced in cooperation with: The Alabama Writers’ Forum • The Association of College English Teachers of Alabama • Monroe County Museum • Monroeville/Monroe County Area Chamber of Commerce The Alabama Writers Symposium is a project of the Alabama Center for Literary Arts.