July 12, 2007 lot of guts, and he thought everyone else should have them, too." TABLE OF CONTENTS: In what was a tragic irony, on Friday, July 6, Marlette was in • Book & Free Expression Communities Lose a Charlotte, North Carolina, to attend the funeral of his father. Champion: Doug Marlette ................................ 1 Afterwards, he flew to Memphis, where he and Oxford High • ABFFE Launches "Book of the Month" Web School drama teacher John Davenport headed by car to Oxford, as reported by the Tulsa World . Davenport, the driver of the car, was Feature ............................................................. 2 taken to the hospital where he was treated and released, the World • Texas Booksellers Find Winning Combinations noted. .......................................................................... 2 That Marlette was taking the time to generously lend someone else • BTW News Briefs ............................................. 2 a hand was not surprising, noted Oxford Mayor Richard Howorth, • BookHampton's Constitution Giveaway owner of Square Books. "Doug was on his way to Oxford to work Inspires Hundreds ............................................ 3 on something that he volunteered to do -- he had formed a relationship with the drama students and the high school teacher • Scholastic Asks for Reports of Potter On-Sale and was willing to help. Doug was just an extremely nice person," Violations .......................................................... 4 said Howorth. "His loss is a loss to the world of journalism, the • New Affinity Program Makes Check Payments world of books, and advocates of free expression." a Certainty ........................................................ 4 Marlette was born in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1949, and was • ABACUS Deadline August 15 .......................... 4 raised in Durham, North Carolina; Laurel, Mississippi; and • ABA Shipping Program Increases Freight Sanford, Florida. After graduating from Florida State University, Discounts .......................................................... 5 he started drawing political cartoons for the Charlotte Observer in 1972. He joined the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 1987, New • LIBRIS Asks: Is Your Business Prepared for York Newsday in 1989, the Tallahassee Democrat in 2002. He had an Emergency? ................................................ 5 been employed by the Tulsa World since 2006. Throughout his distinguished career, Marlette won numerous BOOK SENSE THIS WEEK awards for his editorial cartoons, including the Pulitzer Prize in • The Vaults Are Full at Oskaloosa Bookstore .... 5 1988. His work appeared in publications ranging from Time and Newsweek to the New York Times . His cartoons and Kudzu comic • The Book Sense Mind/Body/Spirit Bestseller strip were syndicated and appeared in newspapers around the List .................................................................... 6 world. His cartoons are collected in 19 volumes, including In Your Face: A Cartoonist at Work ; Faux Bubba: Bill and Hillary Go to Washington ; and A Town So Backwards Even the Episcopalians MARKETPLACE Handle Snakes . • Classifieds ........................................................ 7 Marlette's debut novel, The Bridge (HarperCollins), was published • Other Advertising .............................................. 7 in October 2001 and was voted Best Book of the Year for Fiction in 2002 by the former Southeast Booksellers Association (now the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance [SIBA]). His second Book & Free Expression Communities novel, Magic Time (Sarah Crichton Books/FSG), was published in October 2006. Lose a Champion: Doug Marlette Wanda Jewell, executive director of SIBA, said that Marlette was a July 12, 2007 -- Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, author, and true friend of the independent bookseller and noted that the renowned free speech advocate Doug Marlette was killed in a association plans on honoring him at its next book awards single-car accident in Mississippi on Tuesday, July 10. Marlette luncheon. "My life is better for having known him," she said. "He was a passenger in a car heading to Oxford, Mississippi -- where he was all the things we loved: a great writer, southern, funny, and had been helping some high school students stage a musical based smart. He had an understanding of what it means to be a real on his comic strip Kudzu -- when the car apparently hydroplaned friend." on a rain-soaked road before hitting a tree, according to published reports. Marlette was 57. As both a cartoonist and novelist, Marlette earned a reputation as an artist who rarely pulled punches. In 2002, his cartoon of a man "The First Amendment has lost one of its champions," said Chris in Middle Eastern garb driving a rental car with the caption "What Finan, president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Would Mohammad Drive?" set off a media firestorm of criticism Expression (ABFFE). "During the ABFFE panel at BookExpo and condemnation from groups such as the Council on America in 2006, he passionately condemned American American-Islamic Relations. Referring to himself as an "equal newspapers for refusing to reproduce the Muhammad cartoons that opportunity offender," Marlette drew the outrage of a broad had provoked such violent controversy around the world. He had a spectrum of political and religious groups: Christian © 2007 American Booksellers Association. http://news.bookweb.org/ 1 BOOKSELLING THIS WEEK July 12, 2007 fundamentalists, the Pope, and Israel were among his many targets. But he was not one to back down due to criticism or political Combinations correctness, and once wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review , July 11, 2007 -- "What's not to love about books and wine?" said "In this country we do not apologize for our opinions." Pam Headrick, co-owner of A Thirsty Mind Words & Wines 5 in In 2006, at BookExpo America in Washington, D.C., Marlette, a Lakeway, Texas. The retired archeologist and illustrator and her featured speaker at an event on threats to press freedom, bemoaned business partner, Anita Mapes, a retired nutritionist, have found that there were fewer and fewer good political cartoonists. "Twenty them to be the perfect combination for their 1,500-square-foot years ago, there were 250 [political] cartoonists working. The store. Located in a beamed building that matches the early 1980s number of cartoonists working now is 70," he said, adding this resort architecture of the surrounding area, A Thirsty Mind's wine trend was due in part to the "corporate culture of niceness," which bar and full schedule of events draw a crowd in the affluent makes the press fearful of being offensive or controversial. bedroom community of Austin. The store also features an unofficial writer-in-residence, romance novelist Julie Ortolon. At the event, Marlette also noted how his cartoons had come under attack from both the left and the right. Often, when liberals or Since its opening in 2004, A Thirsty Mind's "very elegant" ash conservatives claim they believe in free speech, what they really wine bar has become a hot spot for locals. "Usually at around four mean is "they believe in free speech for themselves," he said. o'clock, we have our regulars come in," explained Headrick, "and they have all kinds of philosophical, scientific, political, and As a staunch free speech advocate, Marlette was extremely religious discussions." disappointed with the American press for being afraid to run the controversial Mohammad cartoons following the violence that Among the regulars is Ortolon ( Almost Perfect , Signet). Since erupted after their publication in the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten introducing herself and then organizing a well-attended roundtable in 2005. In a column published by Salon.com in February 2006, discussion with other local romance writers, she and Hendrick have Marlette wrote: "Once these images became a major news story become friends and neighbors. Now Ortolon stops in at the store (and given that they easily satisfied Western standards of legitimate several times a week. "She's a fixture at the bookstore and wine commentary and in fact only became internationally controversial bar," said Headrick. after being misrepresented to the larger Muslim world) I can see It was there that Ortolon met local jazz singer Barbara Calderaro, little reason -- other than bodily fear, bottom-line self-preservation, who, along with her band, has been featured at Thirsty Mind's and just poor judgment -- that the U.S. media and the public Concerts in the Park(ing Lot) -- which is sloped like stadium officials entrusted with defending our freedoms wimped out so seating explained Headrick. thoroughly when challenged to live up to their historic obligation under the First Amendment to keep the American public Ortolon's forthcoming book ( Unforgettable, Signet Eclipse, informed." September) mentions a number of jazz standards that Calderaro just happens to sing, so in another perfect pairing author and singer Marlette is survived by his wife, Melinda Marlette, and an adult 1 decided to collaborate on a book/CD project. The release party will, son, Jackson, as reported by the World . -- David Grogan of course, be held at the bookstore. "Barbara and her band and Julie will be here. We'll have all kind of special wines. It should be a big ABFFE Launches "Book of the Month" event." The event will also mark the store's inaugural night as a Web Feature jazz bar. 2 The backdrop of the wine bar is a large painting (currently featured