There are two things Georgia Author of the Year award-winner Ted Dunagan enjoys almost as much as writing. The first is presenting about his book, A Yellow Watermelon, to an interested audience, especially school children. The second is Southern cooking, especially when the menu includes corn bread and collard greens. He got a big helping of both on his recent visit to Savannah, Georgia, in connection with the Savannah Children’s Book Festival.
The Georgia Center for the Book invited Ted to participate as a special guest at the festival and to speak at area schools. Ted Dunagan recalled his trip with delight in a recent column for The Monticello News. Ted particularly enjoyed meeting with the students at Coastal Middle School, where some 200 youngsters had read his novel A Yellow Watermelon and were eager to hear from the author. Ted engaged his audience with a discussion about the writing process, his inspirations as a writer, the underlying history of his book, and what it was like to grow up in the rural south in the 1940s. A lively question-and-answer session followed.
At the festival, Ted held forth in the Georgia Center for the Book’s tent with two hour-long presentations. The best part, Ted wrote in his column, “was when several kids from the schools I visited showed up with their parents to get their signed copy of the book.” The perfect ending to a satisfying trip was a meal at Paula Deen’s The Lady and Sons restaurant. Ted looks forward to another enjoyable visit to Savannah next year.
A Yellow Watermelon is available from NewSouth Books, Amazon.com, or your favorite retail or online book seller.