Blair Johnson – My Blog

Texas loves South, America, new work of Southern noir from Rod Davis

Rod Davis’s new crime noir novel has made a sweep across Texas in the past few months. Davis’s book, South, America, has been featured in newspapers across the Lone Star state from San Antonio to Austin to Dallas. South, America, which tells the story of former Dallas reporter Jack Prine catapulted into the middle of a murder plot in pre-Katrina New Orleans, has been lauded by the following Texas media …

September 9, 2014 No Comments

PBS debuts new American Experience documentary, Freedom Summer

“I don’t think people understand how violent Mississippi was.” PBS’s new documentary, Freedom Summer, which debuted June 24, begins with this foreboding statement that proves itself true by the end of the film. Written, produced, and directed by Stanley Nelson, Freedom Summer chronicles the titular 10-weeks of 1964 during which college students from across the country traveled to Mississippi to battle the existing racism that was preventing African Americans from exercising their right to vote …

July 22, 2014 No Comments

Author Faye Gibbons attends First Lady of Alabama’s Scholastic book giveaway; Gibbons’s next YA novel due out shortly

As a part of the #FirstLady500 Scholastic book giveaway, Dianne Bentley, Alabama’s First Lady, presented 100 Scholastic books to Holtville Elementary School on May 15, 2014. Mrs. Bentley chose to read one of her favorite children’s books, Night in the Barn, written by her favorite Alabama children’s author Faye Gibbons, to the students assembled. Gibbons, whose new YA novel Halley arrives next month, was in attendance …

July 4, 2014 No Comments

Tavis Smiley Show hosts Clifton Taulbert to discuss memoir, The Invitation

Radio host and commentator Tavis Smiley interviewed Clifton Taulbert, bestselling author of titles including the award-winning Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored, in early June in connection with Taulbert’s new memoir, The Invitation. In a smart and engaging interview that you’ll wish lasted longer than its nine minutes, Smiley draws Taulbert into candid discussion about his transformative experience in South Carolina as chronicled in The Invitation. The book recounts Taulbert’s invitation to dinner at a former plantation house …

June 24, 2014 No Comments

NewSouth Books Remembers Virginia Pounds Brown

On May 26, 2014, NewSouth Books lost a longtime friend and beloved author, Virginia Pounds Brown. Although we will miss her in our books family, we will always remember her as a woman who was lively and engaged into her nineties and a very fine writer. Brown was a Birmingham native, a writer as well as a publisher and a bookstore owner, and a well known and respected authority on Native American, especially Creek Indian, history …

June 20, 2014 No Comments

Huffington Post spotlights poet David Rigsbee in Video Reading Series

In a recent article in the Huffington Post, Anis Shivani cited poet David Rigsbee (The Red Tower) as one of eight emerging poets and fiction writers who represent “the cutting-edge of today’s literary world.” As part of the “Video Reading Series,” Rigsbee and his fellow writers are featured in videos reading selections from their works and are also given the opportunity to present a behind-the-scenes look at their writing. Each writer presents a short elucidation on their own work, explaining the writing process as well as the roots and vision of their pieces …