Sidney Lanier’s legacy in question with school renaming
The controversy surrounding schools bearing Confederate names brings into question how figures like Sidney Lanier deserve to be recognized. Vanished in the Unknown Shade, a biography of Lanier, was a small local project for us at NewSouth Books, the chance to work again with the talented and irrepressible Helen Blackshear, former poet laureate of Alabama, […]
Inspiring story of Benjamin Sterling Turner shared in new children’s book embraced by Congresswoman Terri Sewell
Neither Congresswoman Terri Sewell nor Benjamin Sterling Turner were born in Dallas County, Alabama, but both came to represent the 7th District of Alabama with fervor and dedication. Turner was born a slave and rose to be Alabama’s first African American representative in Congress. 140 years after Turner took office, Terri Sewell was put in […]
Barry Alexander Brown, Spike Lee team up on movie project based on Bob Zellner book
Legendary civil rights activist Bob Zellner gained a loyal cadre of fans after the publication of his award-winning memoir The Wrong Side of Murder Creek in 2011, a book which was recently re-released in trade paperback, but the story will reach an entirely new audience with the production of Son of the South, a movie […]
Author Foster Dickson bridges school borders in the name of sustainability
Foster Dickson is many things: a writer, an English teacher, a Southerner, and a former NewSouth staffer. He’s taught at Booker T. Washington Magnet High School in Montgomery, Alabama, for many years now, but he recently embarked on a new project aimed at educating his students about environmental sustainability, especially with respect to the production […]
Aileen Kilgore Henderson awarded Druid Arts Award from the Arts Council of Tuscaloosa
Aileen Kilgore Henderson is much beloved in artistic and historical circles in Alabama. So we are pleased to see her work celebrated last month by the Arts Council of Tuscaloosa, which awarded her the Druid Arts Award in the Literary Arts. The award recognizes the demonstrated quality of her body of work, her contributions to […]
Jacqueline Trimble wins 2016 Balcones Poetry Prize for debut collection, American Happiness
In a bit of great news, American Happiness, recently published by NewSouth Books, wowed the judges of the Balcones Prize, winning the 2016 award for Jacqueline Allen Trimble in the poetry category. The judges at Austin Community College said of her work, “Hers is a refreshing voice. Her poetry is intimate and irony-filled.” They add, […]
Historians in Service of a Better South honors Paul Gaston, author and activist
Historians in Service of a Better South, new from NewSouth Books, has as its subtitle “Essays in Honor of Paul Gaston.” The book is a Festschrift, a collection of essays by Gaston’s students and colleagues over his long career at the University of Virginia and through his long-time involvement in civil rights causes. Robert Jefferson (Jeff) Norrell and Andrew Myers edited the book. Gaston himself sent a video message to the contributors and to NewSouth, thanking them for what he called a “handsome book” …
Remembering Leslie W. Dunbar
Writer, professor, and civil-rights activist Dr. Leslie W. Dunbar died January 4, 2017 in New Orleans, three weeks from his 96th birthday. In the turmoil of the 1960s, Dunbar worked with the Southern Regional Council, helping — among other initiatives — to create the Voter Education Project; the project is credited with registering two million African American voters. Later that decade Dunbar directed the Field Foundation, dedicated to child welfare and civil rights, including funding Martin Luther King’s Poor People’s Campaign and the Children’s Defense Fund …
NewSouth Books celebrates seven years of partnership with the Osher Institute for Lifelong Learning at Auburn University
NewSouth Books has enjoyed working the Osher Institute for Lifelong Learning in a partnership that has continued for seven years. OLLI is a program for learning in retirement for adults 50 and older. Members can choose from offerings that include academic courses as well as recreational and health activities …
William Heath wins Western Writers of America Spur Award
William Heath (The Children Bob Moses Led) is the winner of the Spur Award for Best Western Historical Nonfiction for his new book William Wells and and the Struggle for the Old Northwest. The Spur Awards are given by the Western Writers of America. Heath’s is the first biography of William Well, a frontiersman born to Anglo parents and captured and raised by Miami Indians …