Publishers Weekly talks with Suzanne La Rosa on South Carolina book defunding controversy
Publishers Weekly quoted NewSouth publisher Suzanne La Rosa in a recent article about the South Carolina state house’s controversial decision to cut funding to two schools that assign books with gay and lesbian characters to their freshmen. The University of South Carolina Upstate assigns their students Out Low: The Best of Rainbow Radio, edited by Ed Madden and Candace Chellew-Hodge, and the College of Charleston assigns their students the novel Fun Home by Alison Bechdel …
Eugene Bullard featured in Washington Post “Flashbacks” comic strip
The Washington Post “Flashbacks” comic strip, created by Patrick Reynolds, recently featured in a series on World War I aviation hero Eugene Bullard. Strip artist Reynolds cites a new biography published by NewSouth Books — Eugene Bullard: World’s First Black Fighter Pilot by Larry Greenly — as inspiration for his series. The strip tells the story of the boy who ran away from his home in the segregated South and made his way to Europe. Bullard’s varied career, from prize fighter in England through entertainer in France to Legionnaire and then pioneering fighter pilot, is compellingly recounted …
Weather Channel interviews Dan Haulman on Tuskegee Weather Detachment
In a segment recently featured on The Weather Channel, reporter Paul Goodloe interviewed author and Tuskegee Airmen historian Daniel Haulman about the less-well-known Tuskegee Weather Detachment. Haulman is one of the co-authors of The Tuskegee Airmen, An Illustrated History: 1939-1949, as well as other books on the Airmen …
Child welfare advocate Denny Abbott tours with new book
Nationally recognized child welfare advocate Denny Abbott brought his story of creating positive change in the juvenile detention system to the campuses of Troy University recently in a series of lectures sponsored by the Alabama Humanities Foundation. Abbott spoke in Troy, Montgomery, and Dothan about his work on behalf of exploited children, and signed copies of his book They Had No Voice: My Fight for Alabama’s Forgotten Children …
Play based on award-winning YA novel A Yellow Watermelon to premiere
The town of Coffeeville, Alabama, and the Grove Hill Arts Council are joining forces on a project to restore the old Coffeeville School for community use. In so doing, they will recognize one of the school’s most famous students, Ted M. Dunagan. Dunagan is the author of three award-winning young adult novels set in that area during the late 1940s, published by NewSouth Books. A stage play based on his first novel, A Yellow Watermelon, premieres Friday, March 7 at 11am and Saturday, March 8 at 7pm at the old Coffeeville high school auditorium …
Montgomery Advertiser, WTLS 1300 cover Forever Blue by Coach Bill Moseley
“As a kid, on the local streets of Montgomery, on unpaved streets and fields nearby, every vacant lot we’d find — we’d make a football field out of it,” Bill Moseley told radio station 1300 WTLS Tallahassee about the beginnings of his love for playing and coaching football. Known for his leadership and motivational abilities on and off the field, Moseley’s book Forever Blue: The Memoirs of a Lanier High School and University of Kentucky Coach chronicles the 91-year-old’s rise from his high school playing days in Depression-era Montgomery, to serving in the U.S. Army Air Forces, to coaching at The University of Kentucky, and back again to his hometown roots coaching at his alma mater …
John Pritchard talks Sailing to Alluvium, Junior Ray with Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly has just released a great Q&A with John Pritchard, author of the “Junior Ray” books and the newly released Sailing to Alluvium. PW Southern correspondent Paige Crutcher spoke with Pritchard about the publication of his third novel, becoming a first-time author at age 65, the Mississippi Delta as a character in his novels, and how he comes up with all of Junior Ray’s expletives …
On MLK’s Holiday, a Few Words About the Poor
Today is the MLK holiday, although in Alabama the adoption of the holiday passed the legislature only by designating it as also being in honor of the birth of Robert E. Lee, who coincidentally shares the same birth week as King, so that white state workers taking the day off didn’t have to do so in tribute to civil rights. Setting aside that head-in-the-sand Alabama political posturing, it is MLK Day, which means it’s a good day to remember that though MLK is rightly celebrated as a leader of the movement which broke the back of legalized segregation, toward the end of his life he was mostly campaigning to end economic injustice and war …
Bob Zellner talks to Bill Moyers about North Carolina Moral Mondays
A new episode of Moyers & Company focuses on the political battles in North Carolina that have culminated in a series of “Moral Mondays” protests; among those protestors is civil rights activist Bob Zellner (The Wrong Side of Murder Creek). Zellner spoke with Moyers & Company …
Peter O’Toole remembered by Lawrence of Arabia assistant director Ibrahim Fawal
Author Ibrahim Fawal (On the Hills of God, The Disinherited), who worked as the first assistant director on the classic Lawrence of Arabia sent this remembrance of actor Peter O’Toole: “One of my most vivid memories of working with Peter O’Toole took place early one morning, when David Lean asked me to go find Peter, who was late for the shooting of a certain scene …”