The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has awarded David Rigsbee a 2013 Creative Writing Fellowship, given to “outstanding poets.” Rigsbee is one of only forty poets to receive the grant, out of over 1,000 who applied. Rigsbee’s most recent collection of verse, The Red Tower: New & Selected Poems, was published by NewSouth Books in 2010 …
The Southeast Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians (SESAH) gave Dr. Ellen Weiss their 2012 Award of Excellence for her biography of the first academically-trained African American architect, Robert R. Taylor and Tuskegee: An African American Architect Designs for Booker T. Washington, during their 2012 Annual Meeting in Athens, Georgia. Robert R. Taylor and Tuskegee is not just the first biography and a detailed portrait of this important man; it’s also a gorgeous volume that includes over 100 photographs of Taylor’s buildings on the Tuskegee campus and elsewhere, finely annotated by Dr. Weiss …
Poet and NewSouth Books author Andrew Glaze received the commission for Poet Laureate for the State of Alabama this past week. Glaze, 92, has published thirteen books of poetry including Remembering Thunder (NewSouth Books, 2002), and his work has also appeared in major literary journals and magazines. Glaze was born in Nashville and grew up in Birmingham, leaving and then returning to the city after serving in the Air Force in World War II. His first major book of poetry, Damned Ugly Children, was a runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize. He will be Alabama’s eleventh poet laureate …
NPR’s The Diane Rehm Show recently featured a “Reader’s Review” segment, in which a panel discussed Geraldine Brooks’s 2001 novel Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague. Included on that panel with Ms. Rehm was Sena Jeter Naslund, author of Ahab’s Wife, who aside from discussing Ms. Brooks’s novel has another connection to the author — both women’s books were mentioned in Frye Gaillard’s recent memoir The Books That Mattered: A Reader’s Memoir, published by NewSouth Books …
The MyRecipes.com “You’ve Got to Taste This!” column spotlighted Tasia’s Table: Cooking with the Artisan Cheesemaker at Belle Chevre this past week, and has even included it on their list of cookbooks for holiday giving. Tasia’s Table is the dynamic new cookbook from Tasia Malakasis, who matches her Southern and Greek heritages with her dedication that cooking should be fun and easy, to create recipes that’ll set every mouth watering …
Robert J. Norrell, author of Eden Rise, sent this remembrance of former Alfred A. Knopf editor Ashbel Green: Ashbel Green accepted my dissertation for publication at Knopf six weeks after four professors at the University of Virginia in 1983 said the manuscript was worthy of the doctor of philosophy and not far from being ready for publication. Paul Gaston, my mentor, had unbounded confidence in his judgment, and that of Ashbel Green at Knopf, and he thought the two of them would merge on agreement that my little dissertation about the civil rights movement in an Alabama town should be a book. Paul was right, at least about the consanguinity of his and Ash’s viewpoint. I had no idea at the time of how unusual this was as the fate for a dissertation. Almost thirty years later, I can say for a certainty that no subsequent book found a home so readily. Ash’s critique of my manuscript was, shall we say, lean. “Needs a new ending.” No more direction than that, and I said, all right, yes sir, and a new ending I wrote …
Interest in the ground-breaking African American architect Robert R. Taylor continues to grow after the publication of Professor Ellen Weiss’s detailed biography of Taylor, and articles including two in Architect magazine. Weiss’s Robert R. Taylor and Tuskegee recounts Taylor’s life, side by side with striking photographs of Taylor’s architectural accomplishments as the first classically trained African American architect …
If you’re hitting the road this Labor Day, the Wall Street Journal recommends bringing along a copy of Rheta Grimsley Johnson’s Enchanted Evening Barbie and the Second Coming. Enchanted Evening was featured in Danny Heitman’s Friday article about vacation reading, “A Beached Wail — No Time for That Pile of Books.” Heitman noted that “along with her gift for memorable book titles, Ms. Johnson has a commendable knack for writing stuff brief enough to be savored in a sitting or two” …
As NewSouth prepares for the October release of journalist Geni Certain’s biography of former Congressman Glen Browder, Professor-Politician, we are proud to release two of Browder’s own books in ebook format: The South’s New Racial Politics: Inside the Race Game of Southern History and Stealth Reconstruction: An Untold Story of Racial Politics in Recent Southern History. Browder is also an ongoing columnist with the Huffington Post “Politics” section …
On April 13, the Alabama Historical Association honored NewSouth Books authors Dan Haulman and Mary Ann Neeley with awards acknowledging their scholarship and contribution to state history. Haulman received the Milo B. Howard award for his article “The Tuskegee Airmen and the ‘Never Lost A Bomber’ Myth,’” published in the January 2011 Alabama Review and then released as an ebook by NewSouth Books. Neeley received the Clinton Jackson Coley Award for her book The Works of Matthew Blue, Montgomery’s First Historian …