Pulitzer Prizewinner David Auburn mentors playwrights for Ingram New Works festival
April 26, 2010 David Auburn, who wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Proof, is the Ingram New Works Fellowship recipient, in town May 6-8 to mentor area playwrights and take part in readings of his new play The Columnist.
Read moreThe world’s best handseller picks her Top 10 of the decade
April 23, 2010 Somewhere in the back of the minds of most book lovers, there is probably a little corner labeled “Dream Jobs.” And among those jobs is the one that may not even really exist, but we like to think it exists, which is to sort through all of the books that come flooding daily into the offices of Harpo Enterprises. And, you know, take home the ones that look interesting. And read them. For Oprah.
Read moreRoy Blount Jr. tours for a good cause
April 22, 2010 Humorist and Vandy grad Roy Blount Jr., who is known both for his writing and for his NPR appearances on shows like Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me and A Prairie Home Companion, is on tour with the Rock Bottom Remainders, a garage band made up of bestselling writers Stephen King, Dave Barry, Amy Tan, Scott Turow, Matt Groening, James McBride, and Mitch Albom. The band, founded in the early nineties, performs only once a year, on average, and not always with the same cast.
Read moreKentucky lures Silas House back to his home state with a plum of an appointment
April 22, 2010 Bestselling author Silas House will leave Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate to accept the National Endowment for the Humanities Chair in Appalachian Studies at Berea College, beginning in August.
Read moreGrove/Atlantic Buys Tennessee Novel
April 16, 2010 A.E. Willis, an eighth-generation Southerner, has sold a novel based on her family’s history in Tennessee. The book was bought by Grove/Atlantic, the publisher of Cold Mountain. Stories of her father’s growing up in rural Pocahontas, Tennessee, during the 1940s and 1950s inspired Willis’s novel, to be titled The Lost Saints of Tennessee.
Read moreIn her ninetieth year, Eleanor Ross Taylor Wins the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize—and $100,000
April 15, 2010 The Poetry Foundation has announced the 2010 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, and the winner of the award, which carries a stipend of $100,000, is Eleanor Ross Taylor. The widow of acclaimed novelist Peter Taylor, Eleanor Ross Taylor made no apologies in her youth for downplaying her own artistic dreams to support her husband’s stratospheric literary career. Nevertheless, with his encouragement, she wrote steadily during the years of their marriage, publishing her first book at age 40 and following it with a book, on average, every decade.
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