It's a gorgeous day here in downtown Decatur and the 2nd Annual Decatur Book Festival is off to a blazing start. Festival organizers seem very pleased with the crowds that are already here enjoying the sun, the festival marketplace, the booksellers, and the family atmosphere.
I have just come from one of the author sessions where I introduced Georgia State University creative writing professor Sheri Joseph. She read from her recently-published novel Stray (MacAdam/Cage, 2007) and then answered questions from the audience of about 30 people.
Speaking with me before the reading began, Sheri told me she'd just come back from the Hawthornden International Retreat for Writers which is held in a castle outside Edinburgh, Scotland. She's currently revising a novel she began 15 years ago and has returned to on and off since then.
In the audience to hear Sheri was Man Martin. Man is this month's Cover to Cover guest. On September 30 he'll join me in the studio to talk and take listener calls about his newly-published debut novel Days of the Endless Corvette (Carroll & Graf, 2007), "a story of true love, the mystery of life NPR website and car repair." (See my review of Days of the Endless Corvette and listen to me read an excerpt for the NPR website.)
Talking to Man after Sheri's reading, I learned that he was one of Sheri's creative writing students at GSU and Days of the Endless Corvette was the product of her novel writing class. It's a small world after all!
Well, the day is only half done and there's much more going on. Georgia poet Chelsea Rathburn (see my blog Three Women Poets from Georgia from earlier this week) is reading this afternoon, and Cold Mountain author Charles Frazier gives his keynote speech this evening on the Agnes Scott College campus.
I'll be back later with another update from this year's Decatur Book Festival. Stay tuned!
I have just come from one of the author sessions where I introduced Georgia State University creative writing professor Sheri Joseph. She read from her recently-published novel Stray (MacAdam/Cage, 2007) and then answered questions from the audience of about 30 people.
Speaking with me before the reading began, Sheri told me she'd just come back from the Hawthornden International Retreat for Writers which is held in a castle outside Edinburgh, Scotland. She's currently revising a novel she began 15 years ago and has returned to on and off since then.
In the audience to hear Sheri was Man Martin. Man is this month's Cover to Cover guest. On September 30 he'll join me in the studio to talk and take listener calls about his newly-published debut novel Days of the Endless Corvette (Carroll & Graf, 2007), "a story of true love, the mystery of life NPR website and car repair." (See my review of Days of the Endless Corvette and listen to me read an excerpt for the NPR website.)
Talking to Man after Sheri's reading, I learned that he was one of Sheri's creative writing students at GSU and Days of the Endless Corvette was the product of her novel writing class. It's a small world after all!
Well, the day is only half done and there's much more going on. Georgia poet Chelsea Rathburn (see my blog Three Women Poets from Georgia from earlier this week) is reading this afternoon, and Cold Mountain author Charles Frazier gives his keynote speech this evening on the Agnes Scott College campus.
I'll be back later with another update from this year's Decatur Book Festival. Stay tuned!
