Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Lewis Nordan and the Heartbreaking Laughter of Transcendence and Hope: A Symposium

The Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities presents a Symposium on renowned author Lewis "Buddy" Nordan, an Auburn University graduate and nationally acclaimed author of eight books including Music of the Swamp and The Sharpshooter Blues. The day-long event will be held on January 23 at the Hotel at Auburn University and Dixon Conference Center.

The Symposium will bring together a host of well-known writers, international scholars, experts in Alabama and Southern literature, and Auburn University's own art and theater students. Nordan himself will deliver the keynote address, introduced by North Carolina writer Clyde Edgerton, who will sing his rendition of Nordan's "Sugar Among the Chickens" and offer an appreciation of the author. Celebrated author Hal Crowther will offer his own appreciation of Nordan entitled "Critical Barbs: Archer or Arrow Catcher," introduced by Southern literary scholar Noel Polk.

Other speakers will include international scholars Manuel Broncano and Marcel Arbeit and Alabamians Bert Hitchcock, Don Noble, Constance Relihan, and Barbara A. Baker. Auburn University art students will display drawings rendered from Nordan's stories, and theater students will enact a dramatic reading of "How Bob Steele Broke My Father's Heart."

The Nordan Symposium will be recorded and made available through iTunes, and papers from the Symposium will be compiled in a volume to be published by Pebble Hill Books. The program will be of interest to both general and scholarly audiences and to aficionados of great Southern storytelling.

Read more about the Symposium at the CMDCAH blog.

Find the Symposium schedule, directions, hotel information, and a brief video of Lewis Nordan at the CMDCAH Web site.

Download the Symposium press packet, which includes a poster and a press release.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

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