2009 Alabama Book Festival

The Alabama Book Festival will take place on April 18, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., on the grounds of historic Old Alabama Town in Montgomery, Ala. The Festival is organized by the Alabama Center for the Book, an affiliate program of the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts at Auburn University.

More than fifty novelists, poets, artists, illustrators, playwrights and children’s writers will participate in the Festival including: Daniel Anderson, Tina McElroy Ansa, Susan Youngblood Ashmore, Rick Bragg, Joel Brouwer, Peter Campion, Guy and Candie Carawan, Sheryll Cashin, Robert Dalby, Melissa Delbridge, Foster Dickson, Kathleen Driskell, Sara DuBose, Lynnell Edwards, Margaret Fenton, Thom Gossom, Wayne Greenhaw, Lauretta Hannon, Andrew Hudgins, Dr. Gloria Joseph, Douglas Kearney, Nanci Kincaid, Thomas Larson, Sebastian Matthews, Erin McGraw, Linda Kenney Miller, Jim Murphy, Don Noble, Martin Olliff, Molly Peacock, Ron Riekki, Solomon Seay, Elizabeth Findley Shores, Louie Skipper, Warren St. John, Frank Stitt, Jeanie Thompson, Barbara Wiedemann, Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder, Crystal Wilkinson, Kathryn Tucker Windham, Beth Maynor Young, and Bob Zellner.

The Festival will include a dedicated children’s area, with activities such as theater performances, storytelling, magic performances, book characters in costume, hands-on science experiments, and crafts. There will also be appearances by authors of books for children and young adults: Natalie Pope Boyce, Susannah Felts, Charles Ghigna, Helen Hemphill, Peter Huggins, Kerry Madden, Margaret McMullan, Mary Pope Osborne, Laurel Snyder, and Carole Boston Weatherford.

On April 17, the day before the Festival, the Alabama Writers' Forum will be offering two writing workshops. A Writing Stimulus workshop will be led by Erin McGraw and Andrew Hudgins. A second workshop, specifically for teachers, will be led by Kathleen Driscoll and Molly Peacock. Both workshops will be held at Troy University-Montgomery Campus. For information about the workshops, contact the Alabama Writers’ Forum at 334 265 7728 (toll-free 866-901-1117) or email at writersforum@bellsouth.net.

Download the Press Kit for the Alabama Book Festival.

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

Send Us Your Alabama Literary Quotations!

This Goodly Land and the Alabama Center for the Book are planning a series of Alabama prose postcards similar to the poetry series produced two years ago. Each postcard will feature a quotation from an Alabama author.

We invite you to submit your favorite Alabama quotations. Please indicate the author and the book or short story from which it comes. Example: "It is good to be shifty in a new country," Johnson Jones Hooper, Some Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs

If your quotation is selected for the series, you will receive a prize. Most likely non-monetary--we're on a tight budget here, folks. :-) The deadline for submission is December 31, 2008.

You can submit your quotation(s) via the Suggestion Form on This Goodly Land's Web site or by email to coatemi[AT]auburn.edu or by snail mail to Midge Coates, Pebble Hill, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849-5637.

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

A Year of Alabama Books

We'd like to introduce "A Year of Alabama Books," a new program from This Goodly Land and the Alabama Center for the Book. "A Year of Alabama Books" is a reading program that coordinates books by Alabama writers to the months of the calendar year. The program is not tied to a particular year; you can pick it up at any point and start from there.

Two reading lists have been prepared: one for children and younger teens and one for adults and older teens. The lists can be used by teachers, parents, book clubs, and anyone interested in getting better acquainted with the wide range of Alabama literature.

The Alabama Center for the Book has printed up bookmarks with both lists and has distributed them to schools around the state. If you would like your own bookmark, a pdf version is available on the TGL Web page for "A Year of Alabama Books." The Web page also has expanded versions of the two lists explaining the monthly tie-ins and making additional book suggestions.

Download the bookmark for "A Year of Alabama Books" in pdf format.

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

Video: Alabama Authors at the National Book Festival

On September 27, representatives from the Alabama Center for the Book will be in Washington, D.C., for the National Book Festival which is organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress. The Festival is a day-long event where representatives from Centers for the Book around the country provide information about their states' literary activities. There will also be presentations by authors, illustrators, and poets throughout the day.

Videos of presentations from previous Festivals are available online at the Library of Congress Webcasts page. Alabama authors who have made presentations include Gail Godwin, Natasha Trethewey, John Lewis, Andrew Hudgins, and Sena Jeter Naslund.

These videos are presented in the RealPlayer® format. If you don't have the necessary plug-in, you can get a free version of RealPlayer® at the Real.com Web site.

If you have difficulties with streaming video files or if you want to watch at a later time, you can also download one or more of these videos to your computer. Click on "Launch in a new window" and choose "Save File". (You will still need the RealPlayer® plug-in to watch the downloaded files.)

Watch Gail Godwin at the 2001 National Book Festival.

Watch Natasha Trethewey at the 2004 National Book Festival.

Watch John Lewis at the 2004 National Book Festival.

Watch Andrew Hudgins at the 2005 National Book Festival.

Watch Sena Jeter Naslund at the 2007 National Book Festival.

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