Internet Archive's American Libraries Project

The American Libraries project from the Open-Access Text Archive of the Internet Archive has been making public domain books from libraries around the country available online. Scanned texts can be viewed in facsimile form ("flip books" and/or PDF files) and in plain text form from the American Libraries Web site.

This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape has just added American Library and Google Book Search links to works by some of our 19th Century and early 20th Century authors: Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews, Zitella Cocke, Mary McNeil Fenollosa, Philip Henry Gosse, Milford W. Howard, Booker T. Washington, Howard Weeden, Augusta Jane Evans Wilson, Clement Wood, and Martha Young. We're happy that projects like American Libraries are making these and similar works available to readers, students, and scholars everywhere.

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

Google Book Search Links Added

For the last few years, the Google Book Search project has been scanning books from libraries and publishers around the world and making them available online. Scanned books that are in the public domain are then made available as complete texts in PDF and plain text (html) forms from the Google Book Search Web site.

This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape has just added Google Book Search links to works by some of our 19th Century and early 20th Century authors: Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews, Joseph Glover Baldwin, Octavus Roy Cohen, Mary McNeil Fenollosa, Philip Henry Gosse, Caroline Lee Hentz, Johnson Jones Hooper, Milford W. Howard, Helen Keller, A. B. Meek, John Trotwood Moore, Samuel Minturn Peck, Louise Clarke Pyrnelle, T. S. Stribling, Howard Weeden, and Martha Young. We're happy that projects like Google Book Search are making these and similar works available to readers, students, and scholars everywhere.

NOTE: Some of these works are offensive today, although, at the time of their publication, they were considered mainstream. Some people would prefer that these works fade into justifiable obscurity. However, we think it is important to look at them to see the attitudes and opinions that have been fought over the last few centuries and to see how far we've come and perhaps how far we still have to go.

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

First Draft Fall Issue Now Available Online

The Alabama Writers' Forum is a partnership program of the Alabama State Council on the Arts. Working with other organizations, it sponsors community-based programs to promote the appreciation of Alabama's literary heritage and to support Alabama's writers in the various stages of their careers.

First Draft, the AWF's journal, publishes articles about Alabama literary events, author interviews and essays, book reviews, and other items of literary interest. The Fall '08 issue is now available in PDF format from the First Draft page of the AWF Web site. PDFs of earlier issues, from Summer '98 through Spring '08, are also available here.

The AWF Web site also includes book reviews, a directory of literary resources, and announcements of classes, competitions, and publishing opportunities.

Download a PDF version of the Fall '08 issue of First Draft.

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

Audio: Alabama Arts Radio Series

Alabama Arts, the radio program from the Alabama State Council on the Arts, is broadcast on Tuesday evenings at 7:00 PM Central Time on Troy University Public Radio. The subjects of these programs include art, music, theater, literature, and arts education.

These radio programs have long been available online. For the last year or so, they have also been available in podcast form. That is, you can subscribe via iTunes and have them automatically downloaded to your computer.

You can also find these podcasts by visiting the Alabama Arts Radio Series blog. Listeners can subscribe to the blog using a reader program such as Bloglines, Google Reader, or My Yahoo!.

So far in 2008, Alabama authors interviewed have included Sena Jeter Naslund, Kirk Cornutt, Rheta Grimsley Johnson, Ace Atkins, Jake Adam York, and Kathryn Tucker Windham.

Listen directly (streaming) or download these programs from the Alabama Arts Radio Series blog.

Sena Jeter Naslund interview, March 4, 2008

Kirk Curnutt interview, March 25, 2008

Rheta Grimsley Johnson and Ace Atkins interviews, April 8, 2008

Jake Adam York interview, June 3, 2008

Kathryn Tucker Windham interview, October 28, 2008

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

Additions to Our Home Page

Sharp-eyed viewers will notice two new additions to This Goodly Land's home page: logos for Auburn University's College of Liberal Arts and Auburn University Outreach.

Since our beginning, administrative and technology support for This Goodly Land have been supplied by the College of Liberal Arts, while University Outreach has long been a sponsor of the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities (our parent organization) and its many programs.

The addition of these organizations' logos to our Web site is a grateful acknowledgment of our ongoing relationship with them.

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