Literary Friday

Twitter Chat Schedule 

Our upcoming Twitter chats are now posted on the blog. Next up is Michael Morris, author of “Man in the Blue Moon.” Join us in chatting with him next Friday, November 2, from 1-2 p.m. CST (2-3 EST) using the hashtag #southernlit. And if there’s an author on our Fall/Winter Reading List that you’d like to chat with, let us know!

Halloween Fun 

Check out our list of 13 October Reads for the days leading up to Halloween.

Contribute to the Twitter hashtag #litmajorhalloweencostumes started by publisher W.W. Norton. Ideas already tweeted include To Kill An Angry Bird and Legend of Zelda Fitzgerald.

Spend Halloween with Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald at the Fitzgerald Museum in Montgomery, Alabama.

See our Haunted South section for ghost stories, including this week’s tale about a flaming tomb in New Orleans’ Metairie Cemetery.

Check out our Halloween With Edgar Allan Poe board of decorating ideas & list of Halloween costume ideas from down South.

Inside the App

Inspired by Halloween, we’re taking you inside Edgar Allan Poe’s dorm room at the University of Virginia this week. In the care of the university’s Raven Society, his former room is used for society initiation ceremonies and can also be viewed by visitors through a glass door. Download the Deep South Literary Trail App for more spooky locations to visit this weekend, including Anne Rice’s former home in New Orleans, Zelda Fitzgerald’s Haunted High School in Montgomery and plenty of cemeteries that serve as resting places for your famous Southern writers.

Literary News & Blogs

Quirk Books has 10 Of Our Favorite Foods From Literature That You Can Actually Make Yourself. Can you guess which Southern fried food made the list?

IMDB has a listing for a 2012 version of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” starring Rose McGowan (pictured). The movie’s Facebook page says it’s still in post-production and was delayed by Hurricane Isaac.

Our found recording of Flannery O’Connor hit the Twitter circuit after we posted it last Friday. We’ve got another one coming up next week, but until then you can also hear O’Connor via Better magazine’s Flannery O’Connor Soundboard.

“Hemingway’s Girl” author Erika Robuck reviewed the Deep South Literary Trail App on her blog this week and is also giving away a free download.

Literary Events 

Featured Event: The Louisiana Book Festival will be held October 27 in Baton Rouge at the State Capitol. The festival lineup is jam-packed with authors and features a “Confederacy of Dunces” theme, along with tons of poetry and storytelling and screening tents, so we’ve put together a Guide to the Louisiana Book Festival of what to see and do.

The Texas Book Festival is also this weekend in Austin, October 27-28. Special guests include Cheryl Strayed, Tony Danza, Damien Echols, Attica Locke and lots more.

In Deep South events, the Flannery O’Connor Symposium we’re co-sponsoring in Lafayette is scheduled for November 9-10, marking 50 years since O’Connor spoke on the UL Lafayette campus. Special guest speakers include Georgia State University professor Bill Sessions, who is working on the only authorized biography of O’Connor, and Brett Grayson with Good Country Pictures, who will be speaking about his company’s adaptation of “The Violent Bear It Away” on film. Portions of the recently discovered recording of O’Connor found on campus will also be played during the event.

The weekend of November 9-10 is also the Georgia Literary Festival at the new Jekyll Island Convention Center, which will include Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey, Chef Hugh Acheson, Mary Kay Andrews and Steve Berry.

The Dahlonega Literary Festival will take place in historic Dahlonega, Georgia, November 10-11. So far, guest authors include K.M. Deal, Tim Westover and Regina Jeffers.

New in Southern Voice 

Last Day With The Dead, a story about a young boy dealing with the close proximity of the body of his dead mother, by Chattanooga writer Tim Puryear, who says he was inspired by William Gay, Barry Hannah and Flannery O’ Connor.

Photo Credit: Rose McGowan in “The Tell-Tale Heart” from the movie Facebook page. 

Check out the Literary Friday Pinterest board here!