Literary Friday, Edition 55
Countdown to Gatsby
Gatsby Week officially begins Monday here at Deep South, but we couldn’t help getting started a bit early today since pics from the New York premiere are out and NPR has a first listen of music from the film’s soundtrack. What can you look forward to next week? Movie predictions from some of the book’s biggest fans, a look inside the Fitzgerald Museum Gala, book reviews of new novels about Zelda Fitzgerald and a “Gatsby” inspired reading list, Tiffany’s own collection of Jazz Age jewels and lots more.
Literary News & Blogs
OKRA magazine has a piece titled Novelist Thomas Wolfe’s Big Extravagance about Southern foods he enjoyed from his mother’s boardinghouse kitchen and a recipe for Fried Steak.
New Orleans-area poet Barry North is featured in The San Diego Reader this week.
The numbers are in from March’s Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival. Over 9,500 audience seats were filled at 29 panels and 17 theater performances, with more than 150 authors attending, 25 Stanley and Stella Shouting Contest contenders and 2,500 cups of Hendrick’s Gin cocktails consumed. See our list of the 10 Things Editor Erin Z. Bass learned at this year’s festival.
We were also thrilled to get to hang with reader and BBC television producer Cerith Mathias during the fest. Read her interview with Williams scholar Dr. Kenneth Holditch here and another with actor Bryan Batt, who served as a shouting contest judge, here.
Literary Events
Birmingham Botanical Gardens presents Southern Tales At The Gardens with Dolores Hydock on Sunday at 2 p.m.
The International Biscuit Festival’s Southern Food Writing Conference will be held in Knoxville, Tennessee, May 16-17. Click here to register.
The South Carolina Book Festival will be held in Columbia May 17-19 with featured authors Pat Conroy, Mary Kay Andrews, Kim Boykin, Patti Callahan Henry, Erika Marks, Herman Parish, Ron Rash and lots more.
The 10th annual Saints and Sinners Literary Festival will be held in New Orleans May 23-26. Bringing together a a who’s who of LGBT publishers, writers and readers, this year’s festival presents speakers Dorothy Allison (pictured), Ayana Mathis and Ellen Hart.
New in Southern Voice
Southern Paris, a story about a doctor named Paris Hilton by South Carolina native Chad Rhoads.
To find out more about Southern authors’ haunts and hangouts, download the Deep South Literary Trail App, now available direct from iTunes and for Android.
