Literary Friday, Edition 88

Literary News

Based on the memoir by Solomon Northup, 12 Years a Slave is having a good week. The film won Best Picture, Drama at the Golden Globes on Sunday and then picked up nine Oscar nominations yesterday.

BookRiot has declared 2014 The Year of the Reader. We suggest reading blogger Tamara Welch’s series of literary guest posts on New Year’s resolutions for inspiration. Hint: Editor Erin Z. Bass’s is coming up next week!

The nation’s first bookless public library system has opened in San Antonio, Texas. The library is all-digital, with its online catalog available on 48 Apple touch-screen computers.

The Southern Lit Lovers Group on Goodreads is reading Fannie Flagg’s The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion as its next pick, starting February 10.

Joshilyn Jackson’s Someone Else’s Love Story has been chosen as Roswell Reads’ 2014 selection. Jackson will speak at a literary luncheon on March 15 in Roswell, Georgia.

Donna Tartt’s The Secret History made Flavorwire’s list of 26 Books to get you Through Winter, and the site has declared “snow reads” as the new beach reads. Tartt was also announced as a finalist for this year’s National Book Critics Circle Awards.

Check out new podcast program Twelve Minute Muse, which interviews Southern authors and musicians each week.

Karen Russell’s Vampires in the Lemon Grove is out in paperback this week. The paper cover is even more beautiful than the hard edition, so be sure to pick one up.

In Social Media 

We’ve been living vicariously through Key West Literary Seminar’s Twitter feed and hashtag #kwls devoted to the conference this month. Listening to Carl Hiaasen’s talk from last weekend, Florida Freak Show, isn’t the same as being there, but links like that and tweets from Attica Locke about sitting next to Laura Lippmann, Megan Abbott and Gillian Flynn are helping ease the pain.

Literary Events

The Key West Literary Seminar continues this weekend with guest authors Alafair Burke, Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Percival Everett and Lisa Unger.

The Atlanta History Center begins its 2014 Winter/Spring Lecture Series January 14 with James Carville and Mary Matalin on their new book Love and War: Twenty Years, Three Presidents, Two Daughters and One Louisiana Home. Future lectures will include Erskine Clark, Deborah Johnson, William Link, Kelly Corrigan, Nancy Horan, James McPherson, B.J. Novak, Karen Russell and more.

Zora! Festival celebrates its 25th anniversary this year January 25 in Eatonville, Florida, and continues through February 2.

In celebration of Black History Month, the Louisiana Center for the Book in the State Library of Louisiana is hosting author Kim Marie Vaz for a discussion of The ‘Baby Dolls’: Breaking the Race and Gender Barriers of the New Orleans Mardi Gras Tradition. The program is free and will be held February 6.

RiverCenter for the Performing Arts in Columbus, Georgia, presents Aquila Theatre’s production of Fahrenheit 451 February 11 in partnership with the Chattahoochee Valley Libraries’ “The Big Read” event. 

The Savannah Book Festival will be held February 13-16 with guest authors Wiley Cash, Alice Hoffman, Wally Lamb, Anita Shreve and more.

Save the date for the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival March 19-23 with Dorothy Allison, Megan Abbott, Judith Chapman, Ann Hood, Diane Ladd and Laura Lippman.

New in Southern Voice

The Night It Happened, a fictional account of January 6, 2012, when a 3,500-year-old bald cypress was torched by a woman attempting to smoke meth in in Seminole County, Florida, written by Scott Honeycutt.

To find out more about Southern authors’ haunts and hangouts, download the Deep South Literary Trail App, available direct from iTunes and for Android.