Literary Friday, Edition 93

Faulkner & Flannery Notes – Week 5

Books & Film ended this week with a viewing of Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood. Directed by John Huston, the film follows O’Connor’s first novel almost exactly and is an excellent depiction of religious zealot Hazel Motes and his gorilla suit-wearing companion Enoch Emery. Get the notes here.

Literary Field Trip

Editor Erin Z. Bass crossed the basin over to Baton Rouge on Monday to sit in on an English class in Louisiana State University’s Allen Hall. Students in professor Nolde Alexius’s Intro to English this semester have the pleasure of learning from the Best of LSU Fiction compilation and hearing guest authors and speakers talk about Baton Rouge and Allen Hall’s literary lore. This week Dr. Mary Ann Wilson (whose name y’all might recognize from the Faulkner & Flannery class notes) spoke about writer Jean Stafford’s year in Baton Rouge as secretary at The Southern Review, co-founded by Robert Penn Warren, and her tumultuous marriage to poet Robert Lowell. (They lived over a Kean’s cleaners on Chimes Street.)

Stafford’s short story “The Interior Castle” is included in Best of LSU Fiction, and the former Southern Review office is located just across the hall from the classroom Alexius is teaching in. A plaque on the wall marks the spot and another for Cleanth Brooks, co-editor of the Review, is located on the second floor. Also notable in the building are handpainted murals on the first and second floors created by LSU art students in the late 1930s and early 1940s. The mural on the first floor entrance was recently uncovered and restored, adding to the allure of Allen Hall. And we were thrilled to learn that Alexius and her students are working on a literary walking tour of LSU, so stay tuned for more details on that! See more pics from Allen Hall, including the murals, in our Facebook album.

Literary News

We have a guest post & GIVEAWAY by author Cari Lynn about her new book MADAM: A Novel of New Orleans based on the true events of Storyville and the rise to power of the Madam Josie Arlington. Comment on her post to enter to win.

Tennessee native Amy Greene has published her second novel, Long Man, available this week from Alfred A. Knopf.

Our own Micah Conkling writes about The Literary ‘True Detective’ in our Arts & Lit section this week for fans of the HBO drama.

There’s also a great article in The New Yorker by Emily Nussbaum about the macho nonsense of True Detective and its lack of female characters with any depth.

The National School Boards Association is partnering with New Regency, Penguin Books and filmmakers to distribute “12 Years a Slave” to public schools in film, book and study guide versions starting in September.

Erika Robuck has embarked on a blog tour for her new novel Fallen Beauty about Edna St. Vincent Millay. While her book is not set in the South, Robuck is one of our favorites, and we will be covering Fallen Beauty for National Poetry Month in April. Win a copy from Anita Loves Books through March 4.

Paste reviews Pat Conroy’s The Death of Santini, a new memoir about his despised father.

Susan Rebecca White’s A Place at the Table” has been chosen as a Target Club Pick for March. Read our review and interview with White here.

The Morning News’ Tournament of Books is back, with finalists The Good Lord Bird by James McBride and The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. The contest gets under way March 3, but brackets to play along are available now.

#Southernlit Social

Writer Patrick Hall tweeted after we accepted a short short from him for publication in Southern Voice. We love when our writers use social media to promote their work. You’ll have to wait a few months to read his story in our pages, but you can read a piece titled Bare Feet, Hardened by the South on his website now.

Literary Events

Key West will celebrate Tennessee Williams’ birthday in March with weekly films, exhibits, a poetry contest and more, starting March 3 and culminating in a reception on March 26. (He’s pictured at his Key West home on the right.)

Dahlonega Literary Festival will take place March 8-9 with authors Kim Boykin, Joshilyn Jackson, Terry Kay, Cassandra King, Erika Marks, Charles McNair and more.

The Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival released its full schedule recently. Save the date for March 19-23 in the New Orleans French Quarter.

The Sweet Potato Queens’ annual Zippity Doo Dah weekend kicks off March 20 and runs through the 23 in Jackson, Mississippi’s Fondren district, with the parade on Saturday.

For fans of Carson McCullers, a marathon reading of The Member of the Wedding will take place March 22 in her hometown of Columbus, Georgia.

The Southern Literary Festival takes place March 27-29 at The University of Mississippi in Oxford and coincides with Oxford Conference for the Book.

See Landscapes of the Heart: The Elizabeth Spencer Story at the Crossroads Film Festival in Oxford, Mississippi, April 3-6 and April 8 at the RiverRun Film Festival in Winston Salem, North Carolina.

New in Southern Voice 

Stalking Jennifer Lawrence, a story for Oscar weekend by Rick Neumayer in Louisville, Kentucky.

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