Literary Friday, Edition 100

It’s hard to believe that we’ve officially reached one hundred Literary Fridays and also that National Poetry Month is coming to a close soon. We bring you our last poet interview today, but our posting of a poem a day continues through April 30. This week also brought our inaugural participation in World Book Night and an interview with Editor Erin Z. Bass for 12 Minute Muse. If you’re looking for something literary to do this weekend, hometown of Harper Lee Monroeville, Alabama, is holdings its annual Writers Symposium and performing its theatrical version of “To Kill A Mockingbird.”

Literary News 

Our book to give for World Book Night on Wednesday was Zora and Me, a young adult novel that is the only work not written by Hurston herself to be endorsed by the Zora Neale Hurston Trust. We picked up our box of books from Barnes & Noble last week and brought it over to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Acadiana yesterday. Pictured below is Case Manager Kalli Jackson, who helped us distribute the books to young readers in their program.

We ask Alabama writer Jennifer Horne about winning her first poetry prize at age 8, the lasting popularity of her 2003 anthology Working the Dirt and the book of short stories she has coming out in September in our final poet interview.

We have a guest post from author Jenny Milchman, whose new novel Ruin Falls came out on Tuesday.

Stephen King talks shop with Karen Russell about their latest books, Doctor Sleep and Sleep Donation, over at Goodreads.

Flavorwire has a list of 20 Great Southern Short Stories.

Read a review of The Long Voyage: Selected Letters of Malcolm Cowley, 1915–1987, in the Los Angeles Review of Books. Cowley is responsible for publishing the Viking Portable Faulkner, re-publishing The Great Gatsby and championing Ernest Gaines.

(Non)Required Reading

A history of the Mason Jar by food writer Brian Adornetto in OKRA magazine.

Literary Events 

The Mockingbird Players will perform their annual version of “To Kill A Mockingbird” in Harper Lee’s hometown of Monroeville through May 17, while the town also holds the Alabama Writers Symposium this weekend.

TurnRow Book Co. in Greenwood, Mississippi, has a full lineup of author events coming up, including Michael Parker on April 28 and Natchez Burning author Greg Iles on May 2.

The 20th Fitzgerald Gala will be held at the F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum in Montgomery, Alabama, May 3. Attire is flapper of course, and R. Clifton Spargo (pictured), author of Beautiful Fools, has been announced as special guest.

Saints And Sinners Literary Festival in New Orleans takes place May 15-18 with a focus on LGBT publishers, writers and readers.

See Garrison Keillor May 15 at the Atlanta History Center, where he will take the stage to share stories, poems and essays from The Keillor Reader.

Ellen Gilchrist also appears at the center’s Margaret Mitchell House May 21, where she will speak about her new short story collection Acts of God.

Registration is open for the Virginia Writers Club Symposium to be held August 2 in Charlottesville with keynote speaker Kathryn Erskine, author of Mockingbird.

New in Southern Voice 

A pair of persona poems set in a small Appalachian town by Savannah Sipple.

To find out more about Southern authors’ haunts and hangouts, download the Deep South Literary Trail App, available direct from iTunes and for Android. The app has recently been updated with several new sites and lots of new photos just in time for those summer road trips!