Literary Friday, Edition 103

Summer Reading

Our Summer Reading List went out to subscribers yesterday and is up on the site today! This year’s list has 26 of the latest beach reads, mysteries and romances from down South and includes author favorites Mary Kay Andrews, Erika Marks, Greg Iles and Pat Conroy. As usual, we’ll be celebrating summer reading through August with author interviews, book reviews, giveaways and Twitter chats. Today, we suggest you browse the list, order a few books and plan that beach trip.

Literary News

Chipotle announced its Cultivating Though Author Series this week, which means the restaurant’s packaging will now feature original essays from authors and wordsmiths like Toni Morrison, Michael Lewis and Sheri Fink.

Consider participating in the Book Sparks Summer Reading Challenge, which kicked off with Emily Giffin’s The One & Only, one of our own summer reads.

Overdue, a podcast about books you’ve been meaning to read, discusses Mark Twain’s The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County in its May 6 episode.

SheReads visits with Lynn Cullen, author of Mrs. Poe, who says Edgar Allan Poe was just an orphan looking for love.

Blogger Tamara Welch traveled to TurnRow Books in Greenwood, Mississippi, to catch the Belles on Wheels tour, which she describes as “a big bus, loaded with authors of steamy romance books.”

The New York Times Sunday Book Review covers Greg Iles’ Natchez Burning, a thriller about racism and murder in the Jim Crow South that’s one of our summer reads.

You can also read Gillian Flynn’s By The Book interview in the Times, in which she reveals books by Walker Percy and Laura Lippman on her nightstand.

R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps is filming in Madison, Georgia, this month. To be released in March of 2016, the film stars Jack Black and Amy Ryan.

#Southernlit Social

Our favorite tweet from yesterday’s Summer Reading List release is from author of The Witch of Belladonna Bay Suzanne Palmieri. Y’all can expect a Twitter chat with her later in the summer.

Literary Events 

This is the last weekend to see the Mockingbird Players perform their annual version of “To Kill A Mockingbird” in Harper Lee’s hometown of Monroeville.

Saints And Sinners Literary Festival in New Orleans takes place this weekend with a focus on LGBT publishers, writers and readers.

Puckett’s Charge author Charles McNair has organized an event to honor Gabriel Garcia Marquez on Sunday. One hundred people will gather in Decatur Square in Decatur, Georgia, to read One Hundred Years of Solitude. Starting at 1 p.m., volunteers will read for 3 minutes each.

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

Auditions for the Tennessee Williams Tribute fall production of “The Glass Menagerie” will be held at St Paul’s Episcopal Church parish hall in Columbus, Mississippi, June 1 at 2:30 p.m. For more information, call 662-328-5413.

The inaugural Walker Percy Weekend will be held June 6-8 in St. Francisville, Louisiana, with panel discussions, themed dinners and a progressive Front Porch Bourbon Tour.

On June 7-8, John Kennedy Toole biographer Cory MacLauchlin will lead a bus tour from Baton Rouge to New Orleans that will include a presentation at the Toole Papers and a tour of the Lucky Dog warehouse.

Save the date for the annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference with the theme “Faulkner and History” July 20-24 in Oxford, Mississippi.

New in Southern Voice

Casting Long Shadows, a short short about a hammock by Alabama native Patrick Hall.