Tag: Visiting Writer

Visiting Writer Amy Greene

Presented by Booksellers at Laurelwood and Crosstown Arts

Reading and discussion with the author and WKNO’s Darel Snodgrass
Free admission and refreshments

Author’s website

Reviews of “Long Man”

“The Tennessee Valley Authority was designed to help modernize the state during the Great Depression, but [it] only spells destruction for the town of Yuneetah. Greene’s excellent second novel focuses on the holdouts who refuse to leave, chief among them a husband and wife [whose] 3-year-old daughter goes missing. The lead suspect in her disappearance is a one-eyed Yuneetah native who’s spent much of his life as a drifter connected to violent protests against [the] government. Greene’s [prose] is sinuous and tonally mythic; Gracie’s disappearance, alongside Amos’ cat-and-mouse game with authorities, gives the novel a welcome propulsion. Long Man fully inhabits the ironies inherent in destroying a place in the name of progress . . . A smart and moody historical novel that evokes the best widescreen Southern literature.” —Kirkus (starred review)
“Haunting . . . Long Man revisits blue-collar Appalachia with the same lyricism Greene brought to her magnificent first novel, Bloodroot . . . With searing eloquence, she seems to channel the frustrations of generations of rural poor in this stark indictment of a government hell-bent on destroying a long-standing community. Her stunning insight into a proud and insular people is voiced with cold clarity and burning anger.” —Joanne Wilkinson, Booklist (starred review)
“Unforgettable. Like a classical myth, Greene’s second novel, set in the summer of 1936, transforms a period of cataclysmic history into a gorgeous, tragic tale filled with heroes and heroines . . . Greene’s enormous talent animates the voices and landscape of East Tennessee so vividly, and creates such exquisite tension, that the reader is left devastated.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A gem. Long Man is so palpably real that I feel I’ve spent the last few days actually living in Greene’s corner of Depression-era Tennessee. Only a handful of writers can bring a place to life with this much texture, and bring characters to life in such a visceral manner. These people and this place will live on in my imagination for the rest of my life. Greene is a special writer, and Long Man is a special book—a beautiful piece of work. How I long for more novels like hers.” —Steve Yarbrough, author of Prisoners of War and The Realm of Last Chances

Visiting Writer Bill Cotter & The Grown Up Lady Story Company

Crosstown Arts and The Booksellers at Laurelwood present visiting writer Bill Cotter and The Grown Up Lady Story Company

The author will read from his most recent novel “The Parallel Apartments”

Justine Moppett is 34, pregnant, and fleeing an abusive relationship in New York to dig up an even more traumatic childhood in Austin. Waiting for her there is a cast of more than a dozen misfits — a hemophobic aspiring serial killer, a deranged soprano opera singer, a debt-addicted entrepreneur-cum-madam, a matchmaking hermaphrodite — each hurtling toward their own calamities, and, ultimately, toward each other. A Texan Gabriel Garcia Marquez who writes tragicomic twists reminiscent of John Kennedy Toole, Bill Cotter produces some of the most visceral, absurd, and downright hilarious sentences to be found in fiction today. “The Parallel Apartments” is a bold leap forward for a writer whose protean talents, whose sheer exuberance for language and what a novel can do, marks him as one of the most exciting stylists in America.Bill Cotter was born in Dallas in 1964 and has worked as an antiquarian book dealer and restorer since 2000. He lives in Austin, TX, with the storyteller Annie La Ganga. His first novel was “Fever Chart.”

http://www.grownupladystorycompany.com/

Visiting Writer Tim Johnston

HANDOUT PHOTO: cover of the book "Descent" by Tim Johnston. (Courtesy of Algonquin Books)
Crosstown Arts & Booksellers at Laurelwood present Visiting Writer Tim Johnston

Please join us (in collaboration with The Booksellers at Laurelwood) to welcome Crosstown Arts first Visiting Writer for 2015, Tim Johnston, to read from and sign his thrilling debut adult novel, Descent (Algonquin Books). A story that begins as a family’s fated summer trip to the Rocky Mountains quickly reveals itself to be both a gripping page-turner and a satisfying work of literary fiction reflecting on the personal nature of loss and longing from several characters’ perspectives.
Tim’s previous works of fiction include the young adult novel Never So Green (FSG) and the story collection Irish Girl (UNT Press), winner of the prestigious Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction, a collection of which David Sedaris said, “It’s dark in here, but brilliant. Tim Johnston is as wise as he is original, and his stories are impossible to forget.”

Tim Johnston is currently teaching in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Memphis, where he is the director of the The Pinch Literary Journal. Please help us give him his overdue welcome to Memphis in celebration of this fine work of fiction.

As always, free and open to the public.

Advance praise for Descent:

“Outstanding . . . The days when you had to choose between a great story and a great piece of writing? Gone.” —Esquire

“I’ve read many variations on this theme, some quite good, but never one as powerful as Tim Johnston’s Descent… The story unfolds brilliantly, always surprisingly, but the glory of Descent lies not in its plot but in the quality of the writing. The magic of his prose equals the horror of Johnston’s story; each somehow enhances the other. . . . Read this astonishing novel. It’s the best of both worlds.”
—The Washington Post

“This is much more than your typical thriller. Tim Johnston has written a book that makes Gone Girl seem gimmicky…Johnson is an excellent writer. You want to set this one down so you can take a breath, and keep reading–all at the same time.”
—Alan Cheuse, on NPR’s All Things Considered

Visiting Writer Holly George-Warren

An event to celebrate the release of
A Man Called Destruction: The Life and Music of Alex Chilton
The first biography of the influential musician and forebear of the indie-rock scene
by Holly George-Warren
presented by Crosstown Arts and The Booksellers at Laurelwood

Conversation with the author and Andria Lisle at 7 pm
Live performance by Loveland Duren at 8 pm
(Vicki Loveland and Van Duren)
Opening Act: Ross Johnson and the Klitz
Exhibit by Vincent Astor and more
Free admission

Visiting Writer Alan Lightman

Presented by Burke’s Book Store and Crosstown Arts

 

Mr. Lightman will be reading from and signing copies of his memoir, Screening Room: Family Pictures ($25.95 hardcover, Pantheon Books) 

A Q & A session will be moderated by Memphis historian and author Wayne Dowdy

From the acclaimed author of the international best seller Einstein’s Dreams, here is a stunning, lyrical memoir of Memphis from the 1930s through the 1960s that includes the early days of the movies and a powerful grandfather whose ghost remains an ever-present force in the lives of his descendants. Alan Lightman’s grandfather M.A. Lightman was the family’s undisputed patriarch: it was his movie theater empire that catapulted the Lightmans to prominence in the South, his fearless success that both galvanized and paralyzed his children and grandchildren. In this moving, impressionistic memoir, the author chronicles his return to Memphis in an attempt to understand the origins he so eagerly left behind forty years earlier. As aging uncles and aunts begin telling family stories, Lightman rediscovers his southern roots and slowly recognizes the errors in his perceptions of both his grandfather and his father, who was himself crushed by M.A. The result is an unforgettable family saga that extends from 1880 to the present, set against a throbbing century of Memphis–the rhythm and blues, the barbecue and pecan pie, the segregated society–and including personal encounters with Elvis, Martin Luther King Jr., and E. H. “Boss” Crump. At the heart of it all is a family haunted by the memory of its domineering patriarch and the author’s struggle to understand his conflicted loyalties.

2015 marks the 100th anniversary of Malco Theatres, created by Lightman’s grandfatther in 1915. Available for purchase at this event will be the commemorative Memphis Heritage 2015 calendar, which showcases vintage photographs of Malco movie marquees, theater lobbies and other images from decades past.

Alan Lightman is the author of several novels, including Einstein’s Dreams, a New York Times and international bestseller, and The Diagnosis, a finalist for the 2000 National Book Award. He is also the author of several collections of essays and numerous books on science. His work has appeared in the Atlantic, Granta, The New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, and Nature, among many other publications. A theoretical physicist as well as a writer, he has served on the faculties of Harvard and MIT, where he was the first person to receive a dual faculty appointment in science and the humanities. He lives in the Boston area.

Visiting Writer: Michael Pollan

Presented by Crosstown Arts, Booksellers at Laurelwood, Church Health Center and Memphis Center for Food & Faith

Internationally-acclaimed, bestselling author Michael Pollan visited Memphis for a reading, booksigning, and dinner event on Tuesday, May 20, in conjunction with the paperback release of his most recent book, Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation.

Prior to the reading, Chef Miles McMath and organizers hosted an outdoor barbecue featuring locally-sourced meat and produce, with the food and cocktail menu based around the themes of the book.  Local acoustic duo Deering and Down as well as members of story booth’s spring music production workshop performed live.

This event was presented by Crosstown Arts in collaboration with The Booksellers at Laurelwood, the Church Health Center, and Memphis Center for Food & Faith,  and benefited the new nonprofit local foods distributor, Bring It Food Hub. Admission to reading was free and dinner tickets were offered at $20.

For the past twenty-five years, Michael Pollan has been writing books and articles about the places where nature and culture intersect: on our plates, in our farms and gardens, and in the built environment.

In Cooked, Pollan explores the previously uncharted territory of his own kitchen. Here, he explores the enduring power of the four classical elements—fire, water, air, and earth— to transform the stuff of nature into delicious things to eat and drink. Apprenticing himself to a succession of culinary masters, Pollan learns how to grill with fire, cook with liquid, bake bread, and ferment everything from cheese to beer. In the course of his journey, he discovers that the cook occupies a special place in the world, standing squarely between nature and culture. Both realms are transformed by cooking, and so, in the process, is the cook.

A portion of book sales and proceeds from dinner tickets will help to support the Pay It Forward CSA program of Bring It Food Hub, which provides fresh fruit and vegetables for families in need.

Bring It is partnering with the Church Health Center to increase access to healthy and delicious locally-grown food.

More about the author:

Michael Pollan is author of Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation and of four New York Times’ bestsellers: Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual (2010); In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto (2008); The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (2006) and The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World (2001). The Omnivore’s Dilemma was named one of the ten best books of 2006 by both the New York Times and the Washington Post. It also won the California Book Award, the Northern California Book Award, the James Beard Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Pollan was named to the 2010 TIME 100, the magazine’s annual list of the world’s 100 most influential people. In 2009 he was named by Newsweek as one of the top 10 “New Thought Leaders.” A contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine since 1987, his writing has received numerous awards.

In addition to publishing regularly in The New York Times Magazine, his articles have appeared in Harper’s (where he served as executive editor from 1984 to 1994), National Geographic, Mother Jones, The Nation, The New York Review of Books, Vogue, Travel + Leisure, Gourmet, House & Garden and Gardens Illustrated, among others.

In 2003, Pollan was appointed the John S. and James L. Knight Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, and the director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism. In addition to teaching, he lectures widely on food, agriculture, health and the environment.

Details:

Visiting Writer Michael Pollan

Presented by Crosstown Arts, The Booksellers at Laurelwood, Church Health Center, and Memphis Center for Food & Faith

Tuesday, May 20

7:00 pm reception; 7:30 pm program begins

Crosstown Arts, 430 N. Cleveland

Admission to the reading is free. For the booksigning, you must purchase a paperback copy of Cooked from The Booksellers at Laurelwood, which includes a line ticket. A portion of book sales benefit new local foods distributor, Bring It Food Hub.

Back Alley BBQ with Chef Miles McMath

5-7 pm

Alley behind 430 N. Cleveland; access from front or rear parking lots.

Limited dinner tickets are now sold out.

Proceeds benefit new local foods distributor Bring It Food Hub.

Open House at the Church Health Center

5-7 pm

420 N. Cleveland

Learn more about the Church Health Center’s programs and enjoy appetizers and drinks.

Contacts:

Crosstown Arts – Emily Halpern, Emily@crosstownarts.org

The Booksellers at Laurelwood – Macon Wilson, mwilson@dkbks.com