Unless you have been living under a rock, you know that this year marks the 75th anniversary of the publication of Margaret Mitchell’s Civil War epic, Gone with the Wind. The book and its characters are being celebrated and discussed around the world. From Atlanta to Calcutta, people have weighed in on why they like the book, how many times… Continue Reading Karen L. Cox: GONE WITH THE WIND as Southern History
UNC Press author Kenneth M. Price recently uncovered a cache of 3,000 documents written and signed by American poet Walt Whitman at the National Archives. Continue Reading Whitman Scholar Kenneth Price Uncovers New Trove of Poet’s Documents
Today, we leave you with a lovely essay by Georgann Eubanks, author of Literary Trails of the North Carolina Mountains and Literary Trails of the North Carolina Piedmont. Here, she writes about the life and work of Reynolds Price–what he meant and continues to mean to her, to all of us readers, to North Carolina, and the world of… Continue Reading Remembering Reynolds
North Carolina has a new publishing house! It’s true, and we’re happy to announce it here. We’ve just heard that UNC Wilmington, Ecotone, the Creative Writing Program’s literary magazine, and the Publishing Laboratory at the University, have joined forces to help create and foster Lookout Books, under the direction of Emily Smith and Ben George. This new house is an… Continue Reading Look Out for Lookout Press, a new literary publisher in our state
One of the strengths of UNC Press is our commitment to publishing first-rate books about the region in which we live. From college hoops to environmental history, from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement, from the coast to the hills, our books about the South educate and entertain readers within the region and beyond. We’ve recently updated our… Continue Reading Southern Gateways: The best in southern reading from UNC Press
Continuing our special focus on First Amendment Day today, we welcome the following guest post from someone situated at the intersection of law and literature. Poet Katie Bowler places her own experience with book burning in the context of the history of books as weapons used in attempts to devalue the beliefs of others.–ellen The recent threat by a fringe-element… Continue Reading Katie Bowler on the Need to Respect Books That Other Cultures Value
Gus, book lover South of Chapel Hill, where James Taylor once wandered the countryside strumming a six-string, there was a small farm. And it’s on this farm that Larry and I had been busting our humps for almost a week–burying bones, fetching sticks, digging holes under fences, and generally running the place under the supervision of Cookie, the farm owner’s… Continue Reading See Gus Read: The Retelling of a Classic Banned Book by Gus, History Buff and Dog
The following are rulings on and objections to books in the last year. Read on to see which books these are. 1. “The teacher must appropriately prepare students for parts of the book that may be considered provocative; limit the book to juniors and seniors; should a parent object to the book, board policy is currently in place that allows… Continue Reading Banning Books is Alive and Well in America
As we kick off Banned Books Week, we welcome a guest post today from someone committed to the freedom to read. Erica Eisdorfer is more than just a booklover, she’s a novelist and a bookseller, too, and she’s had first-hand experience on the censorship front.–ellen Banned Books Week 2010 is the 29th annual celebration of our freedom to read. The… Continue Reading Erica Eisdorfer: Reader, Writer, Bookseller, Defender of Your Freedom to Read
The Wall Street Journal‘s got a breezy and abbreviated history of the book all wrapped up in this entertaining six-minute video. Check it out: A fun, snappy little glimpse at a four-hundred-year history, no? But if you want the full history of books in America in all its juicy detail, you can find it in (ahem) actual book form as… Continue Reading The History of the Book: The Long and Short of It
“I have two comments: Number 1, if you’re going to be a writer, don’t go to school to be a writer. Get a pencil and a piece of paper and start writing. Secondly, if there’s anything in this world you can do, do it rather than be a writer. It’s the loneliest, most depressing work in the world.” – Walker… Continue Reading Happy Birthday, Walker Percy
Two weeks ago, I blogged here about National Women’s History Month, making the first in a series of posts about new and recent books available from UNC Press focusing on the lives of women. That entry featured books that looked at the lives of American women in the Civil War and women returning from tours of Afghanistan and Iraq in… Continue Reading National Women’s History Month: By the Book
Today we welcome a guest post from Lee Bernstein, author of America Is the Prison: Arts and Politics in Prison in the 1970s (forthcoming June 2010). In his book, Bernstein explores the forces that sparked a dramatic “prison art renaissance” in the 1970s, when incarcerated people produced powerful works of writing, performance, and visual art. One of the important figures… Continue Reading Miguel Pinero: prisoner, playwright
Hearty congratulations to multiple UNC Press authors who have recently been honored by the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources for their outstanding work in North Carolina history and culture. Anna Hayes was awarded the Ragan Old North State Award for Nonfiction for Without Precedent: The Life of Susie Marshall Sharp. The award is given yearly by the North Carolina… Continue Reading North Carolina Award Winners
First, let’s set the scene: A little closer… Last Sunday, UNC Press held a book party at the historic Grove Park Inn in Asheville, NC. The event celebrated three of our fall 2009 titles: Foy Allen Edelman, author of SWEET CAROLINA, spent six years traveling every inch of North Carolina to collect the best in local dessert recipes; the result… Continue Reading UNC Press Goes West (And Likes It)
Last week best-selling fiction writer E. Lynn Harris died at the age of 54. Harris’s closeted and openly gay black characters paved the way for a new and vibrant genre of popular literature with widespread appeal. Personally, Harris was a kind and generous man who sought to encourage and support other gay black writers, including E. Patrick Johnson, author of… Continue Reading A world without E. Lynn Harris (1955-2009)
UNC Press author Bland Simpson has made his name on a myriad of talents, one of which is his superb ability to write about North Carolina’s coastline. Since 1993, UNC Press has published five of Simpson’s books about the area, with the most recent work–The Inner Islands–scheduled for paperback publication in the spring of 2010. I mention Simpson because his… Continue Reading David Stick 1919-2009
Located on the Virginia-North Carolina border, directly above Forsyth County, is Stokes County, the next stop on our Tar Heel Trek. Historically, Stokes is best known for tobacco production and stringband music. More recently, it is getting attention for being the home of baseball standout Dustin Ackley. However, as a Stokes County native, I feel like some of the lesser… Continue Reading Tar Heel Trek: Stokes County
“On the boat, I don’t have a TV,” he said. “We just read.” So it has been for hundreds of years. A recent New York Times article about the Fisher Poets Weekend (which was held this past weekend in Astoria, Oregon) introduces several of the seafaring poets who gather once a year to share verse inspired by their working lives.… Continue Reading The fisher poets, then and now
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