2010 Southern Writers Series
Sponsored by the USC Institute for Southern Studies and the Friends of the Richland County Public Library
Each event will take place at 6 PM at the Main Library of the Richland County Public Library on Assembly Street in Columbia and will be followed by a reception and book signing. All events are free and open to the public. For further information, including suggestions for classes, book clubs, or other organizations, please contact Tara Powell at the Institute for Southern Studies at tfpowell AT gmail DOT com or (803) 777-4498. There is also information available from the Friends of the Library at http://www.myrcpl.com/friends/southern-writers-series.
Daniel Wallace is author of four novels, including Big Fish (1998), Ray in Reverse (2000), The Watermelon King (2003), and Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician (2007). His fiction has been translated into more than two dozen languages, and Big Fish was made into a major motion picture by Tim Burton in 2003. Originally from Alabama, Wallace now makes his home in Chapel Hill, where he teaches at the University of North Carolina. Wallace’s illustrations have appeared widely in magazines and books. More information about his fiction and illustrations can be found at his website www.danielwallace.org.
Brian Ray is the author of Through the Pale Door (2009), which was chosen by novelist Percival Everett for the inaugural South Carolina First Novel Prize, an award sponsored by the South Carolina Arts Commission www.southcarolinaarts.com. Versions of the manuscript were also finalists for the 2009 Next Generation Indie Book Award and the 2007 Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Award. Originally from Georgia, Ray studied creative writing at the University of South Carolina at Columbia, and he now lives in Greensboro, North Carolina. More information about Ray and his writing is available at his website www.brianrayfiction.com. Ray will also appear at the SC Book Festival www.scbookfestival.org.
Author of seventeen novels, three collections of short stories, two books of poetry, and a children’s book, Percival Everett is known for his wide variety of writing styles, ranging from westerns to humor to fantasy to tragedy. His western novel Wounded (2005) won the PEN USA 2006 Literary Award, and his satire of the publishing industry Erasure (2001) received the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and the Academy Award for Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His science fiction novel Zulus (1990) received the New American Writing Award novel, and Walk me to the Distance (1985) inspired a movie for NBC called Follow Your Heart (1990). A few of his other books include A History of the African-American People (Proposed) by Strom Thurmond, as told to Percival Everett & James Kincaid (2004), American Desert (2004), Glyph (1996), Suder (1983), and, most recently I Am Not Sidney Poitier (2009). Everett grew up in Columbia, South Carolina and graduated from A. C. Flora High School. He currently teaches at the University of Southern California, and recently selected the winner of the inaugural South Carolina First Novel Prize for the South Carolina Arts Commission www.southcarolinaarts.com. More information on the author and his writing is available at www.usc.edu/about/people/everett.html.
Pamela Duncan is the author of three novels, including The Big Beautiful (2007), Plant Life (2003), and Moon Women (2001). Plant Life, a novel about several generations of Carolina textile workers, won the 2003 Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction, and Duncan subsequently also received the 2007 James Still Award for Writing about the Appalachian South, awarded by the Fellowship of Southern Writers. Duncan lives and teaches in Cullowhee, North Carolina. More information about the author and her fiction is available at www.pameladuncan.com.
Please join us for a staged reading of Robert Inman’s play Dairy Queen Days by University of South Carolina drama students. Following the reading, Inman will sign books. Inman is the author of several plays and musicals, half a dozen television screenplays, including two that became Hallmark Hall of Fame presentations, and five works of fiction, including Home Fires Burning (1987), Old Dogs and Children (1991), Captain Saturday (2002), The Christmas Bus (2006), and Dairy Queen Days (1997), from which he adapted the play. He also has a collection of nonfiction called Coming Home: Life, Love, and All Things Southern (2000). Raised in Alabama, Inman is a retired journalist who now lives and writes in Charlotte and Boone, North Carolina. More information about Inman and his writing is available at his website www.robert-inman.com.
Margaret Maron is the author of twenty-six novels, including both the acclaimed Deborah Knott and Sigrid Harald mystery series. She has also published two collections of short stories. Her most recent novels are Sand Sharks (2009) and Death’s Half Acre (2008). Her first Deborah Knott novel, Bootlegger’s Daughter (1992), won the Edgar Allan Poe Award, the Macavity, the Anthony, as well as an Agatha Award, and the author’s work has subsequently received multiple additional Agatha Awards and nominations. Maron won the North Carolina Award for Literature in 2008, and has been president of Sisters in Crime, the American Crime Writers League, and Mystery Writers of America. Several of her novels have been Mystery Guild Main Selections, and her work has been translated into 16 languages. More information about Maron and her writing are available at her website www.margaretmaron.com.