Arts & Culture

David George Haskell, a University of the South biology professor and author of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated ecological memoir The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch In Nature, will speak at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga on Friday, May 3rd at 7:30 p.m. in the Benwood auditorium.  WUTC's Michael Edward Miller interviewed Haskell last year about his book:

Around and About is gearing up for an upcoming storyteller project. Do you have a story to tell? Or a knack for storytelling in general?  We're searching for those interesting and authentic stories from people in our region. 

What's a story? It has a beginning, middle, and end (not necessarily in that order). It has character, plot, tension, and climax.  If you have a nonfiction story with these components, we want to put it on the radio.

In this interview, celebrated Southern author Dorothy Allison looks back on her novel Bastard Out Of Carolina, which was published more than twenty years ago (and was nominated for a National Book Award).  Readers discover (or re-discover) it every year--it’s both wildly humorous and shockingly brutal.  In this interview, Allison talks about using her own family legends as source material.  Allison also talks about leaving the South, teaching young writers, and discusses her long-in-progress new novel She Who.

Kentucky native Maurice Manning is in Chattanooga for the Celebration of Southern Literature (April 17 – 20), where he was inducted into the prestigious Fellowship of Southern Authors.  In this segment, Manning reads a selection from his new yet-to-be published book, talks about working Southern characters and narratives into his poems, and explains why he never met another living poet until he was in college.

Memphis native Katori Hall is an actress, writer and playwright.  She's won numerous awards, and her play The Mountaintop ran on Broadway, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett.  Katori Hall is in Chattanooga for the Celebration of Southern Literature, which takes place April 17th, 18th and 19th.  In this interview, Hall discusses how The Mountaintop humanizes Martin Luther King, Jr., how she joined the Fellowship of Southern Writers, and what she'll be doing at the Celebration.

This biennial literary gathering used to be called the Conference On Southern Literature.  It draws major Southern authors.  But it's also open to fans--in fact, fans have always been welcome to attend.  This year, organizers have changed the event's name to the Celebration of Southern Literature to emphasize that the public is welcome.  Executive Director Susan Robinson expects the event to draw more than forty authors and a thousand fans to the Tivoli in Chattanooga.