Civil rights activist Bob Zellner spoke about his new memoir The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement on December 16 with WKRF Louisiana’s Jim Engster.

In the interview on The Jim Engster Show, Bob talks about his early forays into the civil rights movement while a student at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Alabama and his work with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Bob also relates his experiences in Louisiana, including being jailed at the East Baton Rouge Parish prison for his desegregation work, the forming of his organization GROW in New Orleans, and his graduate study at Tulane University. Bob speaks with a number of callers about meeting Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, being expelled from Huntingdon for his civil rights work, and the recent presidential election of Senator Barack Obama.

Listen online to Bob Zellner on the Jim Engster Show. Bob also reads from The Wrong Side of Murder Creek on YouTube.

Bob also recently spoke with WCBM Maryland’s Maggie Pascal on Turning the Tide. He will also appear on WPOJ Portland’s Thom Hartmann Show on December 24.

The Wrong Side of Murder Creek is available directly from NewSouth Books, Amazon.com, or your favorite local or online book retailer.

Not enough gets said about the good job many public libraries do in serving their communities with events programming. Alabama has quite a few that deserve recognition, many of which have hosted programs featuring NewSouth Books authors in the last few years. To name just a few who’ve partnered with us recently: the B.B. Comer Memorial Public Library in Sylacauga; the Ashland City Public Library; the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library; the Pell City Public Library; the Adelia McConnell Russell Library in Alex City; the Birmingham Public Library; the Selma-Dallas County Public Library; and the Mobile Public Library.

Our new favorite library is the Bradshaw Public Library in Valley, Alabama. Several NewSouth authors have enjoyed good audiences there as part of its “Lunch and Learn” series. On November 21, Peter Huggins spoke about his new young adult novel In the Company of Owls and talked about the process of creating a book. Adult Programs Coordinator John Tidwell said of Huggins’s presentation, “In the Company of Owls, a very exciting book for all family members, was excellent! We will probably ask you to schedule Peter for a return engagement.”

On December 4, former Alabama governor John Patterson and historian Warren Trest discussed Nobody But the People, a biography offering new insights and rich details into the life of this significant Southern politician. The crowd of almost a hundred people greatly enjoyed meeting Gov. Patterson and hearing his personal story. Mr. Tidwell observed, “The presentations by Governor Patterson and Warren Trest fascinated our Lunch and Learn group. So much so that they kept them answering questions twenty minutes after the program was scheduled to end! This was indeed a rarity! We were well-pleased.” This must be true, because a reprise program featuring Governor Patterson and Warren Trest is being planned for March or April of next year.

About his experiences, NewSouth author Warren Trest had this to say: “The Valley librarians were fantastic hosts — and top of the mark in every way.”  We couldn’t agree more.

The fruitful partnership between NewSouth and the Bradshaw Library will continue when Ted Dunagan speaks about his young adult novel A Yellow Watermelon on February 20, and when Rev. Robert Graetz discusses his memoir A White Preacher’s Message On Race and Reconciliation on February 27. These noontime programs will be highlights of the library’s Black History Month observation.

In the Company of Owls, Nobody But the People, A Yellow Watermelon, and A White Preacher’s Message on Race and Reconciliation are available directly from NewSouth Books, or your favorite local or online book retailer.

Author Gerald Duff‘s novel-in-progress No Man’s Land has been named a finalist for the Michigan Literary Fiction Award. Gerald is the author of the novel Coasters and the short story collection Fire Ants from NewSouth Books.

Gerald describes No Man’s Land as “about three generations of women in a family in East Texas, ranging from 1867, just after the end of the Civil War, up to the present day. The novel is told in the voices of the women and focuses on how they view their world and adapt and survive in it. The title comes from a designation given the disputed land between Louisiana and Texas along the Sabine River, for many years a place of lawlessness, brigands, filibusters, and renegades, a territory which was no man’s land. It was women’s land, though, then and now, and they raised their families, civilized the territory, and maintained their integrity as individuals and as members of the Holt family. My novel takes advantage of the stories possible in such a setting and time.”

The Michigan Literary Fiction Awards aim to give recognition to new books by previously-published authors of literary fiction.

The Texas Institute of Letters named Gerald Duff’s short story collection Fire Ants a finalist for the Jesse Jones Award for Best Book of Fiction in 2007. Fire Ants and Coasters are available directly from NewSouth Books, Amazon.com, or your favorite local or online book retailer.