As always, my Festival plans and my actual participation did not exactly match (see last posting), but this year's Decatur Book Festival (DBF) had a few moments worth reflecting upon.
I did make it to one of the Civil War panels to hear the discussion surrounding the "nefarious" William T. Sherman and the destruction of Atlanta. I was too shy and too Midwestern to rebuke some of grandstanding by Dr. Stephen Davis (author of What the Yankees Did to Us: Sherman's Bombardment and Burning of Atlanta) even when he was giving John Bell Hood a historical pass on the Confederate general's strategy in defending Atlanta.
And as predicted, the University of Georgia Press did have a copies of Brown and Elwell's Crossroads of Conflict: A Guide to Civil War Sites in Georgia for sale. I also found out that they have a new book, The Civil War in Georgia, which was published as a separate piece from the New Georgia Encylopedia.
A late morning beer (a St Bernardius ABT 12) at The Brickstore with a book selling exhibitor friend. It was a little early, but we did beat the crowds.
I chatted with some illustrators and a few self-published authors. Some of those book covers were pretty steamy, especially for such a hot and humid day.
I did make to the Decatur Arts Alliance/ The Art Institute of Atlanta-Decatur Book as Art exhibit. Shown here is Diane Jacobs', Hair Talk, Volume II. You can see the exhibit until September 19th. For more details, including a slideshow of the entire collection, visit here.
At the Georgia State booth I picked a free copy of the literary journal Five Points. Near the booth, I met Julia Eichelberger, the author of Tell About Night Flowers: Eudora Welty's Gardening Letters 1940-1949 but unfortunately I missed her and Pearl McHaney's lecture on Welty. Maybe I would have asked my them to comment on the Welty quote that sticks in my mind:
Whatever our theme in writing, it is old and tried. Whatever our place, it has been visited by the stranger, it will never be new again. It is only the vision that can be new; but that is enough.
Then again, I would have been too shy and too Midwestern to talk in front of a crowd --- unless I had imbibed in a second St. Bernardius ABT 12 beforehand. Remember DBF can also mean Decatur Beer Festival
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