FM Fats points out that the New York Times and other news outlets are reporting this morning that Natasha Thethewey will be appointed to a second one-year term as the United States’ Poet Laureate.  According to the Times’ blurb…

In her second year Ms. Trethewey will travel the country for a series of reports exploring societal issues through poetry that are to appear on “The PBS NewsHour.”

Jack points to this AP interview with U.S. Poet Laureate and Decatur resident Natasha Trethewey featured on the AJC’s Access Atlanta site.  Here’s a blurb to get you started…

Natasha Trethewey smashes stereotypes about poets. She’s not stuffy. Or shy. Or aloof.

As U.S. poet laureate, the 46-year-old describes herself as a “cheerleader” for the written word. She chooses the label deliberately, not only because she was head cheerleader at the University of Georgia in the late 1980s (Big hair! Big smile!), but also because, as a younger laureate, she wants to bring a sense of energy to the position.

“I want to ask ordinary people if poetry can mean something to them,” Trethewey told The Associated Press during an interview at Delta State University in Cleveland, Miss.

 

Ryan sends in this press release…

Tickets to the 2012 keynote address of the AJC Decatur Book Festival, featuring U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey, are now available.

Tickets are free, but are first come first served. They are available at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts at Emory box office, Little Shop of Stories in Decatur, Eagle Eye Bookshop in Decatur, and Charis Books & More in Little Five Points.

The keynote address is Friday, Aug. 31, at 8 p.m. at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts at Emory.
More details available at www.decaturbookfestival.com, http://www.facebook.com/DecaturBookFestival, and on Twitter, @DBookFestival.

The AJC Decatur Book Festival presented by DeKalb Medical, the largest independent book festival in the nation, held their official press launch yesterday at Eddie’s Attic. Executive Director Daren Wang and Program Director Terra Elan McVoy spoke to an excited and supportive audience about a variety of new events for 2012 and an amazing list of authors already committed to coming to Decatur this coming Labor Day weekend. As it is impossible to list all the highlights in this space, what follows is just a taste. More information is available at the DBF website. More photos of the press launch are available here.

Keynote Address
Emory University has become a major sponsor of the festival this year. The keynote is moving to Emory’s Schwartz Center for Performing Arts. Emory professor Natasha Trethewey was just named Poet Laureate of the United States of America. As such, it is kismet that the keynote speaker will be Natasha Trethewey. Ms. Trethewey will be launching a new collections of poems, Thrall.

Authors
Meg Cabot is best known around my house for her YA and children’s books, but she is also a successful writer of adult fiction. Her newest is Size 12 and Ready to Rock: A Heather Wells Mystery.
Michael Connelly, who graced the very first DBF, is returning this year. One of the top authors of crime fiction in the country, Mr. Connelly has won just about every single honor awarded to mystery writers.
Adam Goodheart has been contributing to a stunningly superb series in the New York Times. “Disunion” follows events of The Civil War and puts them in a broader context that gives the reader a different lens through which to view America’s defining conflict throughout the war’s 150th anniversary. 1861: The Civil War Awakening is his first book.
Erin Morgenstern’s debut novel, The Night Circus, is one of the most talked about books of the past year.
Julie Otsuka is an outstanding historical fiction author and a National Book Award finalist. When the Emperor was Divine and last year’s The Buddah in the Attic have both been highly acclaimed.
Isabel Wilkerson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and also of Emory, will be discussing The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration.

I could go on and on and on, but I can’t. DBF will be regularly updating this list of authors.

New Tracks
Southern Issues (the Atlanta track has been expanded)
The Environmental Track (noting that 2012 marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and the 150th anniversary of the death of Henry David Thoreau)

Fun Fundraisers

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The New York Times posts tonight that the Library of Congress has named Decatur resident and Emory Professor Natasha Trethewey the 2012-2013 poet laureate of the United States.

The City of Decatur and the AJC Decatur Book Festival are hosting a reception at the gazebo on the square Thursday (tomorrow) from 5pm to 6:30 to celebrate. Come toast Natasha in person. Food and libations supplied by Eddie’s Attic.