Welcome Book Lovers!
Margaret Sayers Peden reads from Celestina
CELEBRATION SUCCESS!!
The 2009 Celebration of the Book, a collaboration between the Missouri Center for the Book and the Stephens College English/Creative Writing Department and supported with funding from the Missouri Arts Council, offered an excellent array of panel discussions and readings, as well as an award ceremony to honor the career and achievements of Margaret Sayers Peden. The First Lady of Missouri, Mrs. Georganne Nixon, was on hand to present the award to Mrs. Peden for her translations from Spanish of many of the great literary works of Spain, Central, and South America.
Mrs. Nixon and Mrs. Peden prior to award
The Celebration focused on the interplay of factual and fictional narratives, with an opening panel discussion by biographers Steve Watts and Steve Weinberg on their techniques and research. A further panel featured playwrights Kate Berneking Kogut and Mary Barile, who draw on historical documents and biographies to recreate the lives and experiences of women of the past. Historians Thomas Danisi and Carolyn Gilman both offered insights on the challenges of reconstructing the era of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, with special interest attached to Danisi’s research, presented in his recently published Meriwether Lewis, into the true cause of Lewis’s mysterious and controversial death.
At noon, the plenary speaker, Harper Barnes, offered further discussion of the challenges of reconstructing complex historical events—in his case, the 1917 race riot in East St. Louis, brilliantly described in his recent volume, Never Been a Time.
During the afternoon sessions, novelists Scott Phillips and Whitney Terrell read from their work and discussed the importance of developing rich historical contexts for their fictional narratives. Fiction writers Phong Nguyen and Mark Tiedemann discussed the popular genre, “alternative history,” which speculates on the possible differences that would result from a slight or major change in the historical record (if the South had won, or the Axis powers, what would the world be like?). William Stage, R.M. Kinder and Barri Bumgarner spoke of the challenges of narrating criminal events and constructing adequate characterizations of the humans who commit crimes, whether in fictional or factual narratives. Fran Baker and Mark Tiedemann spoke of the challenges of developing genre fictions (romance and science fiction, in particular), using careful historical research and extrapolation to support the creative fictional edifice.
The day culminated with a reading by Margaret Sayers Peden and the award ceremony and reception. The Center for the Book is grateful to Professor Judith Clark, her students and faculty, for supporting the Celebration, as well as to all the panelists and readers and the members of the Board of the Center for their hard work in creating a day to remember.
National Book Festival
The National Book Festival, held on September 26, 2009 drew a record-breaking crowd of 130,000, approximately 10,000 of which visited the Missouri Center for the Book booth at the Pavilion of the States during the course of the festival. Children of all ages brought their “50 Good Reads” map to the Missouri Center booth to receive the Missouri stamp. The map provides not only a popular activity for children at the festival, but a recommended read from each state. The recommended read from Missouri was The Feedsack Dress by Carolyn Mulford.
Tom Dillingham and Michael Holland face the crowds
under the Pavilion of the States
This year, MCB President Michael Holland, Treasurer Virginia Brackett, and Board Member, Tom Dillingham, along with state Coordinator Ann Roberts, attended the welcome reception hosted by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress on the evening prior to the event, and then stamped maps and talked with festival participants all next day, occasionally sneaking away to listen to a favorite author or to find something to eat. The chilly rain of the afternoon only served to drive more people into the Pavilion of the States and the authors’ tents, increasing audiences for the speakers, which is always a welcome thing.
The National Book Festival is a sprawling event, with tents and pavilions covering much of the National Mall in Washington, DC. It is a wonderful sight to see 130,000 book lovers in one place.
Left to right: Virginia Brackett, Ann Roberts, Tom Dillingham
and Michael Holland
Missouri Verses and Voices
Missouri Verses and Voices is a new educational initiative designed to expand creative activity in Missouri. Creativity is a learned process that integrates several forms of artistic knowledge and experience. Missouri Verses and Voices provides a unique process to collaboratively integrate all art forms in the expression of creative words. These art forms include: musical arts, visual arts, communication arts, theatre/forensic arts, and poetry. Missouri Verses and Voices is the first program to enable Missouri students and audiences to interact with our new Poet Laureate, Walter Bargen, and America’s Poet Laureate, Kay Ryan. Their words, Verses, inspire many forms of artistic expression. By creatively interacting with the Verses of the Poets Laureate and other notable Missouri poets, students are defining their Voices to see, shape, and share their creative vision.
For more information, go to:
Walter Bargen, Missouri's first state Poet Laureate.
Missouri's poet laureate highlights area writers in St. Louis Post Dispatch
Missouri's first poet laureate, Walter Bargen, begins a new feature for the Post-Dispatch this week. Every other week, he will choose a poem by a Missourian and write a short introduction to it....(read more)
Walter Bargen recently published an essay in the current issue of New Letters magazine, about some of his travels as Missouri's Poet Laureate. You can read the entire essay at www.newletters.org.
ReadMOre
ReadMOre is a "one-book" reading and discussion program organized annually by an ad hoc association of librarians and readers. The program originated in the St. Louis Metro area and is working toward statewide participation. Participants are engaged every year in selecting the title for the following year. The Missouri Humanities Council provides a web site and various other services to the association. This year’s selection for ReadMOre is A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley. For more information about this program, go to:
http://www.readmoremissouri.org/
The Center for the Book
in the Library of Congress
The Missouri Center for the Book is an affiliate of the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress. For more information on the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress go to:
http://www.loc.gov/loc/cfbook/
In honor of Missouri's first Poet Laureate, the Missouri Center for the Book has commissioned a limited edition printing of Moon Walk Missouri, by Poet Laureate Walter Bargen.
To purchase your own copy of Moon Walk Missouri, visit:
Columbia Books
309 S Providence Rd
Columbia, MO 65203
(573) 449-7417