1) Help refugees by dining at Apres Diem, Carpe Diem, Cafe Alsace, Imperial Fez, or Ibiza Restaurant & Lounge for Make Dining Out Count.
2) Comedian Adam Ferrara performs at the Punchline.
3) Grayson Capps & the Stumpknockers play Smith’s Olde Bar.
4) Georgia Center for the Book and Poetry Atlanta host Trouble & Hope, an evening of poetry and film.
5) John Vanderslice plays the Earl.
(Photo by Kimberly Fulghum Inc.)
Atlanta-based novelist Jack Riggs follows up his award-winning 2004 debut When the Finch Rises with The Fireman’s Wife, an introspective tale involving a firefighter’s strained marriage in small-town South Carolina in 1970. Writer-in-Residence at Georgia Perimeter College’s Writer’s Institute, Riggs will discuss the book Thurs., Jan. 15 at the Decatur Library’s Georgia Center for the Book.
Did you do much research on firefighting for the book?
I would like to say that I rode on a fire truck for a month, but I didn’t. I starting out reading Larry Brown’s On Fire. Larry’s a friend of mine, and the book started out as a tribute to him and the type of firefighting he did in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when the equipment was very different than it is now. I talked to some firemen and read some true-account stories to get a sense of the language, but did most of my research online. Some of the scenes came from reconstructing my memories as a child, driving by terrible wrecks or things like that. (more…)
Local writer Richard Doster has just published his first novel, Safe at Home. Safe follows Jack Hall, a sportswriter in small-town Whitney, Miss., during the 1950s. Both Hall and the town are transformed when the 17-year-old black baseball player Percy Jackson is signed to Whitney’s minor-league Bobcats. Doster is also the editor of byFaith, the official magazine of the Presbyterian Church. He comes to the Decatur Library on Mon., July 28 at 7 p.m.
Safe at Home is your first book. Where did you get the idea to write it, and what kind of research did you do?
A few years ago major league baseball celebrated an anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s life. I don’t remember if it was his birth or death or signing with the Dodgers, but it piqued my interest, motivated me to explore what he’d gone through.
Second, every summer my wife Sally and I take a minor league baseball trip. We love the Atlanta Braves, but there’s something especially charming about minor league baseball. It’s more intimate, you’re close to the players, the people, the promotions, sometimes even the food is homier than you find in the big leagues. If you’re a baseball fan, you savor that kind of experience. (more…)
Forget “Gossip Girl.” Grammar Girl is where it’s at it is.
Mignon “Grammar Girl” Fogarty is the creator of Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing, the popular educational podcast about, yes, grammar and usage. And yes, it really is extremely popular.
Fogarty has a new book out based on her podcast, which she will be signing tomorrow at the Georgia Center for the Book. As a grammarphile myself (and someone who’s looking for something to do with a B.A. in English), I jumped at the chance to talk to her (via e-mail).
When did you first realize you were destined to be a grammarhound?
About two years ago I was working as a technical writer and editor and realized that I was seeing the same errors over and over again — things such as “that” versus “which,” “its” versus “it’s” and people overusing “of.” I had become interested in podcasting around the same time, and it stuck me that a fun podcast with grammar and writing tips could be useful. I wouldn’t say it was as much destiny as it was having a good idea at the right time. (more…)
