(All events free; no tickets or reservations necessary)

February Author Schedule

Georgia Association of Historians. We welcome the GAH holding their 2010 annual meeting in Decatur. As part of their sessions, we are happy to host a free public program on the new book, Georgia Women: Their Lives and Their Times, published by UGA Press and featuring the editors, Ann Short Chirhart and Kathleen Clark from the university of Georgia. Michael Gillespie from Wake Forest University will discuss Decatur's Mary Gay, and Steve Goodson from the University of West Georgia will talk about the legendary blues singer Gertrude "Ma" Rainey. We'll have books for sale and signing. 7:15 p.m., Thursday, February 18, Decatur Library Auditorium.

Poetry Atlanta Night. We once again join our good friends at Poetry Atlanta for a special Black History Month program featuring the work of several noted poets from throughout metro Atlanta. Award-winning poet and poetry slam champion Theresa Davis hosts this program, which features some of Atlanta's up-and-coming spoken word poets and smal stars. Among them will be Darnell Fine and the members of the Java Monkey and Art Smok Slam Teams. It will be a lively evening! 7:15 p.m., Tuesday, February 23, Decatur Library Auditorium.

The Big Read. We invite you to join us for the important concluding event in Atlanta's 2009 "Big Read" program sponsored by the Atlanta History Center and its Margaret Mitchell House. This evening will feature the keynote address by acclaimed literary historian Deborah Plant, the author of Zora Neale Hurston: A Biography of the Spirit. She'll be discussing Hurston's best-known work, Their Eyes Were Watching God, which was the book featured in Atlanta's "Big Read" last year. 7:15 p.m., Wednesday, February 24, Decatur Library Auditorium.

March Author Schedule

Lee Smith, one of America's most popular authors, makes a special encore visit to the Georgia Center for the Book with a fabulous new collection of short stories -- her first collection in 13 years -- Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-Eyed Stranger. Lee Smith is one of the American masters of short fiction, and this new book will delight and dazzle her many fans. Her characters range from an 8-year-old boy obsessed with vocabulary words to a young bride who has married "way up" to the title character, an older woman making her way through widowhood her own way. Lee Smith is the author of 15 books including Fair and Tender Ladies, Oral History, Black Mountain Breakdown and The Last Girls. 7:15 p.m., Monday, March 8, Decatur Library Auditorium.

Karen Spears Zacharias, who grew up in Georgia, visits us with an unforgettable new book of sad, funny, poignant stories about some unforgettable characters, Will Jesus Buy Me a Double-Wide? 'Cause I Need More Room for my Plasma TV. Zacharias' book is "a spirit-infused meditation on gratuitous wealth and barely gettin' by," and Jeff Foxworthy says the author is a writer "not afraid to talk with real people and speak the truth." Her books include After the Flag Has Been Folded, a heartwarming look back at her experiences growing up after the death of her father in Vietnam, and Where's Your Jesus Now? Examining How Fear Erodes Our Faith. 7:15 p.m., Tuesday, March 9, Decatur Library Auditorium.

Thomas Cahill, the New York Times' bestselling author of How the Irish Saved Civilization and Mysteries of the Middle Ages, discusses his powerful new book, A Saint on Death Row: The Story of Dominique Green. It's a deeply moving and true narrative about a man transformed as he faced an unjust execution. Archbishop Desmond Tutu says of the book, “Dominique Green was a wonderful man whose life demonstrated the power of God to heal and transfigure even the most unlikely people and places. Who could have expected that Texas Death Row would be made into an avenue of divine grace?—which is exactly what happened through Dominique’s instrumentation. Though this is a book that ends in death, it does not end in despair. Read it and discover how even the obscenity of capital punishment can be transformed into an occasion of light and peace.” 7 p.m., Monday, March 15, TBA.

Carol Goodman, the best-selling author of The Ninth Villa, The Ghost Orchid and The Sonnet Lover, visits us with a thrilling new novel, Arcadia Falls. Her mystery/suspense novels have made her among the most popular writers in America, and we welcome her for her first visit to the Georgia Center for the Book. We'll have more details soon. 7:15 p.m., Tuesday, March 16, Decatur Library Auditorium.

Kevin Young, one of America's most acclaimed young poets and in residence at Emory University, will discuss his eagerly anticipated new volume of poetry, The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing. Young, a popular reader, is the author of several notable books of poetry including For the Confederate Dead, Jelly Roll, To Repel Ghosts, Dear Darkness and Black Maria. He'll be signing copies of his new book as well as his earlier releases. 7:15 p.m., Thursday, March 18, Decatur Library Auditorium.

Peter Hedges. We invite you to a special evening with Peter Hedges, the Academy Award-nominated author/director of the films What Eating Gilbert Grape?, Pieces of April, Dan in Real Life and About a Boy. He has written a wonderful new novel, The Heights, the story of a private school history teacher and his relationships, a book about love and challenge, at once light of touch and yet packed with emotion and depth of character. Hedges wrote both the novel and the screenplay for What's Eating Gilbert Grape. 7:15 p.m., Monday, March 22, Decatur Library Auditorium.

Sarah Addison Allen, the prize-winning author of Garden Spells and The The Sugar Queen, returns with a wonderful, enchanting new novel, The Girl Who Chased the Moon. The bestselling author, who makes her home in Asheville, NC, has created an embracing story "set in a quirky small Southern town with more magic than a full Carolina moon." It's a charming tale all about the unexpected in a town peopled by some of most appealing misfits you'll ever meet. We think it just may be this delightful author's best book yet! 7:15 p.m., Tuesday, March 23, Decatur Library Auditorium.

Anne Perry. We welcome "the queen of Victorian mysteries," one of the world's most popular and prolific writers of mystery and suspense, Anne Perry, for a delightful evening discussing her forthcoming mystery, The Sheen on the Silk. It's her first major non-series book, a memorably epic historical novel set in 13th century Constantinople where a women struggles to uncover the truth about an accused murderer. Anne Perry is the author of dozens of books, bestsellers everywhere, including Death by Horoscope, Sherman's Creek, A Breach of Promise, Paragon Walk and Brunswick Square. 7:15 p.m., Wednesday, March 24, Decatur Library Auditorium.

Lynn Cullen, the author of many popular books for young readers, comes to us with her first adult novel, a riveting tale set in the Golden Age of Spain, The Creation of Eve. It's based on the true but little-known story of the first female painter of the Renaissance who encounters formidable challenges when she comes to Rome to study in the great Michelangelo's studio. It combines art, drama and history centered around the question: can you really know anyone's heart? Cullen's previous books include Godiva, I Am Rembrandt's Daughter, Moi and Marie Antoinette and the Backyard Ghost 7:15 p.m., Monday, March 29, Decatur Library Auditorium.

David Anthony Durham, the award-winning author of five novels, will discuss his latest, Acacia: Other Lands, the second book in the popular Acacia Trilogy. He is a winner of the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Fiction Award for his stories, and he received the prestigious John C. Campell Book Award in 2009. His novels include Gabriel's Story, about a runaway slave and the Scottish immigrant hired to track him, and Acacia, set in an alternative world and a book hailed by sci-fi and fantasy enthusiasts. 7:15 p.m., Tuesday, March 30, Decatur Library Auditorium.

Deborah Blum. The Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer discusses her new book, a "wonderfully compelling hybrid of history and science," The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York. Blum's true story, which reads like a first-rate novelist's tale, features a memorable cast of movie stars, gangsters, aristocrats, relentless medical examiners and even homicidal grandmothers. Her chronicle of Jazz Age chemical crimes will leave you breathless and transform the way you think about the power of science. Blum is the author of the bestselling book Ghost Hunters and is professor of science journalism at the University of Wisconsin. 7:15 p.m., Wednesday, March 31, Decatur Library Auditorium.

April Author Schedule

Poetry Atlanta. It's no April Fool's joke: we're honored to host another wonderful, provocative evening of poetry featuring writers from the metro Atlanta area. It's our monthly program presented by our partners at Poetry Atlanta, and we'll have more details about this event posted here shortly. 7:15 p.m., Thursday, April 1, Decatur Library Auditorium.

Evelyn Monahan & Rosemary Neidel-Greenlee. The two Georgia writers have combined to tell the remarkable, never-before-told story of the U.S. women's military corps in their fascinating new book, A Few Good Women: America's Military Women from World War I to the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Utilizing interviews and a variety of written sources, they trace the history of women in the military in a first-hand narrative as illuminating as it is inspiring. Monahan served in the Women's Army Corps and has worked at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Neidel-Greenlee was a member of the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps and worked at the U.S. Veterans Medical Center in Atlanta. They previously authored And If I Perish: Frontline U.S. Army Nurses in World War II. 7:15 p.m., Tuesday April 6, Decatur Library Auditorium.

Anne Lamott, the renowned author of many bestselling books including Traveling Mercies and Grace: Thoughts on Faith, visits us with a tough and touching new novel, Imperfect Birds. "Heartbreaking and delightful, moving and hopeful, the novel reminds us how our children are connected to and independent of us, and that no matter how difficult our struggle is with them, love underlies it all and saves us. This novel captures the deepest, purest, most terrifying experience of parents fearing for their children. With great insight and humor, Anne Lamott shows us what it means these dangerous days to be a parent, what it means to be a child, and what it means to be a family." TBA, Friday, April 9.

Patricia Sprinkle, one of Atlanta's favorite mystery writers, shows us a different side of her artistry with her eagerly anticipated new novel, Hold Up the Sky. It's a moving story of four women facing difficult challenges who come together on a drought-stricken Georgia farm to find strength and insights with each other. Sprinkle's delightful, popular mysteries include Death of a Dunwoody Matron, A Mystery Bred in Buckhead, Death on the Family Tree and Who Let the Killer in the House? 7:15 p.m., Monday, April 12, Decatur Library Auditorium.

John Burrison. The expert on Georgia folk pottery, Burrison will be with us to talk about his inviting new book, From Mug to Jug: the Folk Potters and Pottery of Northeast Georgia. This title "celebrates the living traditions of the renowned northeast Georgia folk pottery clans, undertaking a sensitivity, a finesse, and a flair for description and analysis that entitle the book to a place among the classics of this type." This book is both a companion and sequel to Brothers in Clay, and focuses on an area that has maintained a continuous tradition of pottery-making since the early 19th century. It includes more than 100 color photographs of pots, potters, and their work spaces, Burrison also captures the living tradition of one of the last areas of the United States where Euro-American folk pottery is still being made. 7:15 p.m., Tuesday April 13, Decatur Library Auditorium.

May Author Schedule

Andrea Levy. We are honored to present the distinguished author, winner of Britain's prestigious Orange Prize and Whitbread Award for the Book of the Year. Her novel Small Island has sold millions of copies and will soon be a PBS "Masterpiece Theater" production. Her brilliant new historical novel, The Long Song, is about the turbulent last years of slavery in 19th century Jamaica and is narrated in the irresistibly willful and intimate voice of Miss July. "It is a book at once defiant, funny, and shocking," critics say, and the character of July, a child of a field slave, is both mischievous and defiant, all the way through the chaotic end of the institution of slavery. It is a heartbreaking, uncommonly powerful and unforgettable novel of slavery, revolution, freedom, and love. 7:15 p.m., Monday, May 3, Decatur Library Auditorium.

Carolyn Jessop. Two years ago we presented the young author of the best-selling true story Escape, who vividly recounted her dangerous but successful escape with her eight children from a forced polygamous Mormon marriage. She has a new book she'll be discussing on this visit: Triumph: Life After the Cult: A Survivor's Lesson, written with Laura Palmer. In the new book, this courageous woman talks about her life in recent years and what she has learned since she re-joined a non-fundamentalist society. 7:15 p.m., Thursday, May 6, Decatur Library Auditorium.

Keith Gilyard, one of America's most highly regarded scholars of African American writers, discusses his new book, the first major biography of an important native Georgia author, John Oliver Killens: A Life of Black Literary Activism. Gilyard spoke about Killens at the Center for the Book's 2006 Georgia Literary Festival in Macon, where Killens grew up. Killens was twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, was the founding chairman of the legendary Harlem Writers Guild and is regarded as the father of the Black Arts Movement. Gilyard's biography examines his life and those whose lives he touched including W.E.B. DuBois, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Maya Angelou and Langston Hughes. 7:15 p.m., Tuesday, May 18, Decatur Library Auditorium.

David C. Tucker. The expert on the early days of television joins us to talk about his delightful new book, Lost Laughs of '50s and '60s Television: Thirty Sitcoms That Faded Off Screen. It's a clever look back at shows you probably forgot you watched because they didn't last very long. Tucker is the Collection Management Coordinator for the DeKalb County Public Library and the author of several popular books about television including The Women Who Made Television Funny: Ten Stars of 1950s' Sitcoms and Shirley Booth: A Biography and Career Record. Presented as part of the Decatur Arts Festival. 7:15 p.m., Monday, May 24, Decatur Library Auditorium.

Joe Dabney. The author of two entertaining books about Southern traditions of eating and drinking will be with us to talk about his fabulous new book, The Food, Folklore, and Art of Lowcountry Cooking. Dabney treats readers to a tour of Charleston, Beaufort and Savannah to examine food experiences there and the amazing stories that go with them. It's a book filled with colorful photographs and the authentic voices of local people. Dabney's previous books include Mountain Spirits: A Chronicle of Corn Whiskey and the bestseller, Smokehouse Ham, Spoon Bread, and Scuppernong Wine: The Folklore and Art of Appalachian Cooking, which won the prestigious James Beasrd Award for the Best Cookbook of the Year. Presented as part of the Decatur Arts Festival. 7:15 p.m., Tuesday, May 25, Decatur Library Auditorium.