ATLANTA – Mercer University Press will host its 21st Annual Authors Luncheon on Saturday, beginning at 10:30 a.m. at the InterContinental Buckhead in Atlanta, featuring book signings with a number of acclaimed authors. The event also features a luncheon with presentations from Sonny Brewer, Samuel F. Pickering Jr., Karen White and Curtis Wilkie. Proceeds from the event benefit Mercer University Press.
Brewer is most recently the author of The Widow and the Tree, as well as The Poet of Tolstoy Park, A Sound Like Thunder and Cormac: The Tale of a Dog Gone Missing. He is the editor of the newly published Don’t Quit Your Day Job: Acclaimed Authors and the Day Jobs They Quit. Brewer lives with his family in Fairhope, Ala., where he is founding board chairman of the Fairhope Center for Writing Arts. He also organizes and hosts the Southern Writers Reading literary conference, now in its 13th year.
Pickering is the author of A Comfortable Boy and has taught English literature and writing for four decades, including the last three decades at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, where he is a professor of English. His unconventional teaching style was the inspiration for the character of Mr. Keating, played by Robin Williams in the film Dead Poets Society, written by one of Pickering’s former students. Pickering is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers and has written more than 20 books.
White is most recently the author of Falling Home, and is an award-winning novelist of such titles as Learning to Breathe, The House on Tradd Street, The Memory of Water, The Lost Hours, Pieces of the Heart and The Color of Light. White has shared her appreciation of the South Carolina and Georgia coasts in many of her novels and has lived in Oklahoma, Texas, New Jersey, Louisiana, Georgia, Venezuela and England, though she hails from a family with roots firmly set in Mississippi and notes that searching for home always brings her back to the South.
Wilkie is an award-winning journalist who penned the book The Fall of the House of Zeus: The Rise and Ruin of America’s Most Powerful Trial Lawyer, about the fall from grace of Dickie Scruggs, the lawyer who helped pioneer mass torts. Wilkie was a national and foreign correspondent for The Boston Globe for 26 years and now teaches journalism as his alma mater, the University of Mississippi, where he holds the Kelly G. Cook chair in journalism and is a fellow at the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics.
Beginning at 10:30 a.m., authors will be available to sign their works, including Mark D. Edwards, Thomas McAfee and Milburn Price, editors of Celebrating Grace; James C. Cobb, author of The South and America Since WWII; Susan G. Gilmore, author of The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove; Richard J. Hutto, author of A Peculiar Tribe: Murder and Madness in the Heart of Georgia; Calvin Ramsey, author of Ruth and the Green Book; Krista Reese, author of Atlanta Kitchens: Recipes from Atlanta’s Best Restaurants; Ferrol Sams, author of Christmas Gift!; David Schaefer, author of Five Big Mountains: A Regular Guy’s Guide to Climbing Orizaba, Elbrus, Kilimanjaro, Aconcagua and Vinson; Anya Silver, author of The Ninety-Third Name of God, and Daniel E. Sutherland, who wrote A Savage Conflict: The Decisive Role of Guerillas in the American Civil War.
Event Details
Date & Time: Saturday, Dec. 11, from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
Where: InterContinental Buckhead, 3315 Peachtree Road NE, Atlanta
Admission: Individual ticket price: $150 (student discount available)
To purchase tickets: Call (678) 547-6419 or visit www.mupress.org
About Mercer University Press
Established in 1979, Mercer University Press celebrated its 30th anniversary and has published more than 1,200 books. Operated by an eight-member staff, the press publishes more than 35 books annually. The reputation of the Press significantly enhances the academic environment of the University and carries the name of Mercer throughout the world. The Press seeks and acquires manuscripts that contribute to the advancement of knowledge; publishes monographs and other texts in the humanities, primarily in history, philosophy, religion, and Southern studies; and disseminates these publications internationally to students, scholars, and libraries. The annual Authors Luncheon is a fundraiser for Mercer University Press. For more information, visit www.mupress.org.
About Mercer University
Founded in 1833, Mercer University is a dynamic and comprehensive center of undergraduate, graduate and professional education. The University enrolls more than 8,200 students in 11 schools and colleges – liberal arts, law, pharmacy, medicine, business, engineering, education, theology, music, nursing and continuing and professional studies – on major campuses in Macon, Atlanta and Savannah and at three regional academic centers across the state. Mercer is affiliated with two teaching hospitals — Memorial University Medical Center in Savannah and the Medical Center of Central Georgia in Macon, and has educational partnerships with Warner Robins Air Logistics Center in Warner Robins and Piedmont Healthcare in Atlanta. The University operates an academic press and a performing arts center in Macon and an engineering research center in Warner Robins. Mercer is the only private university in Georgia to field an NCAA Division I athletic program. For more information, visit www.mercer.edu.
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