March 23, 2007

LIVINGSTON, Ala.—The University of West Alabama welcomes four Alabama writers, including critically acclaimed authors Sena Jeter Naslund and William Cobb, for a panel discussion moderated by Emmy Award winning host Don Noble. “It’s All in the Family,” which also includes Naslund’s brother John Sims Jeter and Cobb’s wife Loretta, takes place Thursday, April 19 at 6 p.m. in the Bell Conference Center.

The authors will read from their work, and Noble will ask the panel questions about their own writing processes including their style, writing habits, differences and influences on each other as family members. The audience will also have the opportunity to ask questions.   

Nationally bestselling author Sena Jeter Naslund is headlining the event. Writer in Residence at the University of Louisville, program director of the Spalding University brief-residency MFA in Writing and current Kentucky Poet Laureate, Naslund is unparalleled in her ability to write fiction that gives life to real slices of history and fills gaps in the landscape of literature. In Ahab’s Wife, she re-imagined the Moby-Dick Captain’s better half and used her as a magic looking glass into a bygone era, capturing the hearts and minds of booksellers, readers and book clubs all over the country. Drawing on her own experiences growing up in Birmingham, Naslund’s Four Spirits transported readers to the American South and recreated the remarkable men and women of the Civil Rights movement. For ABUNDANCE: A Novel of Marie Antoinette, Naslund conducted extensive research in eighteenth-century memoirs and letters as well as in recent biographies to portray accurately the events in Marie Antoinette’s life and to recreate authentic dialogue.

Naslund is the recipient of the Harper Lee Award, an annual award recognizing the lifetime achievement of an Alabama writer, and the Southeastern Library Association Fiction Award. She is also editor of The Louisville Review and the Fleur-de-Lis Press. Her other titles include Sherlock in Love and a collection of stories, The Disobedience of Water.

Huntsville resident John Sims Jeter, Naslund’s brother, will also serve on the panel at UWA. He is a member of Lifelong Writers at the University of South Florida. Jeter’s short story, “The Man Who Took Notes,” was published in the 2004-05 issue of The Louisville Review and nominated for 2005 Pushcart Prize XXIX. Another Short Story, “My Life as Lid,” appears in the 2006-07 issue of Palm Prints, a literary journal of Lifelong Learners. The Livingston Press recently published Jeter’s “.... and the angels sang.” In his former life before retirement in 2005, Jeter was a mathematician and professional engineer.

Winner of the 2007 Harper Lee Award, William “Bill” Cobb is a 1961 graduate of UWA and a professor at the University of Montevallo for nearly 40 years. He has written, published and produced plays, short stories, novellas, novels and biographies. While he was completing a master’s degree at Vanderbilt University, a professor submitted Cobb’s short story, “The Stone Soldier,” to Story Magazine’s national contest for writers, and he took first prize in the competition. That story is now anthologized and appears in most collegiate sophomore level literature texts. Cobb’s A Walk Through Fire was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1992. The Livingston Press is reissuing some of Cobb’s work. Last year, The Hermit King, with new stories, was released and in the upcoming year Coming of Age at the Y , which became an underground cult classic on college campuses, will be re-released. 

Loretta Cobb joins Bill, her husband of 41 years, on this distinguished panel. She is director emerita of the Harbert Writing Center at the University of Montevallo, and she has published short stories and poetry. She has written for the Birmingham News and is a freelance editor. The Livingston Press published her first collection of short stories, The Ocean Was Salt, in 2003. Her work also appears in Belles’ Letters: Contemporary Stories by Alabama Women and Climbing Mt. Cheaha: Emerging Writers of a State.

Don Noble, Emmy Award winner and host of Alabama Public Television’s “BOOKMARK,” will serve as the evening’s moderator. Noble selected the stories to be included, edited the book and wrote the introduction for Climbing Mt. Cheaha: Emerging Writers of a State. He is currently working on another anthology through the Livingston Press entitled Alabama’s Funniest Stories, due out in fall 2007.

“It’s All in the Family,” sponsored by The Livingston Press and UWA’s Center for the Study of the Black Belt, is being held in conjunction with the Sucarnochee Folklife Festival. The festival, a celebration of Black Belt regional culture, takes place Saturday, April 21 in downtown Livingston and includes the Sucarnochee 5K River Run, Cornbread Cook-off, folk artists, musicians, storytellers, walking ghost tour and more. For more information about “It’s All in the Family” or the Sucarnochee Folklife Festival, please call 205-652-3752.