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Tribute: Andre Norton

Science fiction and fantasy author Andre Norton, who wrote the popular "Witch World" series, died March 17, 2005, of congestive heart failure at her home in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. She was 93. 

Born Alice Mary Norton on Feb. 17, 1912, in Cleveland, Ohio, she wrote more than 130 books in many genres during her career of nearly 70 years. She used a pen name, which she made her legal name in 1934, because she expected to be writing mostly for young boys and thought a male name would help sales. 

Norton moved to Murfreesboro from Florida in 1997 to establish a writer's retreat. The High Hallack project opened the High Hallack Genre Writers' Research and Reference Library in 1999.

Her last complete novel, Three Hands of Scorpio, will be released in April 2005. 

Tina McElroy Ansa to receive Lindberg Award

Tina McElroy Ansa, novelist, filmmaker and teacher, has been named the 2005 recipient of the Stanley W. Lindberg Award. This award is presented once every two years since its establishment in 1999 in honor of Stanley W. Lindberg, the long-time editor of The Georgia Review. It honors a person who has contributed substantially to the literary culture of Georgia through a lifetime body of work and accomplishment. It is a career award that recognizes sustained excellence and not merely a single work or project. 

Ms. Ansa is the author of four novels, Baby of the Family, Ugly Ways, The Hand I Fan With and You Know Better. Her best-selling novels are all set in the mythical Georgia town of Mulberry. 

She is also the founder and director of the Sea Island Writers Retreats, held three times annually on the Georgia sea island of Sapelo. The retreats’ workshops seek to assist emerging and established writers in improving their works and honing their craft. 

In addition to mentoring and editing literary works through her Mentoring/Midwife Project, she has taught and lectured at libraries, colleges and universities throughout the United States. Ms. Ansa is a former journalist who continues to write book reviews, television news and print essays and op-ed page pieces. 

With her husband, director/AFI director of photography fellow Jonee’ Ansa, she is adapting her first novel BABY OF THE FAMILY as a feature film to be shot entirely in the state of Georgia. Exteriors for the film will be shot in her hometown of Macon. 

Past Lindberg Award winners include Pat Conroy and former Poet Laureate Dr. Bettie M. Sellers. The Lindberg Award honoree is chosen by a special committee comprised of Georgia authors, journalists, broadcasters and publishers. 

The award presentation will be Saturday, April 16, 2005 at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education on the campus of the University of Georgia in Athens. The event is co-sponsored by the Georgia Center for the Book. 

Tickets for the 7 p.m. reception honoring Ansa are $40. They may be ordered by mail from the Stanley W. Lindberg Award Ceremony, Georgia Center for Continuing Education, 1197 S. Lumpkin St., Athens, GA 30602-3603, or by telephone, 706-542-2134 or 1-800-884-1381 (credit card only). The deadline is April 11.

Robert Penn Warren Centennial

The centennial of Robert Penn Warren's birth on April 24, 2005 will be marked with the release of a commemorative stamp, which will go on sale April 22, 2005.

Warren, born in Guthrie, Kentucky, graduated from Vanderbilt in 1925. Two novels, All the Kings Men, for which he won a Pulitzer for fiction writing, and Band of Angels were made into movies. The author of 16 volumes of poetry, two for which he won Pulitzers, is one of only two literary figures who have won the prize in more than one genre.

First Day Covers will be issued from Guthrie, Kentucky.

Robert Penn Warren-Cleanth Brooks Award

Authors James H. Justus and Marjorie Perloff will share the 2004 Robert Penn Warren-Cleanth Brooks Award for Outstanding Literary Criticism from the Center for Robert Penn Warren Studies at Western Kentucky University.

Justus, who held a distinguished professor chair in English at Indiana University before his retirement, was chosen for Fetching the Old Southwest, published by the University of Missouri Press. He is a renowned scholar in American literature with a particular interest in Robert Penn Warren studies. His book The Achievement of Robert Penn Warren won the Jules F. Landry Award in 1981.

Perloff, chosen for authoring Differentials (University of Alabama Press), was the Sadie Dernham Patek Professor of Humanities at Stanford University before her retirement. She is a scholar in residence at the University of Southern California and will be the president of the Modern Language Association in 2006.

The awards will be presented April 24th. Western Kentucky University will host the Robert Penn Warren Symposium April 22-24, 2005.

Shenandoah Announces Annual Prize Winners

SHENANDOAH: The Washington and Lee University Review, announces the winners of its annual fiction, essay and poetry prizes for 2004.         

Michael Parker of Greensboro, North Carolina has been awarded The Goodheart Prize for Fiction ($1,000) for his story, “People Get Ready,” which appeared in Shenandoah 54/1. The Goodheart Prize is awarded annually to the author of the best story published in Shenandoah during a volume year and is made possible by a generous gift of the late Mrs. Goodheart’s husband, Harry G. Goodheart Jr. and her son Harry G. Goodheart, III. Parker’s work has appeared in Five Points, The Oxford American and in the 2003 Pushcart Prize and New Stories From the South anthologies. He has recently published his third novel, Virginia is for Lovers (Delphinium, 2003).  Ann Harleman was judge for the 2003 prize.         

Margot Singer of Salt Lake City, Utah is winner of the $500 Thomas H. Carter Prize for the Essay for her work, “Lila’s Story,” published in Shenandoah 54/3. The Carter Prize, judged this year by Jeffrey Hammond, is given in honor of the late Thomas H. Carter, co-founder of Shenandoah, and is awarded to the author of what is judged to be the best essay published in the magazine each year. Singer’s stories have appeared or are forthcoming in AGNI, The North American Review and The Mid-American Review.  She is pursuing a doctorate at the University of Utah. 

David Kirby of Jacksonville, Florida is the recipient of The James Boatwright III Prize for Poetry for his poems, “I Think Satan Done It” and “Scarlet Ribbons,” both of which were published in Shenandoah 53/2. The $1000 prize for poetry is awarded annually to the author of the best poem/s published during a volume year and is made possible by gifts from friends of the late James Boatwright, longtime editor of Shenandoah. Cody Walker was judge for the 2004 prize. Kirby is the Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of English at Florida State University.  His latest collection, The Ha-Ha: Poems (LSU, 2003), was selected by Dave Smith to appear in Louisiana State University’s Southern Messenger Poets series.

Berendt Follow-up to Midnight

The much anticipated new book by John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, will be released later this year. Bernedt admits that the instant fame and wealth of Midnight overwhelmed him. The 1994 book of a true murder among the eccentrics of Savannah, Georgia, sold copies in the multi-millions world wide.

The next book is titled City of Falling Angels (Random House, October 2005).  Thinking a sequel on Savannah or maybe New Orleans?  No, Berendt has left the South like John Grisham and Frances Mayes for Italy.  His book is set in Venice.

City of Falling Angels is a portrait of Venice that begins with the burning of the Fenice Theatre on the night of January 29, 1996, which proved to be an act of arson. Readers can expect another menagerie of eccentrics.

Photo credit: Marion Ettinger.