The Decatur Book Festival congratulates Douglas Blackmon, winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for his book “Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II.” Blackmon, who lives in Atlanta, discussed the book at the 2008 AJC Decatur Book Festival. The AP says of Blackmon and the book:

Blackmon, the Atlanta bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, has written extensively about the use of African-Americans as forced laborers in the nation’s coal mines, lumber camps, railroads and plantations in the early 20th century.

“Slavery by Another Name,” his first book, grew out of an article in the Journal about U.S. Steel Corp.’s use of forced black labor in the Alabama coal mines. The judges called the book a “precise and elegant” work that “rescues a multitude of atrocities from virtual obscurity.”

The award is well deserved, and we’re all very happy for Doug. Again, congratulations.

It was with a heavy heart that I learned of the passing of Don Grierson, the husband of Rheta Grimsley Johnson. We were fortunate to have Rheta at the 2008 AJC Decatur Book Festival. She’s a good and joyous soul. Please keep her in your thoughts.

I’ve been sitting on this news for a long time, by orders of the author, but since the news is now prominently displayed in the store window of Little Shop of Stories, I guess I can finally go public. Terra Elan McVoy’s debut young adult novel, “Pure,” will be released by Simon & Schuster on April 7. There will be a launch party in New York that evening, and a Decatur launch party at Little Shop of Stories on April 17 at 7:30 p.m.

Terra is co-director of the festivals’ Children’s Programming Committee. She and Little Shop of Stories co-owner Diane Capriola are responsible for the amazing Children’s Stage events at the festival, for the Friday field trip activities, for the Saturday morning parade, and, a pet project of Terra’s, for the The Escape, the stage we debuted just for teenagers last year. She’s also been one of my best friends for the past thirteen years. So you can imagine how excited I am for her.

The book is about a group of girls who have all taken a vow of abstinence until marriage and wear a promise ring as a sign of their pledge. Then… well, I won’t spoil it, but some things happen that throw their promise and friendship into disarray. The book is a fascinating look at friendship, morality, religion, and sexuality. It’s also a really well told story and a very fun read.

So mark your calendars for the launch party. Buy the book from Little Shop of Stories. Then come see Terra present at the 2009 Decatur Book Festival, September 4-6.

You have to look hard for the good news these days, but it’s out there. Since 1982, the National Endowment for the Arts has regularly been reporting stomach lurching drops in the rates of literary reading among Americans. In the last report, in 2002, well less than half of Americans reported reading even a single novel, short story or poem over the past year.

Good news today, though. For the first time since 1982, when the NEA started tracking, the rate of literary reading has increased. 50.2% of Americans reported reading at least one novel, story or poem in 2008, compared to 46.7% in 2002. It’s a small increase and still a dishearteningly low number, but at least we seem to be moving in the right direction. Hurray!

When do we start planning the 2009 Decatur Book Festival? Uh, about five months ago, before the 2008 Decatur Book Festival had even begun. But most of the various committees and hundreds of volunteers have been taking a breather these past few months. No more. It’s officially 2009, and everyone’s rolling up their sleeves and getting to work.

As I look over and update the various mailing lists, I’m struck by what a dream team of people we have giving so much of their time and talent to this festival. There really are hundreds of them, but I wanted to highlight a few who have recently been honored for their many achievements.

The book festival’s poetry track is directed by Decatur poet Chelsea Rathburn, author of “The Shifting Line.” Under Chelsea’s leadership, the poetry committee (which includes Pulitzer Prize winning poet Natasha Trethewey and former Guggenheim Fellow poet Thomas Lux) has brought dozens of the finest poets in the nation to the Decatur Book Festival. Chelsea was recently awarded a 2009 Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts. She is one of only 42 poets in the nation — and the only poet in Georgia — to receive this honor.

The festival’s 14 or so stages are managed, during the festival, by an exceptionally dedicated group of stage captains: leaders who take charge of stage logistics, problem-solving, announcements, and so forth. Their work is coordinated by the amazing Nonie Ravenberg, an event management professional with nth Degree. Because of the extraordinary time and talent that Nonie gives to make sure each stage runs smoothly, I nominated her for a Hometown Heroes award, the annual awards given by the Decatur Business Association. Well, not only did Nonie win the award, but two of her stage captains — Jerry White and Carl Black — also won awards for their many contributions to the Decatur community. Several other Hometown Heroes — Scott Drake, for example — have also helped out the festival in other ways.

And those are only the people who have been honored in the past several weeks. It’s an amazing group of people — both those who have been with us for a while and quite a few new folks joining us this year — and I’m excited to get back to work with them. Wait until you see what they come up with for the 2009 Decatur Book Festival.

“Grizzled” journalist Robert (who needs only one name… and is also, I’m guessing, about 12 years old) interviewed Sarah Prineas, author of “The Magic Thief,” at this year’s Decatur Book Festival. This is my absolute favorite interview I’ve yet seen come out of this year’s festival. Make sure you stick around for the biscuit commercial.

We learned today that the readers of Creative Loafing voted the Decatur Book Festival the Best Book Event in Atlanta, as reported in Creative Loafing’s 2008 “Best of Atlanta” edition. (We won the critic’s pick award last year.)

Thank you to all the Creative Loafing readers who voted for us!

Have you been suffering from book festival withdrawal in the days since the conclusion of the 2008 Decatur Book Festival? Wondering why you’re not constantly surrounded by thousands of fellow book lovers? Troubled to find that you’re not bumping into world-famous authors at every corner?

Yeah, me too. Classic signs of Book Festival Withdrawal (BFW).

I hear there’s a cure, but if loving book festivals is wrong, do we really want to be right?

Take heart: several more book festivals are coming up this fall in Georgia and nearby.

National Book Festival, Washington, DC (September 27): Put on by the Library of Congress, this annual book festival is set on the National Mall, a great location for sure. Authors this year include Geraldine Brooks, Paul Theroux, and Dionne Warwick.

Book Fair on the Square, Marietta, GA (October 3-4): Planned by the Cobb and Douglas County Community Services Boards, this book fair works to raise awareness of mental illness, addiction, and developmental disabilities. But don’t think you’ll get only nonfiction treatments of the topics. Authors such as the inimitable Doug Crandell, author of  “Hairdos of the Mildly Depressed,” along with Man Martin, Sheri Joseph, and poet Thomas Lux (all of them DBF alumni) will read from and discuss their novels and poems that have characters or storylines relevant to the book fair’s theme.

Crandell is also one of the planners of the fair, and, if you happened by the Old Thyme Writing Workshoppe and Petting Zoo, or the Writers Conference Happy Hour, both part of the Writing Conference @ DBF, you know that anything he gets involved in is going to be a roaring good time.

Southern Festival of Books, Nashville, TN (October 10-12): One of the larger book festivals in the South, it’s put on by Humanities Tennessee and has been the model for many similar book festivals around the country put on by state humanities councils. More than 200 authors, including Rick Bragg, Sherman Alexie, Rheta Grimsley Johnson, and Ann Patchett.

Gwinnett Reading Festival, Lawrenceville, GA (October 18): Put on by the Gwinnett County Public Library, this festival will include authors for all ages, including Steve Martini, Nathalie Dupree, Rick Bragg, Carmen Agra Deedy, Mary Jane Clark, and George Singleton. It’s held on the Gwinnett County Fairgrounds in Lawrenceville.

Georgia Literary Festival, Bainbridge, GA (October 25): This festival is a unique one. It’s put on by the Georgia Center for the Book, one of the most important planning partners of the Decatur Book Festival and one of the most active Centers for the Book in the nation. The Georgia Literary Festival is held in a different Georgia town each year, sharing the literary wealth around the state. Authors appearing include: Mary Kay Andrews, Douglas Blackmon, Frye Gaillard, and Cathy Cox.

The Book Festival of the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta, Atlanta, GA (November 8-22): This superb annual festival of the MJCCA will include authors Tony Curtis, Stephanie Klein, and CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin.

Miami Book Fair, Miami, FL (November 9-16): The granddaddy of them all, and, with about 250,000 visitors each year, still the biggest. They have a particularly strong international component, especially, as you might expect, with Latino and Spanish-language authors. They haven’t yet announced this year’s line-up, but you can count on some of the biggest names in the country being there.

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Think all that will tide you over for a while? Those are all the fall festivals I know about in the southeast. Know of any I missed? Add ‘em in the comments.

Check out this 1947 video about how books are (well, were) made.

OK, who’s going to bring the book press to next year’s Decatur Book Festival so we can all try it out?

Wow. Wow! Wow, what a weekend. The third Decatur Book Festival was, by overwhelming acclaim, the best one yet. It’s going to take me weeks to process all that happened over the weekend, but a few highlights that stand out for me right now:

• The Madeline Children’s Parade, in which many a little girl was dressed like Madeline and one little boy wore an Iron Man costume. (Someone has to protect Madeline from the military industrial complex, right?)
• Nearly 1,200 people rapt and laughing for over an hour as former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins launched his new collection, “Ballistics,” read poems, and told stories. When was the last time you saw a poet get that kind of reception?
• Walking into The Escape — our new, dedicated space for teenagers — to find an ultra cool literary salon underway, so cool that I quickly exited lest the square old guy bring down the groove.
• Getting stopped on the sidewalk by Robert Scheer on Sunday night so he could tell me about all of the incredibly impressive author friends and colleagues of his who he wants to bring with him to the 2009 festival.
• Seeing Doug Crandell’s petting zoo set up on the Agnes Scott quad, writers hard at work on exercises inspired by wigs, flannel, and other props.
• Getting a kiss from Hollis Gillespie through her mobile kissing booth window.
• Crouching down to let Hollis’s daughter dress my head with a series of wigs and hats for my mug shot at the Writers Conference Happy Hour. (Yes, there are pictures. No, I’m not going to tell you where to find them.)
• And seeing you — about 70,000 of you — filling downtown Decatur for three days of celebration with fellow lovers of writing and reading.

The thing is, for all that I saw, I saw very little of all that happened. If you were out there, you know what I’m talking about. There’s just too much going on all at once to get to more than a small fraction of it all. So I’ve been scouring the Web to see what you saw. Here’s what I’ve found so far (in no particular order, because it would take forever if I tried to order them). Add your own posts or those you’ve found, in the comments.

Baby Got Books

Adam J. Copeland’s Top Ten Festival Highlights

Author Deborah Wiles

Author Sarah Prineas

Author Elizabeth Dulemba on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday

inDecatur was all over the festival. (And I finally got to meet him in person.) I won’t even try to link to them all, but here are some of particular note:

• Round-up of Various Other Bloggers Pre-DBF Posts
• Lull Before the Book Storm
• Great Weather for Decatur Book Festival
• Billy Collins Reads/Speaks to Packed Crowd
• Food
• Don’t Miss the Last Day of the Decatur Book Festival
• Plan Your DBF Day, Or Just Wing It
• There’s More Than Books at the Decatur Book Festival
• Video of Storytellers
• Post-Festival Wrap-Up
• Round-Up of Blog Reviews of DBF

Chamblee 54 on Day One, Pictures and Reflections

Southern Shelter on Patterson Hood

That Weird Quiet Girl in the Corner

SharpBlog

Scoffery

Wren’s Nest (includes link to pictures)

Vivian

Library Stew

LarameeKid on Sci Fi and Fantasy Panel

GotPoetry on Billy Collins

…

(Phew!)

What else you got?