Monday, March 16, 2009

Literary News: Award and Laureate

According to Michelle at Consuming Louisville, Carmichael's Bookstore has been named Bookseller of the Year by Publishers Weekly magazine. Heck yeah. For more details, click over to Consuming Louisville. I won't mind. We're buddies. But let me just say that this is hugely exciting for all of us Louisvillagers. Carmichael's (combined both stores) is 1/5 the size of the most recent winner of the award.

Also in book news, recently Gurney Norman was named Kentucky Poet Laureate.

I know I'm new to the 'Ville and new to Kentucky, but it seems my "who?" is echoed by the interwebs in general. Not able to find out all that much information about Mr. Norman. According to Amazon, he hasn't published a book in the past half decade or so. And it looks like his last book of poetry was published 15 years ago.

Far be it from me to disparage ANY writer's productivity. I have a novel in my pipeline that's more than a decade old-- and that doesn't sound so horrible until you realize that's around 1/3 of my WHOLE LIFE. Mama gets writers' block. But still... I'd love it if someone in the know would send me more info about Poet Laureate Norma.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

In a way, Lou, Gurney Norman is a lot like another Kentucky great, James Still. Gurney spends so much of his time encouraging other writers that he neglects his own.

My settlement school students, here in Lost Creek, published their first ever book of poetry last year--thanks to a visit from and the encouragement of Gurney Norman.

He's a folk hero, in my book. Get to know him, and he will be a hero in your book too.