It’s quiet, silent beyond the fan in the bathroom or the tick-tock of the alarm clock. The family is asleep, recharging for another full day of the nursing profession and first grade liberal arts and fifth grade science. I just packed tomorrow’s lunch in my uber-cool Edgar Allan Poe lunchbox that I scored from a visit to Mysteries & More bookstore in Nashville.
It’s been seven days since the last MNM, but it feels much longer because of everything that has happened. It’s been an exciting week. Before I forget, we’ve finally had a chance to do a serious update to our web site, including the addition of many events to our Bulletin Board link. Check it out for a wonderful listing of literary events happening in Nashville over the next several months!
JKSCommunications!
I’m thrilled to share with everyone that 2nd & Church now has a relationship of mutual professional respect with JKSCommunications, a full-service literary publicity firm that represents some of the finest publishers, authors, and books in the United States. Their offices are based out of Nashville, NYC, Chicago, and Denver. They’re helping us promote the written word in a variety of ways, including the promotion of a kickstarter campaign that will start soon. In return, we’re promoting their publishers, authors, and books via a special “JKSCommunications” page on our site. You may access it via their link at the top of our site. In addition, we’re thrilled to announce that starting with our next issue, Julie Schoerke (founder of JKSCommunications) is our newest columnist, covering the book business. We are happy to give you a sneak peek at her first column, located at the following link:
http://secondandchurch.typepad.com/2nd-church/jkscommunications-columns.html
She has a lot of wonderful things to share with our readers about the book and publishing industry, so stay tuned for those words in the coming issues.
Welcome New Team Members
In addition to Julie, there are some new arrivals to the 2nd & Church team starting with the Hemingway issue, our next one. We’ve been advertising for some time that we’re bringing to our Nashville readership literary stories from La Crosse, Los Angeles, Portland (the one in Oregon!), Mobile, and Louisville. That’s happening, and we welcome Gayle, Deidre, Charlotte, Janelle, Linda, Katy, and Mary. We’re also adding a photographer from Louisville. Luke is a photography and art student at the University of Louisville, and he’ll be taking photos for us there to go along with the Louisville literary pieces. Oh, and there’s Jennifer. She’s a native of Canada, but she’s a writer living and working in Sweden. She’s our first foreign correspondent, and we’re so happy that she’s joining our team. She’s a new mom, so her first piece won’t appear until the Theatre issue in the summer, but we know she’ll have something worth reading to share.
New Look-n-Feel!
Yes! Starting with the Hemingway issue, we have a new layout and design for 2nd & Church…thanks to our creative director, Kristy Galbraith Dye and her creative partner, Fredrick A. Dye. (This is not the first time you’ve seen Fred’s work. His great photographs have appeared in many of our issues, including the current one!) To see this new, wondrous approach, visit the Hemingway issue’s Web page at:
http://secondandchurch.typepad.com/2nd-church/issue-5-the-hemingway-issue.html
In Other News…
My long-suffering better half Leslie and myself had the chance to eat dinner at Lockeland Table restaurant in Nashville with some wonderful literary folks this week, including the Southern civil defense attorney turned author Robert Bailey and his wife Dixie. They were in town to promote his debut novel, The Professor, at Nashville’s East Side Story Books. The shop’s owner Chuck and his wife Emily were there; Chuck is also one of our columnists. And Julie held court, along with her friend Brent Miller.
Later next week, I am off to Mobile, Alabama to speak to the Pensters, a literary group on the Gulf Coast. (Check out our current issue to learn more about this great group!) Linda’s bringing me down for this event, and I’ll be sleeping on her couch, I suspect. Linda was one of the first mentors in The Writer’s Loft, a creative writing program that we all started at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. When she drove up from Mobile, she slept in my little boy’s room, with way too many toys in the bed. Who knows what sort of “pay back” she has planned for me next week! :-)
Oh, and this week I jumped at the chance to be the fiction judge for the Alabama Writers Conclave annual competition. It’s a tremendous responsibility that I accept with a great deal of appreciation and respect for their conference!
Much more has been happening this week, but these are the highlights! Good night everyone.
Roy
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