Meet Tom Burton
Author of Beech Mountain Man: The Memoirs of Ronda Lee Hicks (Foreword by John Shelton Reed)
Sat., July 25, 12 noon
Barnes & Noble
3030 Franklin Terrace
Johnson City, TN 37604
Tel. 423-952-5577
Tom Burton @ Johnson City, TN Barnes & Noble
New Release
Beech Mountain Man
The Memoirs of Ronda Lee Hicks
Thomas Burton
With a Foreword by John Shelton Reed
“Thomas Burton’s edition of what amounts to an autobiography of Ronda Lee Hicks-fighter, drinker, womanizer, and storyteller-represents a wiff of late-night honky-tonk whiskey and tobacco in its realism. . . . Hicks is a talented raconteur, whose gifts are well displayed in Burton’s careful editing.” —Erika Brady, Western Kentucky University
In the News: Voices from the Nueva Frontera
“Voices from the Nueva Frontera: Latino Immigration in Dalton, Georgia,” combines a historical impact study and an oral history of Hispanic immigrants living in the mill town and surrounding areas. It is being published this week the University of Tennessee Press.” —Excerpt from The Chattanooga Times Free Press.
By Heart: Reflections of a Rust Belt Bard Receives Book of the Year Award
Congratulations to Philip Brady, author of By Heart: Reflections of a Rust Belt Bard. By Heart has been chosen as Foreword Magazine’s Book of the Year for 2008 in the category of Essays.
http://www.forewordmagazine.com/botya/search2k8.aspx?srchlimit=1&srchtype=category&srchval=56
Satan and Adam Summer Tour Dates
Adam Gussow, author of Journeyman’s Road: Modern Blues Lives from Faulkner’s Mississippi to Post-911 New York is touring this summer with blues partner Sterling “Mr. Satan” McGee. If you’re near one of the venues, stop by and say hi!
6/14/09: Kiawah Island, SC – “Blues in the Night” at the Rivercourse Club with Eddie Shaw & the Wolf Gang (4 PM) For info, call 843-768-9166
6/15/09: Knoxville, TN – Barley’s Taproom (10 PM) www.barleystaproom.com/knoxville/
6/16/09: Huntington, WV — The V Club (8 PM) www.myspace.com/wvvclub
6/17/09: Philadelphia, PA – World Cafe Live (7:30 PM, with special guest Charlie Sayles, a street-harp legend!) www.worldcafelive.com/
6/18/09: New York, NY – Lucille’s Bar & Grill at B. B. King’s (8:30, with Robert Ross opening & closing) www.bbkingblues.com/lucilles/index.shtml (for Robert Ross, visit: www.robertrossband.com/ )
6/19/09: Piermont, NY – The Turning Point www.turningpointcafe.com/
6/20/09: Portsmouth, NH – The Press Room (9 PM) www.pressroomnh.com/
Joan Cronan Receives 2009 Joe Johnson Award
• Joan Cronan Receives Joe Johnson Award
The University of Tennessee Press awarded the 2009 Joseph E. Johnson Award of Appreciation to Women’s Athletic Director Joan Cronan. The award is in recognition of Joan’s unflagging support of the press’s production of In the Footsteps of Champions: The University of Tennessee Lady Volunteers, The First Three Decades. Written by long-time Lady Vol supporter and UT staff member Debby Schriver, the book details the birth and growth of the premier women’s athletic program in the United States. The award was presented to Cronan by Dr. Johnson and UT Press director, Scot Danforth.
Afterward, Lady Vols who were spotlighted in Footsteps received a special salute in recognition of their accomplishments. More info on In the Footsteps of Champions at www.utpress.org/footsteps
This month’s feature: The Bad Boys of Appalachia
King of the Moonshiners
Lewis R. Redmond in Fact and Fiction
With a Foreword by Durwood Dunn
Lewis R. Redmond was an archetypal moonshiner. On March 1, 1876, the twenty-one-year-old North Carolinian shot and killed a U.S. deputy marshal who tried to arrest him on charges of illicit distilling. He then fled to Pickens County, South Carolina, where, within three years, he gained national notoriety as the “This book deconstructs Redmond, whose dangerous persona captured the imagination of the middle-class American public.
Read more about King of the Moonshiners.
Read the feature in The Wall Street Journal.
Their Ancient Grudge
Harry Harrison Kroll
With an Introduction by Richard L. Saunders
First published in 1946, Harry Kroll’s portrayal of the legendary Hatfield-McCoy feud (1878-90) is seen through the eyes of six women of the two families. Their Ancient Grudge is the last major treatment of this iconic sliver of American culture completed before the story struggle was reinterpreted by a later generation of historians. In crafting this compelling tale, Kroll drew both on historical studies and on interviews with descendants of the Hatfield and McCoy families as well as with other residents of the Tug Valley area of Kentucky and West Virginia.
Beech Mountain Man
The Memoirs of Ronda Lee Hicks
Thomas Burton, author of The Serpent and the Spirit: Glenn Summerford’s Story
With a Foreword by John Shelton Reed
Hicks recounts his life’s highs and lows with great candor and sometimes jarring humor. Readers might wonder how Ronda Hicks lived to tell his fascinating tales at all.
“Thomas Burton’s edition of what amounts to an autobiography of Ronda Lee Hicks-fighter, drinker, womanizer, and storyteller-represents a wiff of late-night honky-tonk whiskey and tobacco in its realism. . . . Hicks is a talented raconteur, whose gifts are well displayed in Burton’s careful editing.” —Erika Brady, Western Kentucky University
King of the Moonshiners featured in The Wall Street Journal
King of the Moonshiners, edited by Bruce E. Stewart, was featured in the March 21 edition of The Wall Street Journal. Read the WSJ article, “Tax Rebellion in a Jar.”
Mike Guillerman on the Road
Mike Guillerman, author of Face Boss: The Memoirs of a Western Kentucky Coal Miner, March 14 at the Union County Library (KY).
Mike at Our Robin’s Nest (Morganfield, KY), March 13.