:About the Center:
The Center's Current Activities Include:
Sponsoring over 100 programs each year bringing authors from around the nation and the state for free year-round public appearances.
The 2010 festival will be held in Statesboro in Bulloch County on the weekend of October 22-23.
Sponsoring state student literary competitions in two national programs, Letters About Literature and River of Words
Developing programs to take nationally known authors to libraries around Georgia with a "We the People" grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities through the Georgia Humanities Council. The first "We the People" program was successfully held at Young Harris on January 29, 2007.
Co-sponsoring major state literary awards including the Townsend Prize, the Lindberg Award and the Lillian Smith Award.
The Georgia Center for the Book is the state affiliate of the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
The Center, which celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2008, was chartered in early 1998 with the DeKalb County Public Library serving as its host and sponsor. The Center’s mission is the support of libraries, literary programs and literature, particularly Georgia’s rich literary heritage. In 2007, the Center received the prestigious Boorstein Award from the Center for the Book in Washington in recognition of its innovative literary programming and literacy efforts.
The Center partners with many statewide organizations including the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum, the University of Georgia Press, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Agnes Scott College, Emory University, the Writers Institute at Georgia Perimeter College, Georgia Public Library Service, Georgia Humanities Council, Project WET at the Department of Natural Resources, DeKalb History Center, the Margaret Mitchell House and many others.
The Georgia Center for the Book has become the largest non-profit literary presenting organization in the Southeast and one of the largest in the nation. Its many free programs reached nearly 90,000 people around the state in 2008. The Center helped create and remains a major sponsor of the AJC Decatur Book Festival that draws 60,000 people to the city every Labor Day weekend.
William W. Starr, a native of Atlanta, has been executive director of the Georgia Center for the Book since 2003. Joe Davich, a native of West Virginia, has been the GCB assistant since 2006, and the advisory council includes 22 distinguished authors, educators, librarians, journalists, scholars and publishers:
Tina McElroy Ansa, Author, St. Simons Island |
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David Baker, Communications Director, Georgia Public Library Service, Atlanta |
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Dr. Rudolph Byrd, Professor of American Studies, Emory University, Atlanta |
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Herbert Denmark, Former President, Georgia Poetry Society, Decatur |
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Elizabeth Dulemba, Children's Author & Illustrator |
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Anthony "Tony" Grooms, Author, Atlanta |
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Melanee Haywood, Atlanta, Vice President, Delta Air Lines |
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Terry Kay, Author, Athens |
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Judy Long, Publisher, Hill Street Press, Athens |
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Richard Lenz, President, Lenz Marketing, Decatur |
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Tom Lux, Poet, Georgia Tech, Atlanta |
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Laura McCarty, Vice President, Georgia Humanities Council, Atlanta |
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Dr. Thomas McHaney, Retired, Professor of Southern Literature, Georgia state University, Decatur |
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Nicole Mitchell, Director, University of Georgia Press, Athens |
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Don O’Briant, Author, Retired Writer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Atlanta |
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Dr. Charlotte Pfeiffer, Professor Emeritus, Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College, Cordele |
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Susan Ralph, Director of Libraries, Bainbridge College, Bainbridge |
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Lain Shakespeare, Director, Wrens Nest House Museum, Atlanta |
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James Taylor, Manager, Library Express, Fulton County Library, Atlanta |
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Lamar Veatch, State Librarian, Georgia Public Library Service, Atlanta |
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Darro Willey, Director, DeKalb County Public Library, Decatur |
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