Joe Samuel Starnes

Fall Line: The Book Trailer

2011-12-15T18:27:00.000-08:00

Radio Interview on Writers' Roundtable at Rowan University

2011-11-29T05:29:00.001-08:00

An interview I did with the Writers' Roundtable program on Rowan University Radio, 89.7 WGLS-FM aired yesterday evening, and is now available via podcast on their website.

I also very much enjoyed my reading and discussion at Rowan University -- the students asked insightful and intriguing questions. I also very much appreciate the article about my visit there in the student newspaper.

Reading with John Casey in Montclair

2011-11-15T17:41:00.000-08:00

I'm very excited to be reading with John Casey, National Book Award winner for Spartina, at Watchung Booksellers in Montclair, NJ at 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 20.

He has a brand new book of essays -- Room for Improvement: Notes on a Dozen Lifelong Sports -- and Compass Rose, last year's marvelous sequel to Spartina, is out in paperback.

Back Up North -- NJ & Philly Events

2011-11-08T13:22:00.000-08:00

I had a great trip through Georgia last week, and very much appreciate everyone who came out to see me. I'm back up North, and have three events coming up in the next two weeks:

6:30 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 10: Rowan University Barnes & Noble at 201 Rowan Boulevard, Glassboro, NJ Reading and discussion.

1 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 13: Port Richmond Books, (pictured) 3037 Richmond Street, Philadelphia, PA 19134. Book release party!

2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 20: Watchung Booksellers, 54 Fairfield Street
Watchung Plaza, Montclair, NJ 07042. I'll be reading with National Book Award winner John Casey, author of Spartina. His newest book is Room for Improvement: Notes on a Dozen Lifelong Sports.

Fall Line Now Available

2011-10-31T16:34:00.001-07:00

In bookstores and online at Amazon and Barnes & Noble, as well as in Kindle and Nook. Published by NewSouth Books.

Georgia Book Events

2011-10-18T07:32:00.000-07:00

I'm very much looking forward to returning to my home state in the first weekend of November. I'll be reading and signing my brand new novel Fall Line in Athens on Thursday, Nov. 3; Milledgeville, Friday, Nov. 4; Cedartown and Atlanta on Saturday, Nov. 5; and again in Atlanta on Sunday, Nov. 6.

Here's the schedule in detail with links for more information:

4 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 3: Grady College Alumni Authors Panel, University of Georgia, Miller Learning Center Reading Room, Athens, Ga.

7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 3: Barnes & Noble Athens Promenade, 3650 Atlanta Highway, Athens, Ga., 30603.

4 pm. Friday, Nov. 4: Mary Vinson Memorial Library , sponsored by Andalusia, home of Flannery O'Connor, Milledgeville, Ga.

11 a.m., Saturday, Nov. 5: Cedartown Public Library, 245 East Avenue, Cedartown, Ga. 30125.

3 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 5: Bound To Be Read Books, 481-B Flat Shoals Ave. SE Atlanta, Ga., 30316.

2 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 6: Southern Literature Sunday Afternoon, literary reading at Whole World Improv Theatre, 1216 Spring St. NW, Atlanta, Ga., 30309; hosted by NewSouth Books.

Milledgeville, Georgia Reading Hosted by Andalusia, home of Flannery O'Connor

2011-09-23T11:25:00.001-07:00

I'm thrilled that I'll be reading from my new novel Fall Line at the Mary Vinson Memorial Library in Milledgeville, Ga., on Nov. 4, hosted by the library and Andalusia, the home of Flannery O'Connor. For more on that event, please check out the Andalusia page.

For other upcoming events, check out my calendar and be sure to check back as more events in Atlanta; Athens, Ga.; Rome, Ga.; Philadelphia; New Jersey and New York will be added soon.

Fall Line Up for Pre-Order in Amazon, B&N

2011-04-14T08:44:00.000-07:00

You can now pre-order Fall Line, forthcoming from NewSouth Books in October, on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Here's the book description and blurbs:

December 1, 1955. Floodgates are poised to slam shut on a concrete dam straddling the Oogasula River, creating a lake that will submerge a forgotten crossroads and thousands of acres of woodlands in rural Georgia. Fall Line unfolds in one day's action, as viewed through the eyes of Elmer Blizzard, a troubled ex-deputy; Mrs. McNulty, a lonely widow who refuses to leave her doomed shack by the river; her loyal, aging dog, Percy; and a rapacious politician, State Senator Aubrey Terrell, for whom the new lake is named. A story of land grabs, wounded families, bitterness, hypocrisy, violence, and revenge in the changing South, Fall Line is populated by complex characters who want to do the right thing but don't know how. Starnes's novel is a memorable, beautiful, and heartbreaking tale of a backwater hamlet's damaged people and transformed landscape.

"Starnes's evocatively Southern story may well have readers wanting to check their shoes for red mud or find an old hound to pat. Fall Line's message transcends region, however, leaving us at once troubled by man's sins against nature and himself, yet knowing somehow that both will endure." -- James C. Cobb, author of The South and America since World War II

"If you liked Deliverance by James Dickey, you'll like Fall Line by Joe Samuel Starnes. The Oogasula is about to be dammed by the Georgia Power Company and to hell with the folks whose houses and graves are going to be flooded. Some people take the money. One of them takes the law into his own hands. This novel is vividly alive with people (and a great dog) and the river."
-- John Casey, author of Compass Rose and Spartina, winner of the National Book Award

You can read a six-page excerpt posted by the book's distributor.

And the cover is...

2011-03-25T14:38:00.000-07:00

Novelist John Casey on Fall Line

2011-03-10T06:26:00.000-08:00

John Casey's National Book Award-winning novel Spartina ranks as one of my all-time favorites, and his long-awaited sequel Compass Rose also is tremendous -- every page of his work, in fact, has an elegant, smooth yet gripping and unpretentious voice. He was very kind to compare my forthcoming novel to yet another one of my favorite books:

If you liked Deliverance by James Dickey, you'll like Fall Line by Joe Samuel Starnes. The Oogasula is about to be dammed by the Georgia Power Company and to hell with the folks whose houses and graves are going to be flooded. Some people take the money—one of them takes the law into his own hands. This novel is vividly alive with people (and a great dog) and the river.

All True: Praise for Barry Hannah in New Oxford-American

2011-03-08T12:12:00.000-08:00

Fantastic recollections about the irreplaceable Barry Hannah in the new Oxford-American, and I have one of my own: About a decade ago I applied to the MFA program at Ole Miss and didn't make the cut. About five years later when my first novel was published, I wrote to Barry and sent him a copy. He responded with a hilarious and generous apology letter for my "disacceptance" and kindly praised and encouraged my work. (He was the kind of man who wrote me back even though he didn't really know me.) I was lucky to study under him later at Sewanee Writers Conference, and that my essay about Larry Brown was paired with his in the 2006 issue of the Yalobusha Review. The man was as every bit good and true a writer and teacher as the many voices in this this article testify.

James C. Cobb On My Forthcoming Novel

2011-02-18T08:06:00.000-08:00

I've long regarded James C. Cobb -- a distinguished professor at the University of Georgia and author of many books, including The South and America Since World War II, Away Down South: A History of Southern Identity, and The Most Southern Place on Earth -- as the reigning contemporary voice on southern history and culture (and a marvelous writer to boot). So I was humbled and thrilled when Dr. Cobb agreed to read an early draft of my forthcoming novel FALL LINE, due out this October from NewSouth Books, and then had this to say:

Starnes's evocatively southern story may well have readers wanting to check their shoes for red mud or find an old hound to pat. Fall Line's message transcends region, however, leaving us at once troubled by man's sins against nature and himself, yet knowing somehow that both will endure.

Essay Online at Tennis Magazine

2010-12-12T16:06:00.000-08:00

All my life I have been playing tennis and reading Tennis Magazine, so it was a thrill two years ago when Peter Bodo published an essay I wrote about searching for Bill Tilden's grave in the U.S. Open issue. Earlier this year I happened to play a 15-year-old girl with a professional world ranking, and wrote about it. Bodo posted it this weekend on his very popular Tennis World blog on the magazine's web site this weekend. He also gave kind mention to my tennis novel Red Dirt, a work in search of a home with the help of literary agent Scott Miller, vice president at Trident Media Group.

My Academic Essay on the Funniest Novel Ever

2010-11-10T13:38:00.000-08:00

I discovered only a few moments ago that an essay I wrote in grad school and published in the 2006 issue of CrossRoads: A Southern Culture Annual is available online. "Ignatius Reilly's Polish Compatriot: Finding Ferdydurke in a Confederacy of Dunces" compares the Polish novel by Witold Gombrowicz and the later American work by John Kennedy Toole. I still rank Confederacy of Dunces as the funniest novel I know.

The Snake Man

2010-10-19T16:16:00.000-07:00

My elementary school -- of which my dad was the principal -- had one regular assembly that was not to be forgotten: The Snake Man. Kids don't have such learning experiences today. Here's a poem and photos from Westside School in Cedartown, Georgia.

Snake Man

We were seven years old that day

when the snake man visited

our school assembly, circa 1974,

the year Hank Aaron hit 715,

Evel Kneivel crashed into

the Snake River Canyon and the

Blue Flame held the Land Speed Record.

We were from the country,

not the town school,

and were not afraid of snakes.

We gathered on the lunchroom floor

around the wooden boxes

with vents to let the snakes get air,

a komodo dragon too.

The snake man came from Gadsden,

had slicked black hair,

a red-and-white Marlboro pack

tucked in his short-sleeve

khaki work-shirt front pocket.

We’d watched him park his special truck,

a camper built just for snakes.

He showed us vipers, dangling from

the hook of his four-foot metal pole—

rattlers, water moccasins, a cobra—

the snake man didn’t waste our time

with the non-venomous kind,

the harmless garter snakes

we caught at home and kept in jars.

My friend Lee Hightower remembers

his komodo dragon going wild, but me,

I still see the snake man’s cobra,

scurrying lose in a determined slither,

arching up, fanning out his head and

spitting onto the wall of Westside School,

that day we were seven years old.

-- Joe Samuel Starnes

Fall Line Set for October 2011

2010-08-25T08:54:00.000-07:00

NewSouth Books of Montgomery, Ala., will publish my novel Fall Line in October 2011 -- not spring as I had hoped and announced, but I'm still more than thrilled to be joining their roster that includes late writers as diverse as Mark Twain and Georgia's Lewis Grizzard, but also the living, like John Pritchard, author of the hilarious and compelling recent novels Junior Ray and Yazoo Blues.

Fall Line: The Drawing

2010-07-22T08:22:00.000-07:00

My very good friend Lee Allen Wells drew this picture inspired by Fall Line, my forthcoming novel due out from NewSouth Books in spring 2011. The dog's name is Percy, the 1950 Chevrolet pickup belongs to Elmer Blizzard, and the background shows the Lake Terrell Dam, poised to block the Oogasula River. All are fictional, set in Georgia, 1955. (You can click on the image to enlarge it.) Lee, a native of Jefferson, Georgia, now living in Raleigh, N.C., and I met seven years ago in, of all places, New Jersey.

NewSouth Books to Publish Novel Fall Line in 2011

2010-06-03T13:12:00.000-07:00

I'm very happy to announce that next year NewSouth Books of Montgomery, Ala., will publish Fall Line, a novel of mine about a fictional small Georgia town in 1955 on the day the river is dammed up to build a big lake. The genesis of the idea for this book occurred almost twenty years ago, when I was a cub reporter for The Union-Recorder newspaper in Milledgeville, Ga., assigned to check out earthquake-like tremors around Lake Sinclair. Former Putnam County Sheriff Gene Resseau suggested to me that someone had been setting off dynamite to catch catfish, but I learned later that the man-made lake built in 1953 did in fact experience minor tremors caused by water seeping into fissures of the earth beneath the lake.

Click here to read NewSouth Books' blog post about a novel workshop I lead recently in Philadelphia, and to read more about the forthcoming novel.

A "Worldly" Southerner

2010-05-14T08:41:00.000-07:00

I ate dinner the other night in the Memphis Tap Room, a marvelous beer bar and restaurant in my neighborhood known as Fishtown, an old section of Philadelphia that is a long way from the dirt road in Georgia where I grew up. It carries the name Memphis not for any relation to Tennessee, but because it is on Memphis Avenue. They do, however, often have Southern-influenced foods. Their fried okra appetizer was a favorite, although it is no longer on the menu. I ordered the redundantly named "chicken-fried chicken" and it was excellent. I asked the bartender if the owner or chef was a Southerner, or had a Southern connection. He smiled, assured me that no, there were no Southerners there, but that "Our chef is very worldly." I felt pretty special after that.

The Irreplaceable Barry Hannah

2010-03-11T12:21:00.000-08:00

Barry Hannah was not simply a writer whose sentences traveled with brilliance at warp speed -- as many have said eloquently since his death more than week ago -- but he was a kind man who cared deeply about young writers trying to make a go of it. I discovered his work about ten years ago and loved it, and eventually wrote him letters as I considered grad school and later when my novel came out. Unlike so many other lonely missives in the publishing world that go unanswered, he wrote me back with funny, concise and encouraging letters scribbled in pencil. I later had the honor of an essay of mine paired with one of his in The University of Mississippi’s 2006 issue of The Yalobusha Review, both of us paying tribute to the late Larry Brown. Later that summer I got to know Barry a little better when I studied under him in a workshop at the Sewanee Writers Conference at the University of the South, an idyllic place that he described as being “Confederate Liberal.” He was hilarious that way, in person and on the page, unlike anyone else I’ve known. Now that he has passed, the world of writing and creative writing teachers is not the same.

Vic Chesnutt -- Loss of a Brilliant Southern Voice

2009-12-28T07:44:00.000-08:00

I once saw Vic Chesnutt perform in Athens, Ga., at the 40 Watt Club circa 1988 and he introduced one of his pieces this way: "Here's a song about my father's funeral, so drink up!" His lyrics and music often had a dark, piercing humor, combining hardship and hilarity in brilliant lines unlike any songs or poems I know, a literary quality up on the highest level, like a singing Faulkner or O'Connor. His newest album "At the Cut," includes the final song "Granny," which closes with the words: "And she said, 'You are the light of my life, and the beat of my heart.'" It's a perfect poetic line, and an example of the great body of work -- 15 albums in all -- he left behind when he died, only 45, on Christmas day. I saw him perform a number of times and met him once, introduced at a Bob Dylan show by my good friend Mark Williams. Mark knew him well and even played in a band with him for brief while, and has written an excellent tribute to him.

Pine Mountain, Ga., a Getaway for FDR and More

2009-04-17T05:17:00.000-07:00

My profile of Pine Mountain, Ga., home to Callaway Gardens, appeared today in The New York Times, the 10th piece I've had in Times since August 2005 and the third about a location in my home state (the others are Lake Oconee and Helen.)

A Glacial Lake in the Poconos

2009-02-13T06:07:00.000-08:00

I have a profile in The New York Times today of Lake Harmony, Pa., a landscape in the Poconos that was formed when the last of the great continental glaciers, the Wisconsinian, edged up to the area about 15,000 years ago. Now, Lake Harmony's environs are known for skiing, golf, fishing, hiking, and other winter and warm-weather pursuits.

Living Large in L.A. (Lower Alabama, that is)

2008-12-26T08:36:00.000-08:00

I have a profile of the Gulf Shores/Orange Beach area of Alabama in The New York Times today. Click here to read the full story, and also check out the slide show by photographer Cary Jobe.

Bill Tilden's Lonesome Grave

2008-08-12T06:21:00.000-07:00

I have an essay about the 1920s tennis star Bill Tilden and my search for his Philadelphia grave in the September/U.S. Open preview issue of Tennis magazine. The piece is not yet online, but you can find it on page 110 of the magazine now on newstands and being delivered to subscribers. You can find a short piece I wrote about Tilden's serve on a web site devoted to Philadelphia history put together by Moira Moody, a junior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania's Kelly Writers House. And for more of my writing about tennis, check out http://www.topspinblog.com/.

John Casey's River Writing Escape

2008-07-18T04:45:00.001-07:00

I have a story about novelist John Casey's cabin on the Delaware River today in The New York Times. John is one of my favorite novelists. If you haven't read Spartina, you have missed an excellent book. I am eagerly awaiting the sequel. Click here if you want to see my other work in the Times over the past three years.

Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City

2008-06-29T04:25:00.000-07:00

Click here to read my profile of Atlantic City, N.J., in Sunday's Boston Globe.

Topspin Blog on RobbyGinepri.com

2008-06-02T11:00:00.000-07:00

My tennis blog, The Topspin Blog, received a promiment mention on American player Robby Ginepri's web site, right alongside The New York Times and ESPN coverage of his run to the fourth round at the French Open.

A Country Music Memoir Hailing From New Hampshire

2008-06-02T09:20:00.000-07:00

Read my review of Dana Jenning's new book, Sing Me Back Home: Love, Death and Country Music on the Georgia Jukebox. You can also check out a roundtable discussion with Jennings, Carl Hiaasen and others on Titlepage.tv.

Fishing, Fast Cars and Lake Homes

2008-05-22T19:05:00.000-07:00

Click here to see my profile of Logan Martin Lake in the May 23 edition of The New York Times.

Author Bios in The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture

2008-05-15T08:11:00.000-07:00

I have biographical sketches of five writers in the recently published Volume 9: Literature edition of The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture sponsored by the The Center of the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi and published by the University of North Carolina Press. Authors I've profiled are Richard Bausch, Anthony Grooms, Dave Smith, James Wilcox and Tom Wolfe. Click here to see the publisher's web site, or here to find it on Amazon.

Birmingham: Home of the World's Best Philly Cheesesteak

2008-04-30T03:05:00.000-07:00

When I was visiting my brother in Birmingham in early March, he took me to this great little diner he found, the proprietor famous for cheesesteaks. Wayne Salem was such an entertaining character and the food so good that I wrote an article about him that ran in today's Philadelphia Daily News. Click here to read.

A Shank Waiting To Happen: Carl Hiaasen's Golf Game

2008-04-25T08:22:00.000-07:00

I have a Q&A with the great Florida novelist and Miami Herald newspaper columnist Carl Hiaasen about his new golf memoir in the March 3 issue of Publishers Weekly . The interview is not available online, but can be found on page 37 of the magazine. He denies the book is a ruse to hustle opponents on the course, saying: "I'm not an excellent golfer, I'm a schizophrenic golfer. I have occasional flashes of confidence between long periods of disintegration." The Downhill Lie: A Hacker's Return to the Ruinous Sport is due out on May 6. Check out more information about it on his website or Amazon.

Up and In With Spin: The Topspin Blog

2008-04-07T08:04:00.000-07:00

Please click here to visit The Topspin Blog, my new site devoted to covering tennis, specifically focusing on the U.S. Davis Cup team and the U.S. Open.

A Drive-By in the City of Brotherly Love: DBT in Philly, PA

2008-04-01T07:40:00.000-07:00

Click here to read my essay/review about the Drive-By Truckers show in Philly on March 27 on The Georgia Jukebox web site.

Flash Fiction About a Classic Tennis Serve

2008-02-27T17:59:00.000-08:00

I have a flash fiction piece (others might call it a prose poem) about 1920s tennis star Bill Tilden's serve appearing on a web site about Philadelphia history hosted by the University of Pennsylvania's Kelly Writers House. The page, a history scrapbook, is being compiled and edited by Moira Moody.

Click here to read my piece, see video of Tilden's serve and read a short bio of him, or click here to learn more about Moira's site.

The Man in Black: A Review of the Johnny Cash Biography

2008-02-07T12:40:00.000-08:00

I have a review of Johnny Cash: The Biography by Michael Streissguth in the February 2008 issue of The Journal of Popular Culture. The review is not available online without a paid subscription, but click here to see the citation page.

Away Down South: A Book Review

2007-12-03T13:45:00.000-08:00

I have a book review of University of Georgia historian James C. Cobb's Away Down South: A History of Southern Identity in the December issue of The Journal of American Culture. The review is not available online without a paid subscription, but click here to see the citation page.

Tennis, Anyone? Someone? Davis Cup Finals Blog

2007-12-02T10:37:00.000-08:00

Click here to check out my blog covering the 2007 Davis Cup finals between the U.S. and Russia in Portland from Nov. 30-Dec. 2.

A blog for The Oregonian, Portland's newspaper, linked to it, and had this to say: "Joe Samuel Starnes is a Philadelphia-based novelist who's arriving in town today to take in the final. That means you can expect some literate musings on tennis at his temporary blog."

Bavaria in the Blue Ridge

2007-11-23T11:42:00.000-08:00

Click here to read my profile of Helen, Ga., the Alpine-styled town in the North Georgia mountains, that ran in The New York Times on Friday, Nov. 23.

From The Color Purple to Tobacco Road: A Literary Georgia Road Trip

2007-11-11T11:26:00.000-08:00

Click here to read my article in the Washington Post on Sunday, Nov. 11, about my visit to six authors' homes in my home state.

July 4th In The Willie Way

2007-06-29T02:56:00.000-07:00

Click here to read my essay about the legendary Willie Nelson Fourth of July Picnic in the June 29 edition of The New York Times. A slightly abbreviated version ran Monday, July 2, in the Austin American-Statesmen.

Remembering Hank Aaron, Scorning Barry Bonds

2007-06-13T19:49:00.001-07:00

My first baseball memory is of watching the Braves with my grandfather and following Hank Aaron's record-breaking campaign. As Barry Bonds nears his record, I recount those days in an essay published in June in my hometown newswpaper, The Cedartown (Ga.) Standard and the nearby Rome (Ga.) News-Tribune. Click here to get a PDF of the editorial page from the Rome paper that included it, or click here to read the text of the essay posted on my web site.

A Lake Where a River Once Flowed

2007-06-13T19:05:00.000-07:00

Click here to read my article from the May 25 edition of The New York Times about Lake Oconee's history and its booming home market.

CrossRoads Essay: Ignatius Reilly and his Polish Compatriot

2007-06-13T18:54:00.000-07:00

In the 2006 issue of CrossRoads: A Southern Culture Annual published by Mercer University Press, I have an essay comparing the infamous protagonist from John Kennedy Toole's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel A Confederacy of Dunces with Joey Kowalski, the equally eccentric character in Witold Gombrowicz's novel Ferdydurke. It is not published online, but more information about the book is available here.

Hillbillies in...New Jersey?

2007-06-13T18:48:00.000-07:00

Click here to read a March 2006 column from The New York Times about a dubious team nickname.

Poker Night, Panhandling and Good Luck in Newark

2007-06-06T17:09:00.000-07:00

Click here to read a column from The New York Times from August 2005 about a fortuitous encounter in downtown Newark preceding poker night.