The Fayette (Alabama) Arts Council, along with community sponsors, welcome celebrated author Rick Bragg to the Fayette Civic Center, 534 Temple Ave. N., for a book signing and speaking event Aug. 16.
Appetizers, catered by Missy’s Taste of Home, will be served at 5:30 p.m. Bragg is scheduled to speak at 7 p.m. Afterward, he will be available to sign books. Tickets are $15 and may be purchased at the Fayette Civic Center, The Citizens Bank in Fayette, or online at eventbrite.com. Alabama Booksmith from Homewood, Alabama, will have the author’s books for sale in the Civic Center lobby beginning at 5:30 p.m.
The “shoutin'” begins
Bragg learned to tell stories by listening to his family and the people of the Appalachian foothills. The stories he heard, of deprivation, sacrifice, love, violence and family, form the backbone of his three memoirs, the critically-acclaimed and best-selling “All Over But The Shoutin’,” “Ava’s Man,” and “The Prince of Frogtown,” and his most recent work, “The Most They Ever Had.”
Bragg was born and raised in the country outside Jacksonville, Alabama, and, after a brief but influential stint at Jacksonville State University, worked at several newspapers from The Jacksonville News to The New York Times. He covered stories such as the murder and unrest in Haiti, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Jonesboro killings, the Susan Smith trial, and the tensions in Pakistan following 9/11.
In 1992, Bragg was awarded a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing in 1996 while at The New York Times for his elegantly-written stories about contemporary America.
He has received the Harper Lee Award, the Clarence Cason Award, the James Beard Award, the American Society of Newspaper Editors Distinguished Writing Award, and more than 50 other writing awards. He is a contributing editor at Southern Living and writes about his native South for several other publications. He is the Clarence Cason Professor of Writing in the College of Communications and Information Sciences at The University of Alabama.
The event is sponsored by The Fayette Arts Council and supporters including Citizens Bank of Fayette, Fayette Art Museum, Dal-Tile, Alabama Power Foundation, Reese Phifer Jr., Memorial Foundation, West Alabama Development, Bolling Pharmacy, Bolling Plastic Surgery, Mike Freeman Chevrolet, VCI Wire Die, Missy’s Taste of Home, Dr. Bruce A. Perry and staff, Golden Eagle Syrup, West, Alabama TV Cable Company Inc., Sign Designs, Sassy Lass Boutique, Fred’s Pharmacy, and The Columbus Street Inn.
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