Athens, Ga. – Author and University of Georgia adjunct faculty member in creative writing Philip Lee Williams will read from his new novel, A Distant Flame (St. Martin’s Press, 2004), on Thursday, Nov. 18, at 4 p.m. in room 261 of Park Hall. The reading is sponsored by UGA’s Creative Writing Program and is free and open to the public.
A Distant Flame has received praise from all quarters. Thomas G. Dyer, UGA history professor and author of Secret Yankees: the Union Circle in Confederate Atlanta, said the novel “is a story of the Atlanta campaign and life on the home front in Civil War Georgia. It is also much more. It blends scrupulously researched history with powerful narrative to product a compelling, multidimensional story of one man’s life as shaped by the Civil War over a span of fifty years. It is a story of war, love and community in a small north Georgia town, brilliantly told, full of insights into the complex impact of the Civil War on everyday southerners.”
Kirkus Reviews has said Williams’ novel contains “authoritative, vividly rendered battle scenes,” and Robert Krick, author of Stonewall Jackson at Cedar Mountain and Conquering the Valley, said Williams “has crafted a powerful work that surely will become a classic of Civil War fiction. His fascinating characters perform on a deftly constructed historical stage. A Distant Flame is a superb book.”
Williams has published poetry, fiction and essays in more than 40 magazines and his work has been reprinted in several anthologies. In addition he has sold a screenplay to MGM and has written and co-produced three television documentaries, all of which aired multiple times on Georgia Public Television. His documentaries have also won many awards, including honors from the New York Film Festival and the Columbus (Ohio) Film Festival. Among his other awards are the Townsend Prize for Fiction and Georgia Author of the Year in Fiction.
