Athens, Ga. – Readings by fiction writer George Singleton and poet Ed Pavlic will highlight The Georgia Review’s issue-release party at Tasty World on Thursday, Jan.18, from 6-9 p.m. Refreshments will be served, and the readings will begin at 7:30.
In celebration of The Georgia Review’s 60th anniversary, the special Fall/Winter 2006 double issue features unpublished correspondence from the archives of the journal’s first thirty years (1947-76), plus new fiction, poetry, essays, reviews and art.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has called George Singleton “The unchallenged king of the comic Southern short story,” and North Carolina’s Fred Chappell calls him “Funny and funky, trendy and counter-trendy, wild and accurate.” Of his latest short fiction collection, Drowning in Gruel, Paste magazine says, “George Singleton … is fast becoming the literary laureate of downtrodden, over-educated, heartsick southerners. Drowning in Gruel is yet another smart, goofy … brilliant take on big dreamers who settle marvelously below expectations.”
The Georgia Review was one of the first to recognize Singleton’s talents, publishing his “Welcome Homeless” in 1989 and subsequently bringing out a number of his other stories, most recently “Which Rocks We Choose” in summer 2006. The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, Playboy, and The Southern Review are among the many other magazines that have since brought out his work.
Singleton’s earlier story collections are These People Are Us (2001), The Half-Mammals of Dixie (2002), and Why Dogs Chase Cars (2004). Harcourt published his first novel (titled Novel) in 2005 and will bring out his second, Workshirts for Madmen, later this year. Singleton lives in Easley, South Carolina, and teaches at the Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities.
Ed Pavlic, who will open for Singleton, is the director of the creative writing program at the University of Georgia. His latest book of poems, Labors Lost Left Unfinished, has just been released by Sheep Meadow Press. He is also the author of another poetry collection Paraph of Bone & Other Kinds of Blue (2001), and of a critical book, Crossroads Modernism: Descent and Emergence in African American Literary Culture (2002). His interests include international modernism, contemporary American poetry, and African-American literature and culture. Much of his work has to do with the importance of music in the literary world.
For more information, please see www.uga.edu/garev/.
