His fist novel, Safe at Home, chronicled a fictional southern town in the 1950s experiencing the integration of its minor league baseball team.

Having covered that explosive story in his hometown newspaper, Doster’s sportswriter hero Jack Hall caught the attention of editors in Atlanta and takes a job in the big city just as the Civil Rights movement was beginning to take shape. Thus the story of Doster’s follow- up novel, Crossing the Lines, is set in motion.

Hall and others eventually start a magazine that celebrates all that is great about the South–its literature, its music, its culture– while the region is being understandably ridiculed by the national media during the period for its racial intolerance. Through the journalistic travails, Hall, a man entirely of his times, experiences an evolution in his own race consciousness.

In his Cover to Cover interview, Doster talks about his inspiration for taking on such volatile subject matter and discusses his methods of bringing to fictional life such historical figures as Martin Luther King, Ralph McGill and Flannery O’Connor in his work.

Born and raised in Georgia, Cleland came back from Vietnam missing three limbs and was confined for months at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Doctors didn’t give him much hope of living an active life, but through the bonds he formed with other wounded soldiers, and through his own Southern grit, he learned how to be mobile and overcome his despair. He returned to Georgia and pursued his passion for public service by becoming the first Vietnam veteran to serve in the Georgia state senate. Jimmy Carter appointed him head of the Veterans Administration. Later he became Georgia’s youngest secretary of state and then in 1996 was elected to the U.S. Senate.

But during his reelection campaign he is singled out by Karl Rove and the Republicans, who campaigned against him as “unpatriotic.” He lost the election and sank into deep depression. A long-dormant case of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, awakened after 9/11 by the invasion of Iraq, pushed Cleland to the brink. Forty years after Vietnam, having reached — and fallen from — a pinnacle of power, Cleland returned to Walter Reed as a patient, this time surrounded by veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan. There he found the faith and endurance to regain control of his life.

In a memoir in which he pulls no punches about the costs of being a soldier, Max Cleland describes with love the ties America’s soldiers forge with one another, along with the disillusionment many of them experience when they come home. He spares no one his humiliations and setbacks in this gut-wrenching account of his life in the hope it will keep even one veteran from descending into darkness. Heart of a Patriot is a story about the joy of serving the country you love, no matter the cost — and how to recover from the deepest wounds of war.

The back cover of Sorrow Wood brands the book as a murder mystery, though it reads much more like a congenial love story. Reva and Wendell Blackmon are the principals here, and Reva believes they have been lovers for many, many lifetimes. The book gives us glimpses into many of those lifetimes, taking the longest look at the late 20^th Century edition. Atkins names the muse for this love story in our interview, even after mentioning on air that he is going to be in a load of trouble at home.

Atkins has also been busy lately planning to welcome literary lovers from around the south to his hometown of Rome, GA. Rome is the site of this year’s Georgia Literary Festival. (The folks at the Georgia Center for the Book put this on each year, and it moves around the state.) So please visit Rome for this fun and free event. I can almost promise you that one of your favorite Georgia authors will be there. You can find more details at: http://www.georgiacenterforthebook.org/Georgia-Literary-Festival/index.php.

Like most of my interviews, 30 minutes proved all too short to ask the author everything I was interested in. Some of the ones I posed to Marc Wortman: How does a guy with a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Princeton get interested in Atlanta and the Civil War?

One of the things in his book that most intrigued me was the fact that we now take it for granted that Atlanta is an important city, that it’s the Gateway to the New South, the home of Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, the Atlanta Braves, Home Depot, CNN, Coca-Cola, etc., but the Atlanta he describes wasn’t all that big or seemingly all that important as a city. Wortman writes, “Few people in the North or among Union military officials had heard of Atlanta before the outbreak of the rebellion.” How then did two great armies find themselves in and around Atlanta in the summer of 1864? And why is Atlanta’s fall directly credited with paving the way for Lincoln’s re-election the following November?

A book like this is full of fascinating characters, among them of course William Tecumseh Sherman. He obviously plays a very prominent role in this book, and in fact Wortman gives him the very last word. Even today, his name evokes fierce passions and emotions in Georgia. And yet, when he returned to Atlanta in 1879, Wortman writes that “few people in Atlanta remained ill disposed toward Sherman.” How is that possible? I’m quite certain that wouldn’t be the case now, 145 years later. Last year the Georgia Historical Society had a public program about Sherman, and we received numerous letters and emails from people across Georgia (and the rest of the country) vehemently denouncing him. How was it possible that “few” of the Atlantans who actually lived through Sherman’s siege were so forgiving in 1879?

Finally, with the Civil War’s 150th anniversary fast approaching, there will be commemorative events across the country. One of the questions I like to pose to writers of Civil War history: What do the events in your book still have to teach us in the 21st century?

Again, the setting is the near future wasteland of the U.S., roughly forty years after an environmental disaster brought about by the nation’s consumptive tendencies. The ozone layer has been ripped asunder and the inhabitants of the scorched earth fight for survival in what becomes a morbidly self-serving world. Mat Harrison was the hero of Birmingham, 25 Miles, but he didn’t survive for the sequel.

Instead, for most of Snakeskin, we follow his widow, Jennifer, and her reluctant charge, Mazy, as they try to make their way northward to the city-state of Chicago, where Jennifer’s mother lives and where life may or may not be more manageable. Braziel uses his future world as a canvas upon which to blend the hues of a handful of timely concerns, including human trafficking, the perils of dogmatic religious pursuit, and xenophobia. But chief among his foci is of course our stewardship of our natural resources.

Despite the poignant attention given the subject in each of the novels, I don’t think it really occurred to me until reading Braziel’s Southverve blog how much of a sacred space he gives to the environment in his life and in his writing. So maybe I should just direct you here: www.jamesbraziel.com/press.

But really, I want to direct you to his fine sophomore effort, Snakeskin Road, and to Cover to Cover this Sunday on the GPB Radio network. Remember, we’re on at 6 PM in the Athens area and at 8 PM in most other parts of the state. Please join us. (Oh, and if you’re from Wilcox County, where Braziel grew up, make doubly sure to tune in. During the interview James wondered aloud if anyone there read his books!)

This latest work focuses on a once notorious Kansas City murder case. But, with the attorney for the defense being one-time presidential candidate Jim Reed, and the killing having taken place after a game of Bridge, a craze that would captivate the country during the ensuing decade of the Great Depression–thanks in large part to a larger-than-life impressario named Ely Culbertson, Pomerantz’s tale is truly a panorama of the era, full of wonderfully colorful characters, significant historic detail and astute social commentary.

Like in his writing, Pomerantz in conversation is brimming with energy and finds intrigue and excitement in whatever subject he immerses himself. He is the sort of fellow with whom you could talk for hours. Alas, Cover to Cover only last 30 minutes. For a little more of Pomerantz, however, he will speak about his book at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library in Atlanta on Thursday, September 24 at 7 p.m.

Despite his immense popularity, Conroy is as affable and self-effacing as any interview subject I’ve had the pleasure of hosting on Cover to Cover.

Deadpanning that his popularity was based on how “shallow” his stories are but also claiming that his editor, Nan Talese, destroys the magnificent 1000-page manuscripts he turns in (”she writes the checks”), Conroy understands the kind of writer he is–and how he connects with his audience–and the kind of writer he is not.

South of Broad is, as most Conroy novels are, many books in one. Primarily Conroy describes it as a “love letter” to Charleston, South Carolina. In the novel, though, Conroy takes his characters out to another favorite city of his–San Francisco–where the focus is the early years of the AIDS epidemic, which Conroy experienced first-hand. Another theme of the book is the power and workings of life-long friendships, and of course, he writes of dysfunctional families, abuse, mental illness, racial and class injustice and, the meaning of being Southern.

Ultimately, though, fans of Conroy cherish his books for his incomparable prose style, which he still renders in long-hand, and which, as he discusses in the interview, he plans to put to work next in a book focused on his long-time home of Atlanta.

And, he’s pledging to try and finish that sooner than 14 more years.

His other novels, both highly acclaimed - The Caveman’s Valentine (1994) which won an Edgar Award and The Juror (1995) were both made into major motion pictures.

When Green isn’t writing he is bringing The Moth coast to coast and across the ocean. The story-telling not-for-profit group has become a -not to be missed- sensation.

Martin and Irene discover they have a logic-defying connection: a small tribal tattoo on their left hands that means equal but opposite. This is same tattoo that Martin’s lover and Irene’s husband had inked into their skin. All the characters’ lives are irrevocably changed in a horrifying terrorist attack on a Paris metro station. Liberated by the blast, forced from her own self-imprisonment, Irene learns her husband’s death was not an accident, and dares Martin to acknowledge the role he played in Peter’s suicide.

Diane, harboring her own secrets and a hidden agenda, takes a drastic step to force David out of the closet and admit his feelings for Martin. From America to England to France, the globe-hopping story places fictional characters amidst historical events such as the Nazi occupation of Paris, the student/worker riots of 1968 and the terrorist bombings of Paris in 1995. Grounded in reality, Conquering Venus is a mystery, a love story and a journey of self-realization.

Collin is also author of three poetry collections, After the Poison, Slow To Burn and Better To Travel. Kelley, a Georgia Author of the Year Award-winner and Pushcart Prize nominee, is also co-editor of the Java Monkey Speaks Poetry Anthology series from Poetry Atlanta Press.

Karen dedicates the book to her maternal grandmother, Grace Bianca, inspired by her stories and the stories of others who passed through her grandmother’s house.

Karen’s work has appeared on the South East Independent Booksellers best sellers list. Her novel Learning to Breathe received several honors, including the National Reader’s Choice Award.

Michael Malone might not be the best known of the South’s many prolific novelists of the last 30 years, but with novels like Handling Sin, Dingley Falls and a number of others, he has established a base of loyal fans who love his work for its variety, humor, colorful characters and warm humanity.

All of these qualities came through in the man himself as we discussed his latest novel, The Four Corners of the Sky, the story of a navy pilot, inspired by Malone’s own daughter’s fleeting interest in such a career. In his rendering, the story is overlayed with plot-lines and themes that make it a romance, a mystery, a family saga, a quest novel and an homage to one of Malone’s enduring passions: the movies.

A native of North Carolina, Malone has spent most of his life in other parts of the country, but is now back in the Durham area, where his wife, a Renaissance scholar, is head of the Duke University English Department.

There, he is part of a community of writers that includes Reynolds Price, Lee Smith and Alan Gurganus, and Malone shared stories about them, and his thoughts about the distinctiveness of the South and its storytellers.

Coleman Barks is one of the most popular literary figures to emerge from the South in recent decades. In person, he is gentle and accommodating, not at all fearsome until he draws himself up to recite a poem. Then everything gets extra real in the manner of 800 BC. The great seductive power of his voice—fully evident in the interview this Sunday, August 9—seems to put the listener in touch with the time when language first began to express complex psychological states.

Coleman has achieved an international profile as an interpreter of Rumi; his many translations of the Sufi poet have sold over a half-million copies worldwide. He has written a half-dozen books of his own poetry, selections of which have recently been published under the title Winter Sky by the University of Georgia Press. He runs Maypop Books, a publishing company based in Athens, Georgia. He’s taken part in two hour-long PBS specials with Bill Moyers.

Coleman has appeared on an astonishing variety of recordings, reciting his own poetry and Rumi’s against backgrounds of mandolins and oboes from the West, sitars and tablas from the East. 2008 marked the release of The Here and The Gone, his third collaboration with Tuatara, the world music combo featuring Peter Buck of R.E.M. A variety of these songs can be heard throughout this hour-long interview.

In 2006, Coleman Barks received an Honorary Doctorate in Persian Language and Literature from the University of Tehran. He taught at the University of Georgia for 30 years and has since retired as Professor Emeritus.

For those of you who may not know, Paul Hemphill lost his battle with cancer Saturday. Though I understand a bit about what he has meant to our Southern culture, I never had the pleasure of meeting Hemphill, so I think writing about him is best left to one who knew him well and admired him greatly. Frank Reiss posted this reflection on Hemphill’s passing over at his bookstore blog, and I’ve re-posted here for our readers:

I have written one fan letter in my life, and it was to Paul Hemphill, who died this morning at age 73 after battling cancer for the last couple of years.

It was 1989, and I had just moved back to my hometown of Atlanta with plans of opening a bookstore after years of managing one in San Francisco. Right before leaving the Bay Area, I stumbled upon a copy of Hemphill’s first novel, Long Gone, and being an avid baseball fan, I was drawn to its subject — the lowest of the low minor leagues, and going through a somewhat turbulent departure from San Francisco, I was comforted by the book’s great humor.

Reading the author bio on the book’s jacket, I immediately recognized Hemphill’s first title, The Nashville Sound, and also being a fan of country music, I grabbed the first copy of that one I could find, too.

Before packing up my truck and heading home, though, I discovered Too Old to Cry, a collection of Hemphill’s newspaper columns and other journalism–including some during his own ill-fated stint in San Francisco, and at that point, I knew I had found a writer who spoke to me as few others ever had or ever would.

Hemphill was a native Southerner who loved so much about his culture that he was secure in pointing out its obvious defects. He was a natural journalist, whose writing embodied all the economy and simplicity of that world, but whose desire was to be more than that, to be a “real” writer, of books, at a time when those seemed to be things of permanence.

One of the first things I did when I got back to Atlanta, before buying inventory, before leasing a storefront, before coming up with a name, before writing a business plan (come to think of it, I still haven’t written a business plan), was to write a fan letter to Paul Hemphill.

I can’t remember exactly what I told him in that letter, other than to say how much his work had inspired me at a time in my life when I was dealing with my essential identity as a Southerner despite most of the previous decade on the West Coast seeing if I could perhaps be something else.

Not long after I opened A Cappella in the cold of that winter, a skinny man in a fur-lined coat stepped inside my door and said, a la Johnny Cash, “I’m Paul Hemphill.”

I tingled with excitement and with a shaky voice showed him around my tiny new store, paying special attention to the first editions of all of his books that I showcased near the front.

I remained too in awe of Hemphill to ever even feel comfortable calling him “Paul,” but over the years, we spent a good deal of time together, and in one of the career moves I take most pride in, I republished that first book, The Nashville Sound , to coincide with the publication of his great Hank Williams biography, Lovesick Blues, in 2005.

I have saved the email from when he agreed to let me do it, both because, like I say, it was a proud moment for me but also because its subject line is such a perfect example of Hemphill concision. It reads simply: “Let’s Do Nashville.”

Like most of my business endeavors–and most of his–the Nashville reprint was only a modest success. But, in our world, where Hank Williams always works as a soundtrack and failing to get a hit 7 out of 10 times at bat is as good as it gets–we were inspired enough by its performance to reprint the only remaining of his titles to, at that point, be out of print: Mayor: Notes on the Sixties, which he authored with Ivan Allen, Jr.

Soon, however, I received another classic Hemphill email:

“My life’s on hold these days. Docs found cancer in my throat. Seems curable, and without too much pain. Excellent people on the case at Piedmont and Emory. No need to fret. Might be clear in couple of months.”

That was two and a half years ago. By early this year, it was clear that he wouldn’t be clear, and that Mayor would have to wait. Like everyone who knew the man, I’ve been prepared for this day for a while. I doesn’t make the loss any less great.

It is possible to make too great a claim for Paul Hemphill’s writing. It had its limits. It could be repetitious. But for anyone who ever fell under the sway of his words and his work, it was pure inspiration. Here was a man who did what he did, and did it damn well. It didn’t make his life easy. But it made his city and his world a better place.

I am so grateful for the life and the example of Paul Hemphill.

Handler grew up in Atlanta’s Morningside neighborhood in the 1960s and 1970s, the oldest of three daughters. Both of her sisters died of rare blood diseases, leaving Handler with the legacy of a decimated family, memories of a fleetingly idyllic youth and imaginings of what life might have been like had such tragedy not befallen them.

One of her coping mechanisms has been keeping detailed journals throughout her life, and these have enabled Handler to capture her family’s experience in rich and intimate detail. The memoir also serves as a portrait of the Atlanta during some of its most volatile years (she attended Dr. Martin Luther King’s funeral) and her present life: married, childless by choice, and an instructor of creative writing.

In its graceful handling of such emotionally raw material, Invisible Sisters stands as terrific instruction itself on the art of writing. And in conversation Handler reveals herself to be good-humored and wizened by her act of rendering her life into art.

Nearly a year after the triumphant release of his lauded fourth novel we are excited to present an in-depth interview with Ron Rash. Serena (Ecco/Harper Collins) is Rash’s period piece that is just as much a place piece, this period and place being Appalachia during the Great Depression. Rash is the Pariss Distinguished Professor in Appalachian Cultural Studies at Western Carolina University, and if that moniker doesn’t signal his grasp of the region strongly enough the first few pages of Serena will.

Now, the literary gadfly takes center stage with his debut novel, Valeria’s Last Stand. The book is the lead fiction title in this season’s catalogue from the esteemed literary publisher Bloomsbury. Set in post-Soviet Hungary, where Fitten spent several years in the 1990s, it is at once a love triangle (featuring characters of very advanced age) and a meditation on the changes wrought by the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Early reviews of Valeria’s Last Stand have dubbed it “subtle and brilliant” and “a beautiful debut” and the lead character “every bit as sensual and irrepressible as Chaucer’s Wife of Bath.”

Before embarking on an international book tour, Fitten discussed with Cover to Cover his literary inspirations and aspirations.

I’ve been reporting on Martin Melaver’s career since shortly after I came to Savannah in 1998. A developer, Melaver made news by undertaking one of the nation’s first historic renovations to LEED standards. And if you don’t know what those standards are, they basically govern everything about the building process for properties that want to be certified as “environmentally friendly.” I interviewed him again when he developed a pioneering suburban strip mall to LEED standards. Now he’s involved in an “environmentally friendly” public housing project and has written a book about his journey in business. “Living Above the Store: Building a Business That Creates Value, Inspires Change and Restores Land and Community” is really a management handbook. In this interview, he also touches on hard questions that go to the core of two of our biggest global problems — the recession and climate change — and proves why he is considered a leading thinker in Savannah’s sustainability movement.