Tonight in Decatur: preserving Georgia's waterways

The second of three programs, part of the Decatur Arts Festival, brings an author with special interest in the Georgia outdoors tonight at 7:15 pm to the Decatur Library. 

Joe Cook is the executive director of the Coosa River Basin Initiative and coordinator of Georgia River Network’s Paddle Georgia Event. His new book, Etowah River User’s Guide, is a helpful and handy look at the biologically diverse and beautiful Etowah River in North Georgia. Printed on waterproof paper by the University of Georgia Press, the book offers a fascinating history of the area and information valuable for novice or experienced paddlers as well as fishermen. It also will help explorers understand the threats facing the river and what steps can be taken to protect it for future generations.

The Etowah River is a 164-mile-long waterway that rises northwest of Dahlonega, Georgia, north of Atlanta. Its name is the Cherokee version of the original Muskogee word Etalwa, which means a "trail crossing". On Matthew Carey's 1795 map the river was labeled "High Town River". On later maps, such as the 1839 Cass County map, it was referred to as "Hightower River", a name that was used in most early Cherokee records. The U.S. Board on Geographic Names officially named the river in 1897.

The Etowah even has a place in country music. The "Et-ee-waw" is home to country singer/songwriter Jerry Reed's fictional character "Ko-Ko Joe," the 'Etowah River Swamp Rat.' In the 1971 song, Joe lives off 'monkey meat and mashed potatoes,' and enjoyed a brew called 'Mojo Claw,' that he brewed from 'old dead stumps on the banks of the Etowah.' In the song, the Etowah River floods, and the despised-by-the-townspeople Ko-Ko Joe saves a child that was swept away in the flood, providing the moral to the story 'be careful what you say my friends / about folks you don't understand.'

For more information about tonight's event visit the Georgia Center for the Book website.

Townsend Award fiction nominees announced

The Townsend Award for Fiction is a major Georgia literary prize that began back in 1981, named in honor of Jim Townsend, the founder of Atlanta magazine. Townsend, who died unexpectedly at 48 in 1981, created the magazine in 1961 and over the course of two decades served as an inspiration to a number of aspiring authors. Today the Townsend Prize is administered by Georgia Perimeter College, the Georgia Center for the Book, the Margaret Mitchell House, and the Atlanta Writer's Club.

This background, of course, matters not nearly as much as the award itself and the writers who have been chosen to receive it over the years. They include a group with many familiar names to readers: Alice Walker, Terry Kay, Philip Lee Williams, Mary Hood, Ha Jin, Ferrol Sams, and others. It’s a significant award by any name, however, and the ten nominees for this year have just been named. They are, in alphabetical order:

Daniel Black, Perfect Peace

Lynn Cullen, Reign of Madness

Ann Hite, Ghost on Black Mountain

Joshilyn Jackson, Backseat Saints

Collin Kelley, Remain in Light

Thomas Mullen for The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers

Andrew Plattner, A Marriage of Convenience

Josh Russell, My Bright Midnight

Joseph Skibell, A Curable Romantic

Amanda Kyle Williams, The Stranger You Seek

Townsend would appreciate the variety of stories nominated in his honor. In an early column for the Atlanta Journal and Constitution he described himself as a writer who was ''an old con who has heard just about every story a man ever believed, and had believed every one of them himself.''

A full list of previous winners is available here.

The winner of the award, which is given every other year, will be announced at a reception on the evening of April 26 at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. The Center for the Book and the Southern Academy of Literary arts at GPC have chosen a panel of three out-of-state judges who will make a decision among the ten nominees. The award evening keynote speaker will be the prize-winning novelist Ann Beattie.

"A School for My Village:" author and activist Twesigye Kaguri tonight at Oglethorpe University

Tonight the Georgia Center for the Book presents an appearance by Twesigye Kaguri, whose Nyaka AIDS Orphan Project assists Ugandan children who have lost one or both parents to HIV/AIDS. In the past several decades he has been involved extensively in international community efforts as a human rights advocate, and in 2001, Kaguri founded The Nyaka AIDS Orphans Project in response to the devastating effects of AIDS in his hometown.

The organization, which recently celebrated its tenth anniversary, provides free education in two schools. It also operates a library, desire farm and nutrition program, medical clinic, clean water system, and a support program for the grandmothers who care for up to 14 children at a time.

In his book A School for My Village he shares how he came to build the first school and the struggles he faced during the first few years. Mr. Kaguri came to the U.S. in 1995 as a visiting scholar studying Human Rights Advocacy at Columbia University in New York. Since that time he has been involved extensively in international community efforts as a Programs Assistant for People's Decade for Human Rights Education (PDHRE International, New York) and as a volunteer for various nonprofit organizations.

Twesigye Jackson Kaguri

Last year, he resigned as Interim Senior Director of Development in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at Michigan State University to focus full-time on The Nyaka AIDS Orphans Project. Kaguri has been named a Heifer International Hero, recognized in Time Magazine’s ‘Power of One’ Series, and spoken to the UN about his work.

Kaguri's appearance is being held at 7 p.m. in the Oglethorpe University Museum of Art, at 4484 Peachtree Road. For further information visit the Georgia Center for the Book website.