Hargrett Rare Book & Manuscript Library

The 2018 Georgia Writers Hall of Fame events will begin Nov. 4 with a panel discussion of a new book on the late novelist Pat Conroy.

Published by the University of Georgia Press, Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy is a collection of stories from fellow writers he nurtured, including Grammy winners, National Book Award winners, James Beard Foundation winners and New York Times best-sellers, along with a cadre of friends and family members. At 3 p.m. contributors Terry Kay, Cynthia Graubart, and Cliff Graubart will participate in the discussion moderated by the book's editor Jonathan Haupt.

Conroy was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame in 2004.

Pulitzer-prize winner Hank Klibanoff is the featured speaker Sept. 25 at the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Lillian Smith Book Awards.

This celebration will commemorate a half-century tradition, currently a collaboration of the Southern Regional Council, the University of Georgia Libraries, Piedmont college, and the Georgia Center for the Book, of recognizing authors whose books represent outstanding achievements demonstrating through high literary merit and moral vision an honest representation of the South, its people, its problems, and its promise.

The program, open free to the public, begins at 6:30 p.m. at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta. A reception will follow.

The 2018 Lillian Smith Book Awards were presented Sunday, Sept. 2, to James Forman Jr and Nancy MacLean at the Decatur Book Festival. 

Forman’s Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America examines how mass incarceration, which affects people of color disproportionately, stems from the war on crime that began in the 1970s and was supported by many African American leaders in the nation’s urban centers. He is shown being congratulated by UGA University Librarian Toby Graham, right. 

Lee Karen Stow, a UK documentary photographer, will speak on her "Poppies" project Nov. 12 at 6 pm at the Russell Special Collections Libraries.

“Poppies: Women, War, Peace” remembers women in times of war, from the First World War to the present day. It combines a portrait series of women whose lives have been affected by war with a botanical series of the red ‘Flanders Fields’ poppy. For the red poppy, despite its delicate appearance, is able to generate new life when everything else has been destroyed.

A reception will follow Stow's talk. The exhibit will be on display through Dec. 14.

Athens, Ga. -- As players and fans prepare for the start of a new football season, the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library invites them to look back at seasons past in the new exhibit “Fighting Spirit: Wally Butts and UGA Football, 1939-1950.” Opening Friday, Aug. 31 in the Rotunda Gallery of the Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries, the display will explore the team during the tumultuous years surrounding World War II.

World War I (1914-1918) was different than any previous war. It was a total war that required all members of the nation to be involved in the war effort. All of the resources of the state were mobilized for war. Ultimately, 65,000,000 soldiers from 30 countries fought in World War I and tens of millions citizens across the world would be involved in the conflict one way or another.

James Forman, Yale law professor, and Nancy MacLean, history professor at Duke University, are the 2018 recipients of the Lillian Smith Book Awards.

The Southern Regional Council established the Lillian Smith award after Smith's 1966 death. Internationally acclaimed as author of the controversial novel, Strange Fruit (1944), Lillian Smith was the most outspoken of white, mid-20th century Southern writers on issues of social and racial injustice. Today the University of Georgia, the Georgia Center for the Book and Piedmont College join the SRC in presenting the awards. http://www.libs.uga.edu/hargrett/lilliansmith/index.html

“Poppies: Women, War, Peace” will open at the Hargrett Gallery of the University of Georgia Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries June 18.

Part of the observance to mark the centennial end of the First World War, the exhibit also pays homage to Moïna Belle Michael, originally from Monroe, who was instrumental in ensuring the red poppy flower became a symbol to remember the victims and veterans of war. Michael was inspired in her quest by the war poem ‘In Flanders Field’ written by Lieutenant Colonel John Alexander McCrae in 1915.

Friday evening, Irish poet Paul Muldoon will give a free public reading and musical performance at the 40 Watt Club to close the year-long 30th anniversary celebration of the UGA Willson Center for Humanities and Arts.



Earlier in the day, the Hargrett Library will host a display of books of poetry from its private press collection including Encheiresin Naturae, an edition of Paul Muldoon’s crown of sonnets written to accompany the wood engravings by Barry Moser.

This one-day exhibit June 2 will highlight some of the more fragile and rare items held by the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Some of the items include: Babylonian clay tablets, 17th-century Persian manuscript of the Mathnawi, Reed Creek collection of Dahlonega gold coins, original Constitution of the Confederate States of America, list of Georgia settlers recorded by the Trustees for Establishing the Colony, and a 1489 edition of St. Augustine's De civitate dei.

The materials will be in the Hargrett Galleries 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Also, enjoy a “sneak-peek” of the upcoming exhibitions War of Words a look at propaganda posters from the First World War.

Parking is available in the Hull Street Deck.