Tag Archives: Butler Center Books

CALS seeking public input as part of strategic planning process

Posted on by

The Central Arkansas Library System is going through a strategic-planning process.  As part of that, they are asking people to take a few minutes to fill out a survey.

It does not take long.

There is no capturing of email or phone number at the end which will end up putting you on a list to be barraged with offers.

It helps the Central Arkansas Library System and all of its programs such as the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, Arkansas Sounds, Arkansas Literary Festival, and the list goes on.

Here is the link.

And then there were Two – Finalists for next CALS Director announced

Posted on by

calsThe Transition/Selection Committee of the Central Arkansas Library System (CALS) has recommended the CALS Board of Trustees consider two candidates, Nate Coulter and Haley Lagasse, both of Little Rock, as the final candidates for the position of director.

The next director will succeed longtime director Dr. Bobby Roberts.

There will be a reception in mid-November open to anyone interested in meeting the finalists. An announcement of the new director will be made following the Board of Trustees meeting on Thursday, December 10, at noon at Hillcrest Hall, 1501 Kavanaugh Blvd.

Creative Class of 2015: Jay Jennings

Posted on by

jennings_jayAuthor, raconteur, and music aficionado Jay Jennings contributes to Little Rock’s cultural life in a variety of ways as a participant and promoter. He may well know more about author Charles Portis, than the author himself.  When not traveling to discuss or create good literature, he is often found at various Little Rock music venues.

Jennings is a freelance writer whose journalism, book reviews and humor have appeared in many national magazines and newspapers, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Oxford American, and Travel & Leisure. He is a regular contributor to the New York Times Book Review and the San Francisco Chronicle, and is a past chair of the Arkansas Literary Festival.

He began his writing career as a reporter at Sports Illustrated, where he covered college football and basketball, followed by four years as the features editor at Tennis magazine. While at the latter, he edited an anthology of short stories and poetry, Tennis and the Meaning of Life: A Literary Anthology of the Game(Breakaway Books, 1999), which the New Yorker called “a delight—and perhaps a surprise—to those who know and care about literature.” His work has been recognized by The Best American Sports Writing annual and has appeared in the humor anthology Mirth of a Nation: The Best Contemporary Humor. He is a two-time MacDowell Colony fellow in fiction and was awarded a grant in 2008 from the Arkansas Arts Council for a novel-in-progress. Most recently, he edited a collection of Charles Portis’s work, Escape Velocity: A Charles Portis Miscellany, which was published in 2012 by Butler Center Books and in paperback in 2013 by Overlook Press.

Carry the Rock: Race, Football and the Soul of an American City was his first book and was named a 2010 Okra Pick by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance.

Two authors feted at tonight’s CALS “A Prized Evening”

Posted on by

prized_eveningTwo Arkansas authors, Guy Lancaster and Davis McCombs, will be honored at A Prized Evening, the annual awarding of the Worthen and Porter Literary Prizes, on Thursday, October 1, at 6 p.m. in the Central Arkansas Library System’s (CALS) Main Library’s Darragh Center, 100 Rock Street. A book signing and reception will follow the presentation, which is free and open to the public.

Reservations are appreciated, but not required. RSVP to kchagnon@cals.org or 501-918-3033.

The Booker Worthen Literary Prize will be awarded to Guy Lancaster, editor of the online Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture at the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, for his book Racial Cleansing in Arkansas, 1883-1924: Politics, Land, Labor, and Criminality. Lancaster, a native of Jonesboro, holds a Ph.D. in Heritage Studies from Arkansas State University and currently serves as the creative materials editor of the Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies. He edited Arkansas in Ink: Ghosts, Gunslingers, and Other Graphic Tales (illustrated by Ron Wolfe) and, with Mike Polston, co-edited To Can the Kaiser: Arkansas and the Great War, both published by Butler Center Books.

Davis McCombs, director of Creative Writing and Translation at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, will receive the Porter Fund Literary Prize in recognition of his substantial and impressive body of work. McCombs has published two volumes of poetry, which have won numerous awards, and his work has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, American Poetry Review, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, and many other publications.

The Worthen Prize was established by the Central Arkansas Library System (CALS) in 1999 in memory of William Booker Worthen, a longtime supporter of the public library and a twenty-two-year member of CALS Board of Trustees. It is presented annually for the best work by an author or editor living in the CALS service area. The Porter Fund was established in 1985 by Jack Butler and Phillip McMath in honor of Dr. Ben Drew Kimpel, who requested the prize be named for his mother, Gladys Crane Kimpel Porter.

“We Wanna Boogie” at Legacies & Lunch Today

Posted on by

we_wanna_boogieRockabilly great Sonny Burgess, of Newport, Arkansas, and his band the Legendary Pacers are the topic of We Wanna Boogie, a new release from Butler Center Books by Marvin Schwartz, who will speak at Legacies & Lunch, the Butler Center’s monthly lecture series, on Wednesday, September 3, at noon in the Main Library’s Darragh Center, 100 Rock Street. Books will be available for purchase; Schwartz, Burgess, and band members Jim Aldridge, Fred Douglas, Bobby Crafford, and Kern Kennedy will sign copies after the talk.

In We Wanna Boogie, Burgess and his band members tell of their original recordings for Sun Records in the 1950s and their shows with Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and others. Burgess, whose music evolved in the Silver Moon and other clubs around the Arkansas delta, has influenced rock and roll music internationally and has led the contemporary rockabilly revival in the U.S. and overseas. The book also tells the history of a once prominent and high spirited delta community of extensive agricultural wealth. Newport was home to numerous music clubs, which often housed both performances by national artists and illicit back-room gambling.

Legacies & Lunch is free, open to the public, and sponsored in part by the Arkansas Humanities Council. Attendees may bring a sack lunch; drinks and dessert are provided. For more information, contact 501-918-3033.

Charlotte Schexnayder Brings Salt to Legacies & Lunch

Posted on by

legaciesschexnayderCharlotte Tillar Schexnayder has been called a “salty old editor,” and she is indeed worth her salt. She will be interviewed about her life and work in the Arkansas Delta by David Stricklin, manager of the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, at Legacies & Lunch on Wednesday, April 2, at noon in the Main Library’s Darragh Center, 100 Rock Street.

Schexnayder has been an influential voice in the life and politics of the Delta, a member of the Arkansas House of Representatives, and a pioneer among women in the professions of politics and journalism. She and her husband, Melvin, owned the Dumas Clarion newspaper for many years. Schexnayder has served as president of every professional journalism organization she has joined, including the National Federation of Press Women and the National Newspaper Association, and she was the first female president of the Dumas Chamber of Commerce.

Copies of her memoir, Salty Old Editor, published by Butler Center Books in 2012, will be available for sale at the program or may be purchased from River Market Books & Gifts, 120 River Market Avenue, or online at http://www.uapress.com. Schexnayder will sign books after her program.

Legacies & Lunch is free, open to the public, and supported in part by the Arkansas Humanities Council. Programs are held from noon-1 p.m. on the first Wednesday of each month. Attendees are invited to bring a sack lunch; drinks and dessert are provided. For more information, contact 918-3033.

Encyclopedia of Arkansas Music launched tonight

Posted on by
butler-welkyWhat do a rockabilly musician turned cinematic swamp monster, an instrument that lent its name to a weapon, and the creator of Schoolhouse Rock! have in common? They all come from Arkansas. The Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, a department of the Central Arkansas Library System (CALS), will host a cocktail party to celebrate the release of the Encyclopedia of Arkansas Music, a new Butler Center Book, on Thursday, September 19, at 5:30 p.m. in the Main Library’s Darragh Center, 100 Rock Street. Reservations are appreciated, but not required. To RSVP, email kchagnon@cals.org or call 918-3033.
The Encyclopedia of Arkansas Music is a special project of the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture (EOA), an online encyclopedia launched in 2006 by the Butler Center. This colorful, photo-filled reference work spanning all aspects of Arkansas’s musical past and present includes more than 150 entries on musicians, ensembles, musical works, and events.
Also included is a musical map of Arkansas showing important musical sites-both defunct and still in existence-including the Rock ‘n’ Roll Highway. Covering the genres of blues/R&B, classical/opera, country, folk, gospel/contemporary Christian, jazz, rock, and rockabilly, this encyclopedia has something to interest any lover of Arkansas music and Arkansas history-as the state’s past, present, and future are tied to its music.
The Encyclopedia of Arkansas Music is available at River Market Books & Gifts, 120 River Market Ave., and from the University of Arkansas Press, Butler Center Books’ distributor, www.uapress.com. Butler Center Books is a division of the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies. The Butler Center’s research collections, art galleries, and offices are located in the Arkansas Studies Institute building at 401 President Clinton Ave. on the campus of the CALS Main Library. For more information, contact Rod Lorenzen at (501) 320-5716 or rlorenzen@cals.org.