Check this out. From February 27-March 3 the Association of Writers and Writing Programs are having their annual meeting in Atlanta for the first time. (For reasons known only to them, they’ve decided to go with the acronym AWP).

AWP Atlanta Logo

The guys at Wordsmith’s are planning a literary shindig to coincide with the conference. The pahr-tay begins with “a collection of some of Brooklyn’s most groundbreaking independent publishers, as they bring their cutting-edge authors to Decatur to discuss books, writing, the ins-and-outs of small press, and to party with the locals.” The authors reading at the event will include, Kwame Dawes, Jillian Weise, Aaron Petrovich, Alex Lemon, and Keith Lee Morriss. The reading/discussion will take place at the Decatur Library at 7PM on March 1.  Afterwards, party with the Brooklyn-ese at a nearby watering hole whose location is being finalized. There is some discussion that a beer or two will be complimentary. But wait, there’s more…To help promote the event, Wordsmith’s is giving us a collection of books by selected authors who will be reading at the event. So here’s what we’re talking about:

  • Free event.
  • Free beer.
  • Free books.
  • And you can get your book signed by the author over a cold beer.

That’s a grand slam.  I hate reading about cool literary events in other cities and wondering why we hardly ever have anything worthwhile happening in Atlanta. This is an actual event with actual bleeding-edge authors. Come on out and support the scene to encourage the organizers to put more things like this together.

Here’s the totally arbitrary way we’ll go about handing out our free books. To enter our contest for a free (no pay) book by one of the authors reading on March 1, tell us about your favorite novel set in Brooklyn and/or favorite Brooklyn author in the comments section. We’ll pick three names at random using our NIST-Certified random number generator. To make sure that we can contact you, please fill in the e-mail blank on the comment form (your e-mail will not be displayed on the site). Winners can pick up their books at the event.  If you can’t make it or live out of town, I’ll get it signed for you and ship it along.  I will also drink your beer.