• Owner Linda White enjoys many poets, including Cavafy,Federico García Lorca, and Mary Oliver.
• Laney has great fondness for Roger Housden’s series of Ten Poems books, including Ten Poems to Set You Free
• Rachel enjoys Edgar Allen Poe’s poetry, including The Raven.
• Jenny likes Shel Silverstein - if you’ve not read his juicy kids poems, you’re missing out! ^_-
• Charlie loves Dr. Seuss in addition to also enjoying Mr. Silverstein.
• Bobby is fond of John Keats and Walt Whitman.
• Gayle
• Dwan Loves Whitman too, along with Bashō, W.S. Merwin, E.E. Cummings (why the caps?) and Mary Oliver.
• (We’ve new employees Gayle and  Jim - I’ll post their picks here soon! ^_^)

April has been National Poetry Month, y’all! Celebrated since 1996 by the Academy of American Poets, NPM’s purpose is “to increase the visibility and availability of poetry in popular culture while acknowledging and celebrating poetry’s ability to sustain itself in the many places where it is practiced and appreciated.”  We’re excited to be doing what we can to aid in this effort and to celebrate here at Sundog we’ve been rearranging and enlarging our poetry section on the shelves and we’ve also added a selection of poetry to our online catalog.  We’ve also got a few poetry-themed posts planned for the coming week.

To get you started, you can learn more about poetry - and specifically poetry in the United States - by visiting the poetry section of the Library of Congress.  Each year the LOC names a new Poet Laureate of the United States.  This year’s laureate is Philip Levine - you can learn more about him here at the Library’s site or here at Wikipedia.   And if you’d like to learn more about poetry in general, consider a visit to poetry.org, the Academy of American Poets website.

Tomorrow (Tuesday April 3rd) starting at 11, Dr. David Hooten will be on our porch signing copies of  If Your Teen Could Talk.

What if your teen really opened up to you…talked to you in a way that makes sense and completely unveiled their emotional rollercoaster[sic]. To understand your teen and why they act in those crazy ways, read this entertaining and informative book. If Your Teen Could Talk delivers a powerful message that helps you, the parent, build your relationship with your teen.

If you have a teen in your life, this may be just the book for you!

Kim Edwards - author of The Memory Keeper’s Daughter and The Lake of Dreams will be dropping by on Thursday to sign books.  Let us know if you’d like us to have her personalize a book for you!

On Friday suspense writer Michael Lister will be interviewed on 30A Radio and then will be gracing our porch for a signing from 1 to 3. Mr. Lister is the author of several titles including Thunder Beach and has also edited North Florida Noir.  Drop in, say hello and pick up a great beach read!

Saturday 60s “It Girl” and fashion designer Vicky Tiel will be joining us for a signing celebrating It’s All About the Dress, her engaging memoir of the 60s.  You can drop by and dish with her from 10 to 1!

Ms. Tiel, a sixties “It Girl” will be on our porch this weekend signing copies of her memoir and advice book It’s All About the Dress.

From her website:

Vicky Tiel is a unique phenomenon in the international world of fashion.  She began designing clothes forty years ago, and is perhaps the only American to have operated her own fashion design business in Paris over this time, lasting longer than many of her French contemporaries.

As the “it” girl of the 1960’s, Tiel’s signature dresses—designed to make women look and feel great in their curves—have been sold exclusively in Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus for the past thirty years and worn by everyone from her old friend and investor in her Paris shop, Elizabeth Taylor, to Goldie Hawn, Halle Berry and Kim Kardashian.

Ms. Tiel’s signature looks helped to inform the fashion of the sixties, and included cat suits (Woody Allen used her designs in What’s New Pussy Cat?.), wrap-dresses, minis and printed hose.  She became good friends with Elizabeth Taylor, eventually traveling the world with her as part of her entourage and designing some of Ms. Taylor’s signature looks.

We’re delighted to have Vicky Tiel visiting our store and sharing her stories!  Come on out meet Ms. Tiel this Saturday (4/7) from 10-1.

Also coming soon is 60s “It Girl” and fashion designer Vicky Tiel.  Ms. Tiel has written an intriguing book that’s part memoir and part advice book.  She’ll be here signing copies of It’s All About the Dress April 7 from 10 to 1.  We’ll share more soon, but in the meantime you can read more about her book here.

Saturday March 31st there will be two events, starting with a writing workshop led by Amy Lyles Wilson, co-author of Cooking with Friends and Bless Your Heart:  Saving the World One Covered Dish at a Time.  From 9-12 Ms. Wilson will be leading a writing workshop, tasting and signing.

At 7pm on Saturday John T. Edge will be launching his new book Truck Food:  150 Recipes and Ramblings from America’s Best Restaurants on Wheels.  Join E2C for an evening of readings, short films, as well as a reception and book  signing.

And finally, at 4pm on Sunday April 1st, Shellie Rushing Tomlinson will be returning to Seaside for a reading, reception and booksigning.  Ms. Tomlinson houst of All Things Southern is the author of five books that “celebrate the social life and customs of the south.”  This will be a great event - we hope to see you there, and in the meantime come on in and check out a couple of her recent titles - Suck Your Stomach In & Put Some Color On!  and Sue Ellen’s Girl Ain’t Fat, She Just Weighs Heavy.

In addition we’ll be hosting the authors on the porch for a Sundog signing - stayed tuned for more details!!

Vera Bradley, a platinum sponsor of the race, is giving away bags to all participants.  In honor of this we will have limited-edition Vera Bradley dust jackets available to the first 200 purchasers of Lynn Nesmith’s 30A Style.  If you you’re interested and can’t make it this weekend, we’ll have signed copies on hand - call or email us if you’d like us to save you one!

Sunday, Linda and I attended Escape to Create’s reception for Susan Haltom, author of One Writer’s Garden. Ms. Haltom gave a wonderful slide presentation about Eudora Welty and her garden, and the effort to restore the garden to its former glory.

If you’re not familiar with Ms. Welty’s writing, flowers and gardening both figure prominently in her stories.  Those that knew her well knew she was passionate about gardening, but even with the presence of the garden in her writing, many people who did not know her did not know how important it was to her.  Towards the end of Ms. Welty’s life, Susan Haltom helped to begin the restoration of the Welty family gardens.  Both Ms. Haltom’s presentation and One Writer’s Garden tie together this restoration and Ms. Welty’s love of gardening, and also provide a glimpse into the world of Eudora Welty and her mother, Chestina Welty.

Ms. Welty is a favorite author of mine, I highly recommend her stories and novels if you’ve never read them.  We carry a nice variety of both here at the store, so if you’re intrigued, come on in, you won’t be sorry to be introduced to this true American treasure!  We also have signed copies of One Writer’s Garden here - it’s a beautiful book, and also highly recommend it!

Eudora Alice Welty (April 13, 1909 - July 23, 2001) was an American author of short stories and novels about the American South. Her novel The Optimist’s Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Welty was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous awards. She was the first living author to have her works published by the Library of America. Her house in Jackson, Mississippi, is a National Historic Landmark and open to the public as a museum.    — Wikipedia

In addition, Escape to Create will be hosting a reception and book-signing at Bud and Alley’s on Sunday the 19th at 4pm, where Ms. Haltom will be presenting a slide show of Eudora Welty’s garden.  Tickets are $20.00.  Call 850-534-0000 or RSVP to info@escape2create.org to reserve your spot!

Call or email us to purchase a signed book.   If you purchase a book early you will receive $5.00 off the price of the event ticket!

The Chicago Tribune has described Susan Haltom’s beautiful new book in this way:

“From the opening peek down the grassy steps and into the camellia-drenched garden, the reader is pulled deep and wholly into the little-known story of Welty’s connection to this glorious patch of Earth. While the focus is on a particular 20th century garden with deep literary resonance, there is much to be gleaned about American home gardens in the Progressive era, when women were flooding into cities from the farm, and the garden became a luxury rather than a place of hardship and survival. Whether you are drawn in by history or the horticulture, this great writer’s home place will come to life through these pages, and long hold you in its spell.”

You can learn more about this book here!

On Saturday the 11th Jim Clark will be here from 9am to noon signing copies of his memoir Making Friends with Candy.

We’ve just gotten copies of Susan Haltom’s bestselling book One Writer’s Garden: Eudora Welty’s Home Place in - she will be discussing her book at an Escape to Create event on February 19th and will also be on our porch for a booksigning from 11 to 1 on the 18th.  (Upcoming post on this soon!)

Heather St. Aubin-Stout will be returning to us on Wednesday the 22nd, signing copies of her memoir Not My Mother’s Journey.  You’ll be able to meet her between 10 and 2 on our front porch.

And, finally, on Saturday the 25th we will be hosting Pamela Watson on our porch for a signing from 10-2.  We are pleased to now be carrying her local guide Northwest Florida Wine Tour.

(Times & dates are subject to change - please give a call to the store anytime for updates.  850-231-5481)