Tag: Alice Walker

Gathering Blossoms, Boyd’s second book, consists of half a century of Walker’s journal entries from more than 65 notebooks. Sifting through thousands of pages must have been a daunting task for Boyd and Walker. But the Georgia natives were kindred spirits whose partnership seemed fated—they both share a love for another Black woman author, Zora Neale Hurston.

When a mutual friend called to let me know Valerie Boyd had joined the ancestors, I already knew. The night before, I had felt the rush of something irreplaceable leaving us way too soon.

Hard Times Require Furious Dancing—one of Alice Walker’s more than 40 books—is perhaps the most apropos title to describe her 75th birthday celebration, held at the Georgia Writers Museum in her hometown of Eatonton, Georgia last weekend.

Visit the stomping grounds of Margaret Mitchell, Joel Chandler Harris, Alice Walker, and Flannery O’Connor.

Every other year since 1982, Peach State literati have collaborated to determine which Georgia books are deserving of the Townsend Prize, an award that honors great writing (and, incidentally, is named for *Atlanta* magazine’s founding editor, Jim Townsend).