Bookmark with Don Noble

Jeffrey Stepakoff spent more than a decade in Hollywood as a television writer, working on series including Dawson's Creek, The Wonder Years, and Sisters. Those years in writers' rooms, pitch meetings, and network television helped shape his memoir Billion-Dollar Kiss: The Kiss That Saved Dawson's Creek and Other Adventures in TV Writing, a behind-the-scenes look at life as a screenwriter during a...

In this episode of Bookmark with Don Noble, Don Noble speaks with Janisse Ray in Carmichael Library on the campus of the University of Montevallo. Their conversation explores Ray's life and work, her deep connection to the rural South, and the ways personal history, ecology, and activism come together in her writing. Ray's acclaimed memoir Ecology of a Cracker Childhood helped establish her as a m...

In this episode of Bookmark with Don Noble, author Inman Majors discusses his third novel, The Millionaires, a fictionalized account of the brothers who helped bring the World's Fair to Knoxville, Tennessee. Blending history, humor, and sharp social observation, Majors explores ambition, family, money, and the subtle distinctions of class in the New South. The novel offers a smart and serious look...

In this episode of Bookmark with Don Noble, Alabama author Gin Phillips joins Don Noble in the studio at Reese Phifer Hall on the campus of the University of Alabama to discuss her novel Come In and Cover Me. Phillips first gained national attention with her debut novel, The Well and the Mine, set in Carbon Hill, Alabama in 1931, which won the 2009 Barnes & Noble Discover Award. Rather than return...

In this episode of Bookmark with Don Noble, Don Noble talks with distinguished American poet Galway Kinnell, whose long career made him one of the most admired poetic voices of his generation. Kinnell, whose Selected Poems won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, was also a MacArthur Fellow, a former Vermont State Poet, and a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Known for p...

In this episode of Bookmark with Don Noble, novelist David Guterson joins Don Noble at Writing Today, Birmingham-Southern College's annual conference for readers and writers, for a conversation about fiction, place, and the Pacific Northwest landscapes that shape his work. Best known for his bestselling novel Snow Falling on Cedars, winner of the 1995 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, Guterson has b...

In this episode of Bookmark with Don Noble, poet and writer Beth Ann Fennelly talks with Don Noble at the J.D. Williams Library at the University of Mississippi in Oxford. A native of the Chicago suburbs who has become as rooted as kudzu in the American South, Fennelly brings humor, insight, and lyric intelligence to a conversation about poetry, place, family, and the writer's life. Fennelly, who...

In this episode of Bookmark with Don Noble, acclaimed poet Andrew Hudgins joins Don Noble for a thoughtful conversation about poetry, storytelling, memory, and the experiences that shape a writer's voice. Hudgins reflects on his Southern background, the craft of writing, and the ways poetry can explore family, faith, history, humor, and the darker corners of human experience.

Don is joined by author Lee Smith to discuss her new novel set in Asheville, NC - Guests On Earth, which features Alabama native Zelda Fitzgerald. Don spoke with Lee in the Alabama Public Television studios in Montgomery, AL.

Don is joined by author Tom Franklin about his works "Hell at the Breech" and "Poachers" at the University of Mississippi.

Don visits with author Michelle Richmond to talk about her novels "The Year of Fog" and "No One You Know" at Rock Point Books in Chattanooga, TN.

After several volumes of fiction, Sena Jeter Naslund had her first great success with Ahab's Wife. Since then she has published Four Spirits, Adam and Eve, and Abundance. The latter focuses on the life of Marie Antoinette. Her new novel, The Fountain of St. James Court explores the lives of both the real life artist who painted the French queen and a fictional writer who writes her novel telling t...

Retired Birmingham police captain and birmingham historian, Thorne's most recent book is Behind The Magic Curtain -  secrets, spies and unsung white allies of Birmingham's Civil Rights days.  Don spoke to T.K. Thorne in the Digital Media Center, on campus at the University of Alabama. 

Rick Bragg won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing in 1996 for his work at The New York Times. Born in Piedmont, Alabama, in 1959, Mr. Bragg is the author of two best-selling memoirs, All Over But the Shoutin' and Ava's Man, as well as his newly released The Prince of Frogtown. He credits his writing ability to the oral storytelling of family and friends in his childhood in the Appalachian foot...

Alabama author Daniel Wallace joins Don Noble to talk about his new book "The Kings and Queens of Roam"

Allan Gurganus broke onto the American literary scene with a giant novel, The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All. This week Alan joins Don to talk about his collection of three novellas - Local Souls. This episode was taped at the Alabama Booksmith in Homewood, AL.

Born in Illinois the author traveled extensively as a military wife. Reading was a solace in times of strife, and led to an MFA and a career in writing. Her latest novel, her fourth, is Z, the fictionalized biography of Zelda Fitzgerald.

A North Carolina native now living in New York who as a non-fiction writer has been prolific and diverse. Sins of the Father is about a mobster in the witness protection program. American Made is his latest about the history of the New Deal's WPA program. He has also written biographies of John Glenn and Gordon Gould, the inventor of the laser, and a book on the culture of Bass Fishing.

This week Bookmark has a very special guest, Don's wife Jennifer Horne to talk about her new book on Sara Mayfield, the eccentric Tuscaloosa socialite and author.

Hank Lazer has published nineteen books of poetry, including N24 (2014) and N18 (2012), Portions (2009), The New Spirit (2005), Elegies & Vacations (2004), and Days (2002). Pages from Lazer's shape-writing handwritten notebooks have been performed with soprano saxophonist Andrew Raffo Dewar, most recently at the University of Georgia and in two concerts in Havana, Cuba. Lazer's Selected Poems in t...

Don Noble sits down with author Lauren Denton as they discuss her work along with her book "The One You're With."

Don is joined by Alabama author Daniel Wallace to talk about his novel "Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician"

Now the author of four novels, Inman Majors has shown his serious and comic sides. Swimming in Sky is a young man's coming of age novel. The Millionaires tells the story of the Bankers, two Tennessee brothers who put on the Nashville World's Fair. Wonderdog, set in Tuscaloosa, is the hilarious story of a reluctant young lawyer. While the latest, Loves Winning Plays, is a satire of both SEC footbal...

Young is an author a playwright an actress,  a social activist, an attorney,  and a MacArthur Fellow. Billie Jean Young is the author of the one-woman show This Little Light  in which she portrays the courageous civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer.

Today's guest is Birmingham poet Ashley M. Jones.  Jones is the author of three volumes of poetry, most recently Reparations Now!