IMMEDIATE FEBRUARY 16, 2004

BLACKMARR TO GIVE CORDELL LECTURE FEBRUARY 26 AT ABAC

TIFTON--Georgia author and essayist Amy Blackmarr will be the featured speaker at the next edition of the Tom M. Cordell Distinguished Lecture Series on Feb. 26 at 7 p.m. in the Cordell Conference Room of the Carlton Center on the Abraham Baldwin College campus.

The event is free of charge. Seating will be on a first come, first served basis.

Blackmarr’s third and most recent book, Above the Fall Line: The Trail from White Pine Cabin, has earned her a place on the 2004 nominee list for Georgia Author of the Year. Complementing this honor is a nomination for the 2004 Phillip D. Reed Memorial Award for Outstanding Writing on the Southern Environment.

According to the publisher, Above the Fall Line chronicles Blackmarr’s return to her native Georgia as a “refugee,” fleeing a bleak Kansas winter, the trauma of graduate school, and a “loss of identity, confidence, boyfriend and best dog and pride.” White Pine Cabin—a hut barely big enough to turn around in—becomes the setting for Blackmarr’s searing self-examination as she tells the stories that have led her so far inward and works out a trail back toward a happier connection with herself, the land, her God, and the people in her world.

Blackmarr’s earlier books include Going to Ground: Simple Life on a Georgia Pond and House of Steps: Finding the Path Home. Both were republished in new editions in 2003.

“During the lecture, I will discuss all of my books and talk about the genre of the personal essay and, more particularly, the relationship between the external and internal landscapes and my particular style of nature writing,” Blackmarr said. “Our stories give us a cognitive map of the path of our lives—where we’ve been, where we are, where we might go.”

Blackmarr holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Kansas and M.A. and B.A. degrees in English from Valdosta State University. A South Georgia native, Blackmarr has lived in the Midwest for 20 years. She is best known for her nature essays, set in the rustic houses in which she has lived. Her essays have been broadcast on Georgia Gazette, Georgia Public Radio’s weekly features show, as well as Up to Date, a weekly news show on Kansas City’s NPR affiliate. She lives in the North Georgia mountains.

The series is named in honor of Cordell, who was the director of ABAC=s continuing education program for 39 years. He retired in 1979 and passed away in 1991.

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