“We are very glad to have found another local student with a passion for the written word,” said Shannon Brown, Scholarship Chairperson.  “Alandra’s writing submission, titled “Midnight Thaw,” was found by the scholarship committee to be a compelling and sophisticated piece.  She has been a voracious reader most of her life and her goal is to become an author.”

Alandra was introduced to the sellout crowd at the festival’s Saturday luncheon, where she sat at the VyStar Credit Union sponsor table.  She met featured author Paula McLain, who gave the keynote address at the event, and was clearly inspired by her words.

Established eleven years ago, this $2,000 scholarship is available to high school seniors, undergraduate and graduate college students with good academic standings and who have ties to Nassau County, Florida.  Named for the late Christa Powell Walley, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Powell of Fernandina Beach, the scholarship is dedicated to encouraging writers in their pursuit of a literary career.  Billy Powell, a former officer and board member of the Book Festival made the presentation to Ms. Waugh.

“Bob and I want to thank the Amelia Island Book Festival for allowing us to share this scholarship with them in memory of our daughter, who wanted to be an author,” said Mrs. Powell. 

The Amelia Island Book Festival’s closing event on Sunday, February 19, attracted a full house.  In partnership with the Amelia Island Museum of History and the Florida Humanities Council, the festival attracted nearly one hundred captivated attendees.  They heard from Marjorie herself, in the form of Betty Jean Steinshouer who portrayed Rawlings in the rich tradition of Chautauqua.  On the panel were:

• Dr. Anna Lillios, the Executive Director of the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Society and author of Crossing the Creek, a book that details the relationship between Rawlings and Hurston.
• Marsha Dean Phelts, the author of An American Beach for African Americans, the only complete history of Florida’s first exclusive beach resort for African Americans, and Trustee of the MKR Society.
• Dr. Kathryn Seidel, Professor of English at the University of Central Florida, and published in the areas of women writers and literature of the American South.
• Moderator Teri Sopp, local attorney and also a Trustee of the MKR Society, who did a masterful job of exploring the many complicated aspects of the relationship between these two iconic authors. 

Rawlings and Hurston first met in St. Augustine, FL in the early 1940s.  Both were powerful female writers, one white, one black, decidedly different backgrounds, but, nevertheless, they developed a deep and lasting friendship based on their respect for each other and shared literary professions.

Book Festival President Attavia Facciolo announced that as an extension of the Authors in Schools Program, copies of some of Rawlings works, such as The Yearling, The Secret River,  Cross Creek and Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God are being donated to all public school libraries in Nassau County, based on the age appropriate content.

Each of the five public libraries in the Nassau County Library system will receive a copy of each of the books listed above.

Dawn Bostwick, Director of the Nassau County Libraries, was there to receive the books, along with Brenda Carr, Library Media Specialist at the Fernandina Beach Middle School and Liz Smith, Library Media Specialist at Emma Love Hardee Elementary School.  Ms. Carr and Ms. Smith coordinated the county wide Authors in Schools Program for 2012.

This program was free and open to the public because of the grant received from the Florida Humanities Council and the generous supporters of the Amelia Island Book Festival.

One of the privates shuffled down a bank into a solid clump of reeds to wade across the stream. Next thing, the concussion from an explosion knocked everyone flat: earth and shards of metal rained down. A pressure-detonated case mine sheared off his left leg and buttock; he lay screaming in the river, a sudden flush of red all around him as the water leaked his blood away. Helen Adams, touted as the first woman combat photographer for the Vietnam War, watched as the terror unfolded. But then, as a reflex, she lifted the camera and started shooting as two soldiers jumped in and dragged the private out of the water and onto dry ground.

The private’s screams spooked them all; they stole looks at him, praying for the dustoff to come faster. When the morphine took effect, Helen braced herself and went over. “I’ll leave if you want me to.” His hand reached out to her, and she held it.

“Would you like to take my picture?” he said.

“I did. The next one will be when I visit you in the hospital.”

“Now.  Send this one to my mother.”

“You don’t want your mother to see this.”

“Do it.”

Over 58,000 Americans died in Vietnam. Those that lived, however, have the images of war permanently seared into their memories like photographs. They are not visible like an album lying open on a table. But, they are there, hiding somewhere in the folds and crevices of their mind ready to tumble out at any given time into a jumbled heap of color images. Then, the fear, cold and stark, creeps in, and they are there again in the land of the lotus flower in the midst of battle.

There are others, too, that carry a photo album of horrors inside their heads. Not soldiers with rifles and bayonets, but warriors of a different kind who march side by side with the men in combat carrying a stub of a pencil and a camera. It is their job, as it was then, to give those of us at home a glimpse, a snapshot, of the ghastly thing called war. The madness of war is just as frightening and just as vivid, and scars are just as deep and permanent to the reporters and photojournalist as they are to those who fight. This story is about three combat photographers that cover 12 years of the war in Southeast Asia up until the Communist flag flew over the American Embassy when Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese. We also witness through their eyes the collapse of Cambodia and the horrors of the killing fields inflicted by Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge.

Like the lotus-eaters in Homer’s Odyssey, who becomes addicted to the narcotic fruit and forget about returning home, Tatjana Soli’s potent first novel, The Lotus Eaters, is a story about Helen and other combat photographers who found war in Vietnam so intoxicating that they found it hard to leave even though they could die with just one misstep detonating a landmine, or with one bullet finding its mark. It is also a story of a passionate love affair between Helen and Sam Darrow, a seasoned and war obsessed combat photographer that became her mentor.

Soli’s powerful prose is intoxicating. Each word is so descriptive that you can see the verdant jungles, the bombed villages, and the blank faces of the Vietnamese people who suffered beyond our imagination. You can feel the fear of the soldiers as they hack their way through thick jungles filled with landmines and an invisible enemy, the Viet Cong. We witness death as it happens, sometimes in the blink of an eye, or slowly as blood seeps from gaping wounds stealing a life drop by drop.

Darrow’s long-time assistant, a mysterious and suspect Vietnamese man named Linh, who also loves Helen and becomes her protector, is torn between contrasting loyalties regarding his homeland, his devotion to Sam Darrow, and the passion of his heart. In the end all three become transformed by the conflict that fuels their obsession. The Lotus Eaters is impressive, and for those who actually experienced Vietnam, striking and gut wrenching.

Tatjana Soli will be a Headliner at the Amelia Island Book Festival February 17-18, 2012. She joins Steve Berry, author of the Cotton Malone series with over 12 million books in print, Davis Morrell, the creator of the Rambo books, and Paula McLain, the author of The Paris Wife and two books of poetry. Over thirty other authors will also be featured.

The New York Times called The Lotus Eaters “a haunting debut”… tough and lyrical,” and “devastatingly awesome” by NPR’s Nancy Pearl. The Lotus Eaters was named a NYT Notable Book, LA Times Book Award Finalist, American Library Association 2011 Notable Book, and shortlisted for the UK’s James Tait Black Prize. Tatjana Soli is an alumnus of Stanford University and Warren Wilson Program for Writers. Her short fiction has appeared in prominent publications throughout the country. Her second novel will be released in 2012.

Bill Belleville is the sort of guy that you’d want as a companion on an outdoor trip. He has a child-like curiosity and wonder that is contagious—and he can tell a pretty good story to boot. He is also very much a mature and accomplished author, and his writing is an absolute pleasure to read. This collection of essays, full of hidden gems and wonderful insights, never disappoints. We join him throughout Florida on hikes, paddles and dives—and through lagoons, forests, swamps, and under coastal waters.  

The main character in this book of essays is, of course, Florida, the State of Dreams, as Belleville refers to her.  She’s not just wild, but also mysterious, fragile, serene and thrilling.  Like a southern Thoreau, he saunters through the less traveled roads throughout the state, observing the natural sights and sounds with the same pleasure as a tourist gets at Disney World, but without the expense and traffic. 

He’s certainly not the only one who writes about Florida’s transformation from wilderness to corporate amusement park, and he shares the fear of many naturalists that what has been lost in Florida can never be reclaimed.  All that is true. 

But what makes his book stand out are the charming accounts of his personal journey throughout the state, chronicling his experiences with gators, mermaids and sand dollars, to mention just a handful.  Accounts so charming that he was named a winner of the National Outdoor Book Award for 2011 in the Natural History Literature category just last month. 

The National Outdoor Book Awards (NOBA) is the outdoor world’s largest and most prestigious book award program. It is a non-profit, educational program, sponsored by the National Outdoor Book Awards Foundation.  The purpose of the awards is to recognize and encourage outstanding writing and publishing.

He’s also gotten rave reviews:

“Bill Belleville writes gorgeously and straight from the heart.” – New York Times bestselling author Carl Hiaasen.

“Most remarkably perhaps is that no matter where Belleville goes, he sinks into what he calls “gator time,” and he achieves a oneness with the world… That Belleville does so with a naturalist’s eye and a historian’s attention to detail only makes this rich appreciation of a largely forgotten Florida all the more rewarding.” – SunPost Weekly, (Miami, Fla.)

Fernandina’s Greenway guru, John Carr, remarked about Belleville, “Bill Belleville is a great addition to the 2012 Amelia Island Book Festival.  His passion, just like mine, is all about the conservation of our natural resources, restoring and preserving our environment.  We need to get this message out to as many people who love Florida as we can.”

Belleville will appear at the Amelia Island Book Festival in Fernandina Beach at both the Writers Workshops on Friday February 17, the Festival Gala Friday night and during the all day free Market Place on Saturday, February 18.

Click on “Festival Program” for many other ways to enjoy the Festival..

Amelia Island, Fla. (January 4, 2012)

How does an author who has been writing action-packed books for over 40 years stay  motivated? Where does he find the ideas, plots and characters? Inquiring minds want to  know. Well, they can find out personally from David Morrell, the creator of Rambo, who followed that work First Blood, with thirty more published novels of fiction. He obviously has found a way, and will be sharing some of his writing experiences and techniques to an expected crowd of developing writers in just a few weeks.

Morrell will be the featured author at the Friday, February 17th Writers Workshop at FSCJ, Yulee campus, which kicks off the 2012 Amelia Island Book Festival. This day will be full of seminars featuring Morrell and several other writing teachers and featured authors. It starts at 9am, runs until 5pm, includes lunch and the cost per person is $65. Students with ID attend free of charge.

As a teenager growing up in Canada, David loved the television show “Route 66” and made the decision at that early stage in life to become a writer and develop his own stories of adventure. Today he is considered the “Father of Modern Action Novels.”

He published the first of his Rambo series in 1972 while he was a professor in the English department at the University of Iowa. In order to give real validity to his stories, Morrell was trained in firearms, hostage negotiation, assuming identities and anti-terrorist methods. Sylvester Stallone starred in this American iconic movie series about John Rambo, the very troubled Vietnam war veteran and former Green Beret.

Later he wrote the six part comic book series, Captain America: The Chosen, another  American classic.

David Morrell received the celebrated Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel of 2005 for his dark-suspense thriller, Creepers (CDS Books). This was Morrell’s first Stoker Award for Best Novel. He received two prior Stoker Awards, both in the Long Fiction category, for The Beautiful Uncut Hair of Graves (1992) and Orange is for Anguish, Blue for Insanity (1989), as well as numerous nominations. Past winners of the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel include Stephen King, Peter Straub, Joyce Carol Oates, and Thomas Harris, for The Silence of the Lambs. A book reviewer has referred to Morrell as “the mild-mannered professor with bloody minded visions.”

If you miss the Writers Workshop, not to worry. Morrell will be joining Headliner Steve Berry, another prolific mystery writer, at the Friday night, February 17th Festival Gala – Once Upon a Book Island, the second act of this year’s Amelia Island Book Festival. The gala is a ticketed event to be held at the Omni Amelia Island Plantation (see the festival website for ticket information and reservations.) David and Steve aren’t just fellow authors, they are good friends who were delighted that they both were asked to the festival at the same time. Several other featured authors will also be attending this laid back evening of dining, (catered by Horizons), dance (featuring Pili Pili), and light literary banter.

Interacting personally with successful authors is just another advantage of participating in Amelia Island Book Festival events. Saturday, February 18, is the FREE day for the general public, lovers of literature of all ages, to meet and greet the more than thirty nationally known, regional and local authors who will be at the Market Place and Kidz Zone. Located along North Fifth Street, in Historic Downtown Fernandina Beach, between First Presbyterian Church and La Tierra Prometida, you’ll find books, food, seminars and fun. And admission is free.

Tickets are still available for the Writers Workshop ($65) and Festival Gala ($75 per person, $700 table for 10), both to be held on Friday, February 17. Go to ameliaislandbookfestival.com to get yours before they sellout!

The Festival is grateful for the annual support of the Amelia Island Tourist Development Council, our corporate partners and all of our dedicated members.

Did you know that these two women first met in St. Augustine, FL in the early 1940’s? Did you know that Zora Neale Hurston married her second husband on June 27, 1939 in Fernandina Beach, FL? Do you remember The Inn at Fernandina Beach Resort where the 14th annual Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Society Conference was held in 2001? Do you think the writings of these two icons are relevant today in our technology driven world? What aspects of the writings of Rawlings and Hurston continue to generate book sales today?

Learn more about Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings author of Pulitzer Prize winner, The  Yearling. Hear more on the life and works of anthropologist, folklorist, and author,  Zora Neale Hurston.

Join the Amelia Island Book Festival for the closing event of the 2012 festival hosted by the Amelia Island Museum of History at 233 South Third Street and funded in part by a grant from the Florida Humanities Council with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

This FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC event will be a panel discussion from 2:00 to 3:30 on Sunday, February 19. An opportunity to chat with the panelists will follow the discussion. What do the writings and friendship of these two Florida authors tell us in 2012? The event will open with a portrayal of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings by Betty Jean Steinshauer. The Moderator for the panel discussion will be attorney Teri Sopp who is also a Trustee of the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Society. The author panelists are very knowledgeable about the lives and works of both authors and their passion and enthusiasm for the authors will make for a fun, educational, and unique experience. Come and meet panelists Dr. Anna Lillios, Marsha Dean Phelts, and Dr. Kathryn Seidel.

Words and Music by Tom Kimmel 8p.m.(doors open 7:15p.m.) at St. Peters Episcopal Church Campus – Burns Hall

Singer, songwriter, poet, teacher and entertainer, TOM KIMMEL, makes a special appearance in a pre-festival Words & Music event. Kimmel has released seven solo albums, published a book of poems and led songwriting workshops and classes around the country and in Europe.

An award winning artist in his own right, Tom’s compositions have been recorded by a number of major artists including Johnny Cash, Linda Ronstadt, Joe Cocker, and Randy Travis. His songs have also been featured in motion pictures such as Twins, Serendipity, and The Runaway Bride (starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere).

A self-described “closet poet” until the publication of The Sweetest and the Meanest, Tom is a featured writer at book festivals and writing retreats. His poems have been published in a number of poetry and literary journals.

Tom’s music, poetry and stories have been said to “invite his listeners toward a sweet introspection, making for a curious depth of feeling that often surprises them.”

$15.00 donation (Reservations requested to info@ameliaislandbookfestival.com)

(AIBF is grateful to Mark and Donna Paz Kaufman for their collaboration on this exciting pre-festival special event.)