PR2012 Oct U1

SHELTON STATE NEWS

For Immediate Release

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author to Speak

Tuscaloosa – Shelton State’s annual Quality Month activities, “Partners in Excellence,” will continue on

October 18 with a 7:00 p.m. performance by the Shelton State Jazz Ensemble and a 7:30 p.m. lecture by

Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Rick Bragg. The event will take place in the Bean-Brown Theatre of the Martin

Campus at 9500 Old Greensboro Road.

Currently, Bragg is a Professor of Writing in the Journalism Department at the University of Alabama, where he

teaches Advanced Magazine Writing and Narrative Non-fiction. Rick Bragg is the author of three critically

acclaimed and best-selling books, All Over but the Shoutin’, Ava’s Man, and The Prince of Frogtown. A native

Alabamian, Bragg says he learned to tell stories by listening to the masters, the people of the foothills of the

Appalachians. All Over but the Shoutin’ was Bragg’s first book, the story of his mother who absorbed the

cruelties of an alcoholic husband and devoted her life to endless cotton fields to make a living for her three

sons. The book has become an anthem for the working people and poor people of the modern-day south.

Bragg worked at several newspapers, including the Anniston Star, the Birmingham News and the St. Petersburg

Times, before joining The New York Times in 1994. In 1992, he was awarded a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard

University. As a national correspondent for the Times, Bragg won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing

for his elegantly written stories about contemporary America. In addition, he has twice won the prestigious

American Society of Newspaper Editors Distinguished Writing Award, along with more than 50 other writing

awards during his career, including the 2009 Harper Lee Award for Alabama’s Distinguished Writer of the

Year.

Bragg’s most recent book, The Most They Ever Had, is an eloquent tale of an Alabama cotton mill community

which led The New York Times Book Review to state, “It is hard to think of a writer who reminds us more

forcefully and wonderfully of what people and families are all about.”

Bragg is also the author of Somebody Told Me, a critically acclaimed collection of his newspaper stories, and I

am A Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story. Bragg also writes articles for several magazines, including his

popular “Southern Journal” column for Southern Living.

A reception and book signing in the Wilson-Carr Rehearsal Hall will follow Bragg’s address. Copies of All

Over but the Shoutin', Ava's Man, and The Prince of Frogtown are available prior to the event at the Shelton

State Bookstore and will also be for sale in the theatre lobby beginning at 6:30 p.m. on the day of the event.

Each book is $15.00 plus tax.

The event is free but a ticket is required for admission. Tickets are available at the Bean-Brown Theatre ticket

office Monday-Thursday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. and Friday 9 a.m.-noon or by calling 205.391.2277.

For additional information on the event, contact Michael Carr at 205.391.2258 (mcarr@sheltonstate.edu) or Dr.

Mark Brown at 205.391.2336 (mbrown@sheltonstate.edu).

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