Mockingbird Media Ltd

17/08/2017

Interesting news from Milledgeville

Through collaboration and a mutual interest in the future of the historic landmark, the Andalusia Foundation gifted the final home of Georgia College alumna Flannery…

07/06/2016

This is just fab! Suzanne Vega as Carson McCullers singing about Harper Lee. Brilliant.

In the video above, the American singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega performs a song about the "Southern Gothic" novelist Carson McCullers. Vega, who was performing at the Hay Festival in Hay-on-Wye on Sunday evening, has long been fascinated by McCullers, and the song above is taken from her 2011 musica...

08/04/2016

Mockingbird Media is just back from the 30th annual Tennessee Williams/ New Orleans Literary Festival. Read about the festival in today's Deep South Magazine:

Scenes from the 2016 Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival, books to read for National Poetry Month, Dave Robicheaux Literary Festival this weekend & a winning poem.

14/03/2016

The Mass-Market Edition of To Kill a Mockingbird Is Dead

Harper Lee’s estate will no longer allow publication of the inexpensive paperback edition that was popular with schools.

10/03/2016

Harper Lee's literary legacy extends far beyond the state line of her native Alabama. Cerith Mathias' recent piece in Deep South Magazine:

Nelle Harper Lee passed away peacefully in her sleep early Friday, February 19, aged 89.

20/02/2016

Listen to Deep South Magazine's Editor Erin Z Bass talking about on BBC Radio Wales (int starts at 2.14.35)

Drivetime news, sport, weather and travel with Mai Davies and Kate Crockett.

19/02/2016

"Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what."

Thank you for your words, Miss Nelle.

12/02/2016

Latest Chapter for Harper Lee's 'To Kill A Mockingbird'

10/02/2016

Aaron Sorkin meets Atticus. American Classic To Kill a Mockingbird Will Fly to Broadway.

Oscar winner Aaron Sorkin pens the stage adaptation.

07/02/2016

Jarvis Cocker on Carson McCullers, BBC Radio 4

Jarvis Cocker celebrates the life and work of literary wunderkind Carson McCullers.

30/12/2015

A cartoon by Joe Dator. See more cartoons from this week's issue here: http://nyer.cm/TYgPNk1

30/12/2015

Can't wait for this! Very much looking forward to the Tennessee Williams/ New Orleans Literary Festival already!

Calling all "To Kill a Mockingbird" fans! We have tickets already on sale for a very special kick-off event for honoring the incredible actress, Mary Badham. She played Scout in the film based on Harper Lee's groundbreaking novel.
Fifty-four years after her Hollywood debut, Ms. Mary Badham will be a guest of honor on March 30 at the opening kickoff, joining fellow native Alabamian Rick Bragg, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, on stage for an interview at Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carré.
https://apps.vendini.com/ticketLine/ITL/index/selectperformance/d2e9a5bf11eadc0a8517d9984de0c8b4/a7178dcf0aa7ffe9cdcb249c33b001ad

28/12/2015

Some goodies spotted on Mockingbird Media's recent trip to Budapest.

28/11/2015

Special edition signed copies of 'Go Set a Watchman' on sale in Harper Lee's hometown

AP has reported that HarperCollins, Ms. Lee's publisher, announced this morning that there are 500 signed special editions of Go Set a Watchman in print.

24/11/2015

Fulfill a dream and be a judge on the balcony of the Pontalba apartments for the Tennessee Williams/ New Orleans Literary Festival's Stanley and Stella yelling contest! Get bidding!

Here's the link to the auction site: www.501auctions.com/TWFest.

The Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival online auction is open for bidding! We have some exciting items for literary lovers and Festival fans, plus some uniquely New Orleans experiences. Our auction is strictly online without being tied to a specific event. You can shop until December…

12/11/2015

Great news! A biopic about Tennessee Williams is in the works.

EXCLUSIVE: Broad Green Pictures just acquired an award-winning biography of Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams as the basis of a biopic on the legendary playwright. Williams plays -- A Streetcar Na...

28/10/2015

Arrived home to some pretty exciting . US & UK editions of previously unpublished Capote short stories. !

04/10/2015

Ghost stories from Flannery O'Connor's farm? Count us in! Excellent stuff from the folks over at The Bitter Southerner. http://bittersoutherner.com/rise-and-shine/elizabeth-wylie-andalusia-farm-i-heard-tell

16/09/2015

"What's more perfect than a grown-up Scout reading a grown-up Scout?"
Harper Lee documentary maker Mary Murphy introduces Mary Badham, who played Scout in the 1962 movie adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird, to the stage of New York's 92Y where she reads from Lee's new novel Go Set a Watchman.

Listen here: http://92yondemand.org/harper-lees-go-set-a-watchman-with-mary-badham-and-mary-murphy-92y-talks-episode-49

15/09/2015

The second installment of Wales' brand-spanking-new arts & culture podcast is out now! Presented by Graham Taylor & Gary Raymond with Rachel Trezise and guests Cynan Jones, Francesca Rhydderch, Jo Mazelis,Velvet Coalmine festival director Iain Richards, and singer/songwriter Danielle Lewis.
Go on, treat yourselves!

The second episode of FMIC has arrived and it’s a special programme recorded at the Velvet Coalmine festival in Blackwood. We speak to festival director Iain Richards, have a natter …

02/09/2015

Here's Wales Arts Review's very first Podcast, talking all things Ray Milland, and a masterclass in flash fiction.
Go on, get it while it's hot!

Welcome to the pilot episode of the FMIC Podcast, the new arts and culture show hosted by Gray Taylor and Gary Raymond, and brought to you by Wales Arts Review. …

01/09/2015

The latest in literary biopics -- Nicholas Hoult to play J.D. Salinger in 'Rebel In The Rye.'

While the mystique of Harper Lee was somewhat compromised by the publication of her "new novel" "Go Set A Watchman," an air of mystery still

25/08/2015

"I am a completely horizontal author. I can’t think unless I’m lying down, either in bed or stretched on a couch and with a cigarette and coffee handy. I’ve got to be puffing and sipping." Truman Capote, The Art of Fiction

The Paris Review is a literary magazine featuring original writing, art, and in-depth interviews with famous writers.

24/08/2015

Interesting article on the continuing drama in Monroeville, Harper Lee's hometown, concerning her lawyer, the author's literary estate and the Old Courthouse Museum.

Tonja B. Carter, a lawyer, has consolidated an unusual amount of control over the author’s affairs, which has polarized a small Alabama town.

20/08/2015

What If They Discovered Sequels to Catcher in the Rye or On the Road?

From Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman to a new Dr. Seuss book, it's been a summer of surprise second helpings in the literary world. Here, we imagine where the franchise frenzy might look like applied to other classics.

17/08/2015

A Good Book isn’t Hard to Find.
Cerith Mathias looks at ten works of Southern literature to read with/ instead of Go Set a Watchman.

Ten works of Southern literature to read with/ instead of Go Set a Watchman. A month has passed since Harper Lee’s new/old novel Go Set a Watchman was released to …

13/08/2015

Have you read 'Go Set a Watchman' yet? Whether you loved it or hated it, Southern literature has plenty more to keep you occupied! Cerith Mathias will be looking at the best companions/ alternatives to Harper Lee's latest in Wales Arts Review tomorrow.
Until then, we'll leave you with some wise words from Atticus 📚📖🇺🇸

12/08/2015

Interesting read from our friends over at The Fitzgerald Museum in Montgomery, Alabama.

In August of 1931--just a month before she was discharged from Prangins Clinic in Switzerland and the Fitzgeralds came home to Montgomery--Zelda wrote Scott the letter printed below. They had just returned from trip to see the sick son of Sarah and Gerald Murphy, Patrick, who was being treated for tuberculosis the Austrian Tyrol, deep in the heart of the Alps.
Pragins sits on the western shore of Lake Leman. Approximately 30 miles as the crow flies, directly across the lake, is the town of Caux, where Fitzgerald was renting an upstairs apartment. This fact must have heightened Zelda's feelings of proximity and distance, as she describes so beautifully in the letter.
"Dearest, My Love --
Outdoors is glowing pale in a Narcissan moon--cradling and cuddling itself and smoothing out the surface of the lake and a luminosity spreads everywhere that must culminate in your balcony. Dear balcony, where you walk absent-mindedly and drop a cigarette and stand poised in the morning sun, just an answering flash. Caux is so far away, but I love thinking of you there above the heat and smells and white-pavement-grooming that borders the lake like a paper wrapping, pink and crisp. O dear Doo-do-- You held me close beside the railing as if you needed me, and I love you so.
We are going to Berne to-morrow, so I won't be able to work. I'm only happy when I'm doing what I think you're doing at the time, and I like us to both be alone in our rooms, changing chairs and looking through walls and staring in and out of the window.
You hold your ci******es way down, wedged between your fingers, and you sometimes seem to be buttoning up yourself, slipping into you as if you were a freshly pressed suit, and your empty shoes lie expantantly on the floor as if they were waiting for Santa Claus, and all your things have touched you and reek of an irrealizable Sweetness--
Goofo, are you mine?
Please be--
I love you
Good-night"
- taken from "Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda," eds. Jackson R. Bryer and Cathy W. Barks, 2002.

12/08/2015

Re previous post - Deep South Magazine has been celebrating the 75th anniversary of Carson McCuller's classic novel 'The Heart is a Lonely Hunter' with a read-along.
Here's Cerith Mathias' interview with McCullers devotee, author Azar Nafisi on the enduring power of 'Hunter.'

http://deepsouthmag.com/2015/06/literatures-lonely-hearts-club-an-interview-with-azar-nafisi/

12/08/2015

The Artist As A Lonely Hunter - an exhibition in San Francisco inspired by Carson McCullers' classic novel, currently celebrating its 75th anniversary http://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/the-artist-as-a-lonely-hunter

10/08/2015

Fantastic piece in The New York Times on Harper Lee and Truman Capote's friendship. Thoroughly recommend the Marianne Moates Weber book mentioned - a great read for all those interested in Lee and Capote's childhood years in Monroeville.

The author Greg Neri has written a novel for middle-grade readers about the friendship that bound Harper Lee and Truman Capote.

05/08/2015

Go Set a Watchman exposes American obsession with white saviours.

As a historical document, Watchman is a fascinating read. It gives us valuable insight into how America prefers to remember its history of racism.

03/08/2015

"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it." -- Flannery O'Connor, who passed away on this day 51 years ago. Here's Cerith Mathias' piece on O'Connor's induction to the American Poets Corner in New York last year.

Southern literary legend Flannery O’Connor has been included amongst the greats of American letters honoured in The American Poets Corner at the Cathedral of St...

02/08/2015

"A rumour sparks in the powder-dry heat, catching and spreading through Lee’s congregation like wildfire. Was she coming out? Had our not-so-little gathering piqued her curiosity?"
Cerith Mathias visits Harper Lee's hometown for the launch of 'Go Set a Watchman' - the author's first novel in 55 years.

When I was 13, my mother gave me my first, and most treasured copy of To Kill a Mockingbird. Keen to feed my teenage reading needs during the long summer …

02/08/2015

Spend a day in Maycomb with Cerith Mathias' photo essay on the real-life inspiration for Harper Lee's fiction.

Monroeville, Alabama, a small town around an hour and half west of state capitol Montgomery – home to Harper Lee, and with a few tweaks here and there, the real-life …