Speakers

Intellectual Freedom Breakfast

John Seigenthaler served for 43 years as an award-winning journalist for The Tennessean. At his retirement he was editor, publisher and CEO of the paper. He is a former president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. In September 1982, Seigenthaler became founding editorial director of USA TODAY and served in that position for a decade.

In the 1960s, he served in the U.S. Justice Department as administrative assistant to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. His work in the field of civil rights led to his service as chief negotiator with the governor of Alabama during the Freedom Rides. Mr. Seigenthaler founded the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University in 1991 with the mission of creating national discussion, dialogue and debate about First Amendment values. A chair in First Amendment Studies has been endowed for $3 million in Seigenthaler's name at Middle Tennessee State University.

Centennial Awards Luncheon

In honor of the 100th birthday of the Tennessee Library Association, centennial pins will be given to individuals for their career contributions to TLA. If you see someone at the conference wearing a special centennial pin, tell them "thank-you" for their significant, long-term commitment to making TLA great! Individuals will be announced at Wednesday's luncheon.

Recorded Books, LLC, the premier publisher of unabridged audiobooks, will present a captivating reading during lunch. Come listen to George Guidall deliver an unforgettable performance from one of his latest releases.

George Guidall is one of Recorded Books' most popular narrators. To date, he has narrated nearly 300 titles. His performance of best sellers, mysteries, classics, histories, and children's books provides pleasure to thousands of listeners. In addition to his narrator work, Guidall is a busy actor - his resume lists dozens of performances spanning a 39-year acting career. His narration receives glowing reviews from newspapers and magazines and he is the recipient of several awards. Legions of listeners consistently praise Mr. Guidall for his engaging performances and for bringing favorite characters to life.

All Conference Reception

Enjoy an evening in Nashville's newest landmark. Food, awards and music. Celebrate TLA's 100th birthday by recognizing your colleagues and listening to the sounds of the Memphis-Shelby County Public Library Chorale.

Special guest, Stephen Marion, author of Hollow Ground (Algonquin Books), will read from and sign complimentary copies of his impressive new novel.

The reception is being sponsored by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.

Children's and Young Adults' Roundtable Breakfast

The daughter of a Navy chief, Kimberly Willis Holt, attended schools around the world. For years, she put her dream to be a writer on hold. Then one day she picked up a pen and yellow pad and started writing her first book, My Louisiana Sky. "My stories," Holt says, "were inspired by moments in my childhood." My Louisiana Sky is set in central Louisiana where her grandparents live and where her parents grew up. Two of her great-grandfathers worked in a Louisiana sawmill and she wrote Mister and Me after interviewing people who had lived in a sawmill town. "The inspiration for When Zachary Beaver Came to Town," Holt says, "came from the time when I stood in line at the state fair with two dollars clutched in hand to see the fattest boy in the world." When Zachary Beaver Came to Town won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature and the American Library Association included it among the Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults for 1999. My Louisiana Sky was awarded the 1998 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honor, the Josette Frank Award, and is the first children's book to receive the Louisiana Literary Award. The American Library Association named My Louisiana Sky one of the Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults for the Year and Booklist includes it among the Best Top Ten First Books for 1998. In the spring of 2001, Showtime presented My Louisiana Sky as a movie of the week.

The New York Public Library includes Mister and Me in their Top 100 Books for Reading and Sharing.

Holt lives with her husband and daughter in the Texas panhandle.

Friends and Trustees Luncheon

Sharyn McCrumb is a New York Times Best-Selling author whose award-winning novels celebrating the history and folklore of Appalachia have received both scholarly and popular acclaim. She is the author of seventeen novels and a short story collection, including the "Ballad Books": If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O, The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter, the New York Times Best Sellers, She Walks These Hills, The Rosewood Casket, and The Ballad of Frankie Silver, and her newest novel The Songcatcher.

Her novels, studied in universities throughout the world, are translated into ten different languages, as well as being U.S. national best sellers. She has won many writing awards including: the Sherwood Anderson Short Story contest, Appalachian Writer of the Year Award in 1999 from Shepherd College, the Flora McDonald Award from St. Andrews University, Morehead State University's Chaffin Award and the Plattner Award from Berea College. Her work has twice received the AWA's Best Appalachian Novel Award. She was named Kentucky Colonel by Kentucky's Governor Paul E. Patton and she has served as writer in residence at King College in Bristol, Tennessee.

A graduate of the University of North Carolina, Sharyn holds an M.A. in English from Virginia Tech. She has lectured on her work at Oxford University, the Smithsonian Institution, the University of Bonn, Germany, and at universities and libraries throughout the country. She lives and writes on an estate near the Appalachian Trail in the Virginia Blue Ridge.

The New York Times writes: "McCrumb writes with a quiet fire and maybe a little mountain magic . . . Like every good storyteller, she has the Sight."