karen Abbott

"Sin in the Second City"
Wednesday, July 25 at 8:00PM
The Highland Inn ballroom, 644 N. Highland Ave., Atlanta, GA 30306
(404) 874-5756
Tickets: $5.00 at the door

A Cappella Books and The Chattahoochee Review are launching a new literary event series: The Ballroom Book Bash at the historic Highland Inn.

This month's debut Book Bash will also be the local debut of Atlanta author Karen Abbott's, first book, Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America’s Soul

This incredible evening will take place in the newly refurbished ballroom at the historic Highland Inn, 644 N. Highland Ave. NE in the Poncey Highland district, between Little Five Points and Virginia Highland. Revelers will enjoy an evening of scorching music, literary decadence and light refreshments for only $5.00. Tickets will be available at the door.

Setting the tone for the evening will be a musical performance by Bernadette Seacrest & Her Provocateurs. The group plays a sultry, loungey blend of dark jazz that fuels the torchy and tattooed seductress who fronts the band. Seacrest embodies all of the alluring qualities of a femme fatale lifted from the pages of a pulp crime novel.

And while Abbott's book is a work of non-fiction, it is similarly evocative. Sin in the Second City tells the tale of the Everleigh Club brothel that operated from 1900 to 1911 on Chicago's Near South Side. The madams, Ada and Minna Everleigh, were sisters whose shifting identities had them as traveling actors, Edgar Allan Poe's relatives, Kentucky debutantes fleeing violent husbands and daughters of a once-wealthy Virginia lawyer crushed by the Civil War.

Provocative, entertaining, and thoroughly researched, Sin in the Second City is the story of two remarkable women and the life they built for themselves in one of America’s most vibrant cities.

“A detailed and intimate portrait of the Ritz of brothels.”
––Erik Larson, author of The Devil in the White City

“A rollicking tale from a more vibrant time: history to a ragtime beat.”—Kirkus Reviews

The newly refurbished Highland Inn is the perfect setting for this unique night out. The Inn has a rich history and is an integral part of the district of Poncey Highlands since its beginnings. Within the last year, the facility has gone through a major transformation. This event keeps with the pioneering spirit that is helping to create a grass roots outlet for local artisans.

“With the bash we threw for Irvine Welsh in May at the Highland Inn,” said A Cappella Books' Frank Reiss, “we realized we had tapped into an unquenched desire for book events that were more than just an author signing or even just reading from their work. We think that books as full of life as this one deserve to be celebrated in a much more lively fashion than a standard author appearance. Kids like dressing up and partying when a new Harry Potter book comes out. Big kids like to dress up and embrace a book about one of the most notorious whorehouses in American history.”

About A Cappella Books:
Since 1989, A Cappella Books has been in-town Atlanta’s only full-service general bookstore, buying and selling new, used, rare and out-of-print titles. Located in Atlanta’s bohemian neighborhood, Little 5 Points, A Cappella Books is widely known for an unparalleled selection of Beat literature, progressive political and counterculture books, and, as the name suggests, books about music. The store regularly presents authors who reflect its unique character. Visit www.acappellabooks.com for a full listing of upcoming author appearances.

previous readings & lectures :: spring 06 - spring 07

khaled hosseini

"A Thousand Splendid Suns"  
Monday, May 28, 2007 at 7:00 PM 
Georgia Perimeter College - Clarkston Campus

This event is free and open to the public, but reservations are strongly recommended. To reserve your place beforehand, purchase a copy of the book by stopping by A Cappella Books or purchasing your ticket at A Capella Books.Com

» » Click here to read an interview with Khaled Hosseini. 

The Chattahoochee Review will participate in:

Periodically Speaking:
Literary Magazine Editors Introduce Emerging Writers

Tuesday, May 8th, 6:00 – 7:30 pm
DeWitt Wallace Periodicals Room
The New York Public Library
Humanities and Social Sciences Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd
(Please use Fifth Avenue entrance; admittance is free)

The Council of Literary Magazines and Presses [CLMP] and The New York Public Library present Periodically Speaking, a reading series providing a major venue for emerging writers to present their work while emphasizing the diversity of America’s literary magazines and the magazine collections of The New York Public Library. Each event presents writers from three influential literary magazines—one poet, one fiction writer, one nonfiction writer—introduced by their editors.

The Chattahoochee Review Editor Marc Fitten introduces nonfiction writer and CR contributor Courtney Eldridge.

Having grown beyond its previous role as a Southern literary magazine, The Chattahoochee Review has established a wider, more diverse audience taking on a more visible role as a national literary magazine. By accepting literary submissions from both established and emerging authors and poets, The Chattahoochee Review continues to broaden its reach.

Also presenting and reading:

The Kenyon Review

The Kenyon Review was founded in 1939 by poet-critic John Crowe Ransom, and has published such internationally known writers as Allen Tate, Robert Penn Warren, Flannery O'Connor, Robert Lowell, and Peter Taylor, to name a few.

Editor David Lynn introduces fiction writer Brad Kessler.

The Yale Review

In a land of quick fixes and short views and in a time of increasingly commercial publishing, The Yale Review, the nation’s oldest literary quarterly, has an authority that derives from its commitment to bold established writers and promising newcomers, to both challenging literary work and a range of essays and reviews that can explore the connections between academic disciplines and the broader movements in American society, thought, and culture.

Editor J.D. McClatchy introduces poet Meghan O'Rourke.

This series is made possible in part by support from the New York State Council for the Arts, a state agency; Deborah Pease; The New York Public Library; and Friends of CLMP, a diverse group of individuals committed to supporting independent literary publishing.

irvine welsh

Saturday, May 12, 8:00 p.m.
Bash with Irvine Welsh
The Highland Inn

The Chattahoochee Review presents Scottish novelist and author of such perverse pop masterpieces as Filth and Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh comes to Atlanta to read from his latest work, The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs at the newly refurbished ballroom at The Highland Inn.

Tickets are $15 per person. You may reserve tickets by calling 404-681-5128, stopping by A Cappella Books or purchasing your ticket at A Capella Books.Com

All tickets will include a signed copy of the new paperback edition of The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs.

DEREK LEEBAERT

"To Dare and To Conquer"
Friday, May 26, 2006 at 7:30 p.m.
The Jimmy Carter Library and Museum 

Derek Leebaert is a professor at Georgetown University, director of the U.S. Army Historical Foundation, and a consultant to U.S. Government agencies.  He was a founding editor of International Security and wrote the best-selling The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Shapes Our World—a book that draws on U.S. foreign policies 1945 - 2002 to offer lessons for the post 9/11 world.

Luis Alberto Urrea

The Hummingbird's Daughter
Friday, May 5, 2006 at 7:30 p.m.
The Jimmy Carter Library and Museum
 
Luis Urrea is best known for his book, The Devil's Highway.  However, with ten other titles to his name, Urrea is also an American Book Award winner, an inductee into the Latino Literary Hall of Fame, a Lannan Foundation Literary Award Winner, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.  His latest novel, The Hummingbird's Daughter, took twenty years to write and is a tale of revolutionary Mexico.

Leonard Susskind

The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design
Friday, February 17, 2006 at 7:30 p.m.
The Jimmy Carter Library and Museum

Leonard Susskind is the Felix Bloch Professor in theoretical physics at Stanford University.  He is a member of the National Acadamy of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  A few of his contributions to physics include the discovery of string theory and the theory of quark confinement.  Join us for this special engagement.