Eliot Conte is a complex and troubled man. A private investigator by trade, he also is a former adjunct professor and could-have-been Herman Melville scholar, and an aficionado of the great Italian operas. Conte also is divorced, estranged from his ex-wife and his two daughters, whom he left 20 years previously, and from his father, Silvio Conte, a powerbroker and kingmaker in northern New York politics.
The Durham County Library will present the following programs beginning in January as part of its ongoing Humanities Program Series. All programs are free and open to the public.
The North Carolina Writers’ Network is accepting submissions for the 2013 Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize, which honors internationally celebrated North Carolina novelist Thomas Wolfe. The winner receives $1,000 and possible publication in The Thomas Wolfe Review. The competition is open to all writers regardless of geographical location or prior publication. The postmark deadline is Jan. 30, 2013.
Durham author Alice J. Wisler (author of “Rain Song,” “Hatteras Girl” and other novels) has started the Sandy Hook Comfort Project to help grieving families in Newtown, Conn. Last week, several friends approached Wisler about sending copies of her new book “Getting Out of Bed in the Morning: Reflections of Comfort in Heartache” to families who lost children and loved ones in this month’s school shooting. Wisler’s book is her chronicle of loss: Her 4-year-old son Daniel died of cancer in 1997.
Marjorie Brown Pierson grew up in southern Louisiana and has photographed her beloved marshes, which represent a significant amount of her visual artwork. But so, too, does her fine art photography of Bald Head Island, the North Carolina barrier island she first visited four years ago. Now a collection of her Bald Head images has been printed as a coffee table book called “Struck By Nature: Photographs of Bald Head Island.”
Eve Olive, a former teacher at the Emerson Waldorf School and an Orange County resident, has published an anthology of poems titled “Cosmic Child: Inspired Writings from the Threshold of Birth” (Wrightwood Press, $19.95).
“The Walnut Tree: A Holiday Tale” is an engaging fireside read whether or not “Downton Abbey” has sparked your interest in World War I or if you’re already a fan of Charles Todd.
Novelist William Styron (1925-2006) had many connections to Duke University. He was a student at Duke in World War II, and, after his death, Duke’s library became the repository for many of his letters and papers. Rose Styron, his wife, and historian R. Blakeslee Gilpin have edited a new volume, “Selected Letters of William Styron” (Random House, $40). Drawing on papers from Duke, as well as archives from UNC, Yale and other libraries, this collection touches on Styron’s life as a student at Duke, and later, as the novelist who wrote “The Confessions of Nat Turner,” “Sophie’s Choice” and other major works.
About this time each holiday season, new books come out about Christmas and, less frequently, Hanukkah. There are two new books out, one from a local publisher, that are worth reading – one for fun, the other for history – but both offer insight into our December holiday customs.
Two new Southern novels, both set in small-town Florida in the 20th century, both spin yarns in the great Southern storyteller tradition that makes them great gifts this holiday season.
In July 1962, President Kennedy had a taping system installed in the Oval Office and Cabinet Room of the White House, known to few people and not made public until the Kennedy Library announced it had the tapes in the 1970s. The tape excerpts in this collection are meant to give a daily inside look at the Kennedy administration, and try to de-mythologize JFK, writes compiler Ted Widmer in his introduction.