Topics will include marketing yourself nationally and internationally, the power of storytelling for all genres, scene structure, writing popular fiction, how to pitch a manuscript to agents and publishers, writing screenplays, self-publishing, manuscript consultation with experts and more. The events will take place at several venues including City Hall and Hotel Indigo.

You can see a list of authors – which include Carmen Agra Deedy and Peter Bowerman – and professionals taking part at this link.

The cost is $299 for all three days if you register before June 1. www.write-the-world.com.

More than 1,200 novels, known as yellowbacks, have been digitized using a cutting-edge robotic digital book scanner purchased from Kirtas Technologies by Emory Libraries in 2008. The Kirtas machine enables the libraries to scan thousands of rare and out-of-copyright books in its research collections.

Yellowbacks were cheap, 19th century British literature sold at railway book stalls, with colorful, sensational covers to attract buyers. While some were well-known books such as “Sense and Sensibility,” many of the yellowbacks were obscure titles by authors unknown today. “They were the equivalent of a popular novel you’d read on a plane today,” says David Faulds, MARBL’s rare book librarian.

The digitization project allows MARBL to make the collection of rare, fragile books accessible to a widespread audience. “There are a good number of yellowbacks where we have the only known copy of the text, so we’re able to make that available to people around the world,” he says. “They’re very rare now because they weren’t that sturdily built – they just disintegrated or were thrown away. It’s an aspect of 19th century life that’s disappeared today.”

The project has taken about six months and is almost finished, says Kyle Fenton, leader of digitization services and digital curation, whose team worked to digitize the collection of yellowbacks. Of the 1,235 books digitized, nearly all of the titles are available online and can be downloaded by readers for free.

MARBL has the second largest collection of yellowbacks at an American university library, behind UCLA. The nickname comes from the yellow glazed paper of the illustrated covers.

The genres and topics include romance, detective fiction, war, biography, medicine, horse racing, hunting and fishing.

“Some of these books are so rare that they’ve been lost to history,” Faulds says. “Scholars and casual readers can now discover these works. There may be aspects of them that are of interest not only to literary researchers but also social historians looking at Britain or America in the 19th century or women’s lives in this period – what they were reading, how they are portrayed or what they wrote.”

How to access the yellowbacks

You’ll need Adobe Acrobat Reader. To access the yellowbacks:

1. Visit the Emory Libraries home page at http://web.library.emory.edu/

2. In the discoverE search box on the right side of the screen, type the word “yellowbacks” and click the search button.

3. At the next screen, under results on the left side of the screen, click “online resources.” You can also narrow by genre, topic and author.

4. Click on the title of the yellowback you wish to read.

5. Scroll down under details, and at the second blue arrow, click “PDF version.”

6. The yellowback will load; note the first page is usually blank. You can then save the novel to your desktop or a flash drive and read it at your leisure.

The fourth edition of the prestigious “25 Books” list includes 11 novels and short story collections, three volumes of poetry, and 11 nonfiction books, and boasts three Pulitzer Prize winners. For more details, visit www.georgiacenterforthebook.org.

The 25 Books All Georgians Should Read

Snakeskin Road
James Braziel

A Cry of Angels
Jeff Fields

The Confederate General Rides North
Amanda Gable

Bombingham
Anthony Grooms

Luminous Mysteries: A Novel
John Holman

How Far She Went
Mary Hood

The Girl Who Stopped Swimming
Joshilyn Jackson

Hue and Cry: Stories
James Alan McPherson

When the Finch Rises
Jack Riggs

Nothing With Strings:
NPR’s Beloved Holiday Stories
Bailey White

The Heart of a Distant Forest
Philip Lee Williams

Winter Sky: New and Selected Poems,
1968-2008
Coleman Barks

New and Selected Poems of Thomas Lux, 1975-1995
Thomas Lux

The Watchers
Memye Curtis Tucker

Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II
Douglas A. Blackmon

Long Time Leaving:
Dispatches from Up South
Roy Blount, Jr.

At Canaan’s Edge:
America in the King Years, 1965-68
Taylor Branch

Heart of a Patriot:
How I Found the Courage to Survive Vietnam, Walter Reed, and Karl Rove
Max Cleland

Invisible Sisters
Jessica Handler

The Cracker Queen:
A Memoir of a Jagged, Joyful Life
Lauretta Hannon

Lovesick Blues:
The Life of Hank Williams
Paul Hemphill

Under the Tuscan Sun:
At Home in Italy
Frances Mayes

The Ballad of Blind Tom
Deirdre O’Connell

An Altar in the World:
A Geography of Faith
Barbara Brown Taylor

Bon Appetit Ya’ll: Recipes and Stories
from Three Generations of Southern Cooking
Virginia Willis

For the past last three years, the Woodruff Park Reading Room has offered an open-air urban oasis for Downtown employees and visitors to sit and enjoy periodicals and books. Now, with new infrastructure and an expansion, the retreat will offer even more to the park and its patrons.

By the end of this month, the Woodruff Park Reading & Recreation building will be complete and ready for use. The building will house reading material, recreational supplies for games and park activities available for check out, and a full time park staff member to round out the new hospitable and unique area located on the corner of Peachtree Street and Auburn Avenue.

The project is only one of a series of improvements in Woodruff Park since July 2009. Since then other improvements including hardscape repaving, repairing seat walls and an investigation into to a sustainable water recovery system for the park’s two fountains have given the park a new polished look. Even though major improvements and construction are underway, the park currently has lighted decorations for the holidays. Additionally the waterwall fountain will be turned on before the end of the month adding even more festive flair to the area.

“These improvements especially, in Woodruff Park, are making it even more appealing to Downtown residents, employees and visitors,” says A.J. Robinson, President, Central Atlanta Progress. “It’s our mission and hope that this great park is embraced and utilized throughout the year.”

The new Reading & Recreation Room building is ADA accessible and is surrounded by new planters framing the area with boxwoods, lenten rose and annuals. The building will offer games for checkout like bocce, football, frisbee, and volleyball along with board games and other equipment.

Chicken Noodle News: A CNN Whodunit

Stay for Lunch by Anne Goodwin ($23, Pleasurable Pause Press). This moving memoir, which won an Independent Book Publisher’s Award at the 2009 Book Expo, chronicles thee chance friendship between Goodwin and Francina, and 86-year-old woman she helped during a car crash.

The Lees by Alice Bliss ($24, Bozart Press) Bliss’ new historical novel follows the lives of two families – one living in Chattanooga and the other in Atlanta – and their visits to one another by train during the last half of the 19th century. Bliss will sign her new book on Saturday, Dec. 5, from 1 to 4 p.m. at Sweetgrass, Too salon, 1643 McLendon Ave. The book is also available at Blue Elephant Books in Decatur.

Raising the Bar: Legendary Rainmakers Share Their Business Development Secrets by Robin Hensley ($99.95, Schroder Media) President of Atlanta executive coaching firm Raising the Bar, Hensley has captured conversations with 10 of Atlanta’s legal superstars, including Miles Alexander, the late U.S. Attorney General Judge Griffin Bell, Emmett Bondurant, Bobby Lee Cook, Clay Long, Frank Love, Gov. Carl E. Sanders and more. In addition to the book and companion DVD, Hensley is offering a business development presentation that utilizes the book and her conversations with these legal legends. A majority of the profits from the sale of the book will be donated to The Atlanta Legal Aid Society.

During the weekend, A Cappella Books will host twenty authors in the Opal Gallery, adjacent to the store, between noon and 5 p.m. each day.  The authors will discuss their latest work as well as the work of another author that they admire.  Among the anticipated guest authors are humorist Hollis Gillespie, novelists Marc Fitten and Joshilyn Jackson, poet and children’s author Laurel Snyder, Spelman professor Jelani Cobb, and award winning historian Joseph Crespino of Emory.

In addition to author appearances, A Cappella will also host a variety of musical acts each day beginning at 5 p.m.

For more information and a full list and schedule of authors and the books they’ll discuss, visit www.ACappellaBooks.com.

The third annual Atlanta Queer Literary Festival returns Nov. 4 to 7 with a bevy of locally and nationally known writers.

The festival begins Wednesday, Nov. 4, at 7 p.m. with an opening reception at Charis Books in Little Five Points featuring poets Lisa Allender and Alice Teeter, musicians and more.

On Thursday, Nov. 5, at 7:15 p.m. Outwrite Books will host a reading from the acclaimed anthology, My Diva: 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them featuring editor Michael Montlack, Collin Kelley, Regie Cabico, Jim Elledge and Cleo Creech.

Internationally known authors Staceyann Chin (who was recently featured on Oprah with her memoir, The Other Side of Paradise) and Manil Suri are the festival’s keynote speakers. They will read Friday, Nov. 6, at 7 p.m. at the Auburn Avenue Research Library.

Saturday, Nov. 7, will be a day of readings and workshops at the Decatur Library starting at 9 a.m., including an appearance by Terry Galloway, author of the memoir Mean Little Deaf Queer at 4 p.m. That evening at 7 p.m., there will be an All-Star

Poetry Slam at Java Monkey Coffee House in Decatur featuring Marty McConnell, Theresa Davis and more.

For a full schedule of events, visit www.atlqueerlitfest.com.