Tal McThenia opens Lee's Writers Festival - Sept. 19

photo Tal McThenia

Author Tal McThenia will kick off Lee University's Writers Festival tonight, Sept. 19, with a reading from a critically acclaimed book he co-wrote. "A Case for Solomon: Bobby Dunbar and the Kidnapping That Haunted a Nation" is a historical nonfiction account of a notorious kidnapping/contested identity case that divided the American South in the early 20th century.

"A Case for Solomon" won the Louisiana Literary Award and was named one of the New Orleans Times-Picayune's Top 10 New Orleans/Louisiana Books of 2012.

McThenia's reading will start at 7 p.m. in the Rose Lecture Hall in the Helen Devos College of Education, 1400 Parker St., N.E., on the Cleveland, Tenn., campus.

In 2008, McThenia wrote and reported a one-hour radio documentary on the same subject, "The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar," for the public radio series "This American Life." He also was associate producer for the documentary film "Out at Work: America Undercover," which aired on HBO, and "Every Mother's Son," which aired on PBS' "P.O.V." series. He wrote the script for "Shift," a public television drama.

Future Writers Festival events include a reading by poet Anya Silver on Friday, Oct. 4, as well as readings by two Lee professors, Dr. William Woolfitt (creative writing) and Dr. Kevin Brown (English), and authors Jenn Blair and Jessie Van Eerden on Jan. 30-31.

For more information, email wwoolfitt@leeuniversity.edu or call 423-614-8230.

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