 "Photo: Suzanne K. Durham & Emma Elaine Dobbs")
On the afternoon of April 23, 2010, the Ingram Library’s Penelope Melson Society sponsored a free book-signing event and reception at the University’s Alumni House. The affair featured three books written by four authors and centered around or about Carroll County. The event was open not just to students of West Georgia, but also to the local community of Carrollton.
The four authors who attended the event where Suzanne Durham, Emma Elaine Dobbs, Myron House, and Tim McWhorter, all of whom are retired or current UWG alumni and staff members.
Myron House is the author of Carroll County, Georgia Pioneers, one of the three books on display. The book features a collection of biographies, which House called “sketches.”
These first hand biographies date from between the years 1880 and 1890 and were found by House in biography books from those years. Each biography is about a person from Carrollton, whether they left the city or not in times past. The aim for this book, according to the author was to span Carroll County through history to discover what life was like in comparison to the modern world.
House stated, “This was a great way of finding about people’s lives and thoughts of a time so much different than ours.”
The second author in appearance was Tim McWhorter with his book Southern Bedtime Stories. Featured with two different covers, he explained how his book’s first cover was the original design that he created. This cover featured a pot of gold and a rainbow spanning most of the cover while a picture of his State Champion football team huddled together graces the front as well. There are only a few books left with this special cover. After the publishing company who made the cover was discontinued, he self-published the second cover a few weeks before the book signing.
His book came around after McWhorter worked night shift at his job in the 1990s and found the Georgia Sports Event chat room. Through this chat, he met several coaches and athletes from Georgia. With inspiration from these people and his own personal life, McWhorter wrote several southern based, non-fiction short stories, which he dubbed “bedtime stories” since he wrote them at night. These different stories span the genres, from sports to loss. Each story, he said, speaks to every reader in a different way.
Finally, Suzanne Durham and Emma Elaine Dobbs co-wrote the third featured book, Then and Now: Carrollton. This book is particularly interesting to read, for in comparison to the other two, this book is just about Carrollton, not all of Carroll County. In addition to this, the book also features picture from the Benjamin Long photography collection and Emma Dobbs’s own photographs. Long’s collection featured mostly images of Carrollton in the 1940s and 1950s. What Dobbs did was to find the exact location of each image and match it with a photograph she took to give the emphasis on the then and now.
Dobbs, who is a photography graduate, said that it was her love of photography that led her to this opportunity. She advises all art students, photography majors or not, that there are job opportunities for them in the real world once they leave school.
“Don’t let the idea of having no jobs in the arts deter you,” she said. “You can see what your talent can do for you, including being published in a book.”
The event closed with a reception on the back patio and a chance to purchased sign book from each of the authors.
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