Tuesday, May 12, 2009
May Meeting
Max Courson on Grammar and Editing
Back by popular demand, Max Courson will be talking to us about the finer points of grammar and editing. Max Courson has spoken before to the Hillsborough group and was very well received. We welcome this opportunity to have him back.
Max Courson grew up in Baxley, Georgia, and graduated from high school there. His family moved to nearby Hazlehurst during his senior year. He attended the University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, and received two degrees: the Bachelor of Arts in journalism and the Master of Arts in journalism. He received his Ph.D. in American studies from the University of Hawaii. He has worked as a radio news director, an information specialist for the U.S. Army and a reporter for United Press International. He established the first public relations office at South Georgia College, and he served as assistant public relations director at the University of Hawaii.
Other academic work included alumni director and publications director at Georgia Southern College, director of public relations at Furman University, associate professor of mass communications at Tennessee Wesley College and at The University of North Carolina at Pembroke.
He and his wife Naomi moved to Valrico, Florida, in 2000. A year later, he began teaching as an adjunct professor in the school of mass communications at the University of South Florida, Tampa.
Max and Naomi are co-authors of Coursons’ Complete Collection: Wire Service Copyediting Symbols, Capitalization, Abbreviations, Punctuation and Numbers. This text is used in the School of Mass Communications, University of South Florida.
The Pulpwood Annie Chronicles is Max Courson’s first novel. He has two yet-to-be-published biographies that are in various stages of being considered by publishers. One is the biography of Willie Foster Sellers, an Appling County, Georgia, native who chose a life of crime and eventually was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. The other is the biography of Howard Earle Coffin, who helped found several automobile manufacturing companies and who played a major role in developing coastal Georgia as a tourist destination area.
Also in the works is a sequel to The Pulpwood Annie Chronicles. It is tentatively titled The Pulpwood Annie Tapes.
Max is an award-winning writer. He won second place, 2007 CNW/FFWA Writing Competition, nonfiction-unpublished article/essay/book chapter, Dixie Mafia Don Chapter 1, “Easy Money;” Winner Summer 2006 Flash Writing Contest, Florida Writers’ Association for “A Street in Athens;” Winner 2005 Tampa Writers’ Alliance contest in Novel category--three chapters from unpublished novel, The Pulpwood Annie Tapes; National Award Winner 2003, the M.J. Duryea Memorial Cup for outstanding contribution to automotive history, Antique Automobile Club of America, “America’s Foremost Automobile Designer: Howard Coffin or Henry Ford?”
Honorable Mention, 2004, The University of Maine’s Norumbega short story award, “Pulpwood Annie and the bootlegger;” First Place 2003 in Byline Magazine’s Genre Fiction (humor), “Regarding Pulpwood Annie’s Patriotic Gesture;” Winner 2003 First Chapter of a Novel contest, Byline Magazine, for “Being Her Unexpected Trip to Floridy” from The Pulpwood Annie Chronicles.
Winner, third place in fiction 2003 in the Tampa Writers Alliance’s 17th annual writing contest, “Pulpwood Annie and the Diamond Ring;” contributor, “Howard Coffin,” to The New Georgia Encyclopedia’s 2000 edition; National Award Winner 1998 the M.J. Duryea Memorial Cup for outstanding contribution to automotive history, Antique Automobile Club of America, “Howard Coffin, A Prince of Detroit.”
Also on the ticket:
Tom Lowe - Author
Tom Lowe is an award-winning documentary writer/director whose films air nationwide on PBS. As he writes his novels, Tom draws from his travels around the world and his background as a print and broadcast journalist. He worked fifteen years in television news and did freelance stories for CNN. Tom is a sailor and SCUBA diver. He lives in Florida.Tom Lowe’s debut is at once captivating and terrifying, harkening a bold new voice in crime fiction.
Saturday May 16th, 2009, 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Speaker meetings are held every 3rd Saturday of each month with December off.
Barnes & Noble BooksellersCarrollwood
11802 N. Dale Mabry Highway
Tampa, FL 33618
813-871-6446
