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Oak Ridge Public Library 1401 Oak Ridge Turnpike, Oak Ridge, TN 37830 (865) 425-3455
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One City One Book - Oak Ridge 2009
Working
over the years as a music publisher and in artist management in both
country and alternative-rock music, Hicks’s interests have remained both
broad and varied. A partner
in the B. B. King’s Blues Clubs in Nashville, Memphis, Orlando and Los
Angeles, Hicks serves as ‘Curator
of Vibe’ of the corporation. A
lifelong collector, Hicks was the first Tennessean to be listed among Arts
& Antiques’ Top 100 Collectors in America – his collection
focuses on Outsider Art, Tennesseana, and Southern Material Culture.
He served as curator on the exhibition, Art of Tennessee, at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in
Nashville. The exhibition was a seven-year endeavor from conception at his
kitchen table to it’s opening, September 2003. He was co-editor of the
exhibition’s award winning and critically acclaimed catalog, Art
of Tennessee (University of Tennessee Press, September 2003).
In December 1997, after a third term as President of the Carnton board, and in light of his years of service to the site, Hicks was named by board resolution: “the driving force in the restoration and preservation of Historic Carnton Plantation.” His
first novel, THE WIDOW OF THE SOUTH (Warner Books, NY, 2005) was born out of
his many years of work at Carnton and his passion for the preservation of
the remaining fragments of the battlefield. In writing the novel, his hope
was to bring national attention back to this moment in our nation’s
history, the impact those five bloody hours played in making us a nation,
and in the preservation of the sites tied to the story. THE WIDOW OF THE SOUTH was
launched September 1, 2005 to overwhelming critical success, entering the
NY TIMES BESTSELLER LIST after only one week out. In
December 2005, the Nashville Tennessean named him ‘Tennessean of
the Year’ for the impact THE WIDOW OF THE SOUTH has had on Tennessee, heritage tourism
and preservation. As
a writer, his essays on regional history, southern material culture,
furniture and music have appeared in numerous publications over the years. Over
the last year, Hicks is now writing a series of opt-eds for the NEW YORK
TIMES on contemporary politics in the South. He
travels, throughout the nation, speaking on a variety of topics ranging
from Why The South Matters to The
Importance of Fiction in Preserving History to Southern
Material Culture to A Model for
the Preservation of Historic Open Space for Every Community and a host
of other topics. His
first book, a collaboration with French-American photographer Michel
Arnaud, came out in 2000: Nashville:
the Pilgrims of Guitar Town (Stewart, Tabori & Chang). He
is co-editor (with Justin Stelter and John Bohlinger) of a collection of
short stories, A Guitar and A Pen: Short
Stories and Story-Songs By Nashville Songwriters (Center Street
Books/Hachette, North America) was released in April, 2008. His second novel, A Separate Country (Grand Central Publishing/Hachette/North America) will be released on September 23, 2009. Events for 2009:
Photos of the Event at the Oak Ridge Public Library
Websites to visit: http://www.carnton.org/index.htm http://www.battleoffranklin.com
One
City, One Book – Oak Ridge is a reading program designed to promote the
joy of reading among the residents of Oak Ridge.
The mission is to encourage citizens of all ages, social,
educational and economic backgrounds to read the same book at the same
time and come together for discussion. Sponsors
for One City, One Book – Oak Ridge include Wal-Mart, Home Depot, The
City of Oak Ridge, Clinch Valley Literacy Council, The Oak Ridge Schools,
Oak Ridge Associated Universities, the Friends of the Library, The Oak
Ridger, Roane State Community College and the Oak Ridge Public Library. |
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Robert
Hicks, the author of The NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER,
THE WIDOW OF THE SOUTH, was born and raised in South Florida. He
moved to Williamson County, Tennessee in 1974 and lives near the Bingham
Community at ‘Labor in Vain,’ his late-eighteenth-century log cabin.
