John Casey, who serves on the faculty of UVA’s creative writing program, released a new novel last month Compass Rose that grows the story he established in his National Book Award-winning 1989 novel Spartina. The New York Times’ Sunday Book Review weighed in yesterday, calling Compass Rose a "beautiful, elegaic new novel," and continuing: "It is useless and truly beside the point, in a book of such compacted sweep, to condense the plot." So I won’t try. By this point you’ve missed Casey’s local reading (late October at New Dominion), but we’d love to hear your thoughts if you’ve read it. Casey reads at the UVA Bookstore on November 17; see the comments below for details.
Tonight the Jefferson Theater hosts an event that would have pleased its namesake: the annual First Amendment Writes competition invites local poets and songwriters to present "the creative heights that can only be achieved when artists are free to express themselves on any theme, subject, or idea," sponsored by the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression. Last year Carleigh Nesbitt took home the prize for her lovely song "Pull the Plow," which you can hear below. Nesbitt is a judge this year, alongside songwriter Andy Waldeck, poet Gregory Orr and other past winners.
