Sunday 4 October 2009

FINAL UPCOMING TOUR DATES: NEW YORK & GEORGIA

My itinerary is complete now. I'm disappointed not to be able to speak anywhere in Savannah, Milledgeville, Augusta or Athens, but I'm looking forward to these firm dates:

OCT 8, 11am - FARMINGDALE COLLEGE (SUNY) Long Island NY
Ward Hall Great Room, 2350 Broadhollow Road, Farmingdale, Long Island
free general admission

OCT 9, 6.30pm - DECATUR CD, Decatur GA
356 W Ponce De Leon Ave, Decatur, GA 30030-2439 http://decaturcd.blogspot.com/
free admission

OCT 14, 7pm - ATLANTA-FULTON CENTRAL LIBRARY, Atlanta GA
One Margaret Mitchell Square, Atlanta, GA 30303 http://www.afpls.org/
free admission

OCT 15, 7pm - THE DOUGLASS THEATRE, MACON GA
355 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, Macon GA http://www.douglasstheatre.org/
tickets $15 ($12 seniors & students)

OCT 20, 7pm - THE McDUFFIE MUSEUM, Thomson GA
121 Main St., Thomson, GA 30824
free admission

OCT 23, 7pm - AVERITT CENTER FOR THE ARTS, Statesboro GA
33 East Main Street, Statesboro GA 30458 http://www.averittcenterforthearts.org/
tickets $18

All those talks are all titled
SEARCHING FOR BLIND WILLIE McTELL: A British Writer in Georgia
but, crucially, they'll all be different talks... partly because the whole story is exotic to Long Island NY students, whereas it's not so exotic to anyone in Georgia; and then within Georgia I want to tell people in Atlanta more about McTell's Georgia, people in Macon more about McTell's time at the Georgia Academy for the Blind there in Macon, people in Thomson more about McTell's Happy Valley & Thomson, and people in Statesboro more about McTell's Statesboro.

The talks will also be different because at Decatur and the Thomson they can't provide the equipment for me to use the DVD I've made with all the photos accompanying two crucial audio tracks, and the library in Atlanta has different restraints.

In other words, and rightly, the two biggest and best talks/shows will be the ones with an admission charge - Macon's Douglass Theatre and Statesboro's Averitt Arts Center. Here you get a proper auditorium with comfortable seats, good lighting and a real stage, professional audio-visual equipment and an altogether fuller performance, including more music tracks.

Finally, the night before that Statesboro McTell talk, I'll be giving my very last performance of Bob Dylan & the Poetry of the Blues - the last one in the UK was at the highly enjoyable Sedbergh Book Festival in Cumbria on Friday September 25th, and the final end for this talk is:

OCT 22, 7pm - GEORGIA SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY, Statesboro GA
Nessmith Lane Assembly Hall/Auditorium, 1400 Southern Drive, Statesboro
http://library.georgiasouthern.edu/news/MichaelGrayFlyer.pdf
free admission.

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