People & Places: Library to induct BookSmart Tulsa co-founder into Hall of Fame
BY DANNA SUE WALKER World Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
11/27/12 at 6:49 AM
The Tulsa City-County Library will induct BookSmart Tulsa co-founder Jeff Martin into its Hall of Fame on Dec. 8 during the Tulsa Library Trust's 2012 Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award public presentation featuring American writer and farmer Wendell Berry.
With his BookSmart Tulsa, Martin has raised the literary bar in Tulsa, bringing energy to the literary scene and giving Tulsa a national reputation as a wellspring of literary life.
Since its inception in 2009, BookSmart Tulsa has hosted more than 100 acclaimed authors, helping to make the city a vibrant location for writers and readers alike. BookSmart Tulsa has worked with the Tulsa City-County Library on numerous occasions.
"Jeff has brought together enthusiasm for the literary arts, passion for the power of social networking and a vision for community involvement in Tulsa to create a grass-roots literary movement that has helped put Tulsa on the national literary map," said Gary Shaffer, Tulsa City-County Library CEO. "His infectious exuberance for literature has instilled the value of reading in so many people from so many walks of life."
"I proudly share this recognition with all of my enthusiastic and passionate collaborators, without whom my ideas would never be fully realized," Martin said.
In addition to holding the unofficial title of "literary impresario of Tulsa," Martin also works at Philbrook Museum of Art, and he is fiction editor for This Land magazine. He also sits on the advisory board for Nimrod and the board of directors for the Oklahoma Center for the Book.
His collection "The Customer Is Always Wrong: The Retail Chronicles" was a National Book Critics Circle Award nominee. In 2009, Martin lampooned current publishing world scandals with his book "My Dog Ate My Nobel Prize: The Fabricated Memoir of Jeff Martin." He also is a contributor to Publishers Weekly, Poets & Writers, Salon and National Public Radio. His latest book, "The Late American Novel: Writers on the Future of Books," was described by The Atlantic as "funny, poignant and relentlessly thought-provoking."
The Library Hall of Fame was established in 1982 to recognize organizations and individuals who have provided leadership and made contributions of time, talent and energy toward the development of the Tulsa City-County Library.
Former Library Hall of Fame honorees include Alfred E. Aaronson; Joan Flint; Sally Freeman Frasier; Friends of the Tulsa Public Library; Tom Grant Jr.; Donna and Roger Hardesty; Peggy V. Helmerich; Judy Z. Kishner; KTUL, channel 8; KWGS Radio-89.5 FM; Robert J. LaFortune; Beth Macklin; Rosetta Mulmed; Ruth K. Nelson; the Tulsa World; Pat Woodrum; Henry Zarrow; and Maxine and Jack Zarrow.
As a Hall of Fame inductee, Martin will receive an engraved marble obelisk, given by the Tulsa Library Trust and the Tulsa City-County Library, at a public presentation featuring Wendell Berry at 10:30 a.m. Dec. 8 at Central Library, Fourth Street and Denver Avenue.
Berry will speak, answer questions from the audience and sign books. Berry has spent his career exploring man's relationship with the land and the community in his more than 50 works of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. His novels include "Nathan Coulter," "Jayber Crow," "Hannah Coulter" and "Andy Catlett: Early Travels." Copies of his books will be available for purchase at the event.
For more information about the Library Hall of Fame or the Helmerich award, call Larry Bartley, Tulsa Library Trust director, at 918-549-7363.
Original Print Headline: BookSmart Tulsa co-founder honored
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BookSmart Tulsa co-founder Jeff Martin will be inducted into the Tulsa City-County Library Hall of Fame on Dec. 8. Courtesy
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