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South Atlantic Modern Language AssociationThe 2007 meeting of SAMLA, its seventy-ninth, will convene in Atlanta, Georgia, at the Renaissance Atlanta Hotel Downtown, 9-11 November. The hotel offers dramatic views of the city skyline and is conveniently located on the edge of midtown and downtown. Room rates for the convention are $115.00 per night.For the upcoming convention, we've scheduled 180 regular and special sessions--including over thirty foreign language sessions and a special focus on creative writing. We are honored to have three Pulitzer Prize winners--Cynthia Tucker, Natasha Trethewey, and Claudia Emerson--speak at this year's conference. Friday's plenary speaker is Cynthia Tucker, the editorial page editor of the Atlanta Constitution and a syndicated columnist. Her commentary appears in approximately fifty newspapers across the country. She is a frequent commentator on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer and CNN and Company. Lee Smith, Saturday's plenary speaker, is the author of eleven novels, including Oral History, Saving Grace, The Devil's Dream, and Fair and Tender Ladies, as well as three collections of stories. Her novel The Last Girls was a 2002 New York Times best seller as well as cowinner of the Southern Book Critics Circle Award. A retired professor of English at North Carolina State Univ., she received an Academy Award in Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1999. Her latest novel, On Agate Hill, was published in October 2006. This year's convention will also feature a special focus on creative writing, bringing together poets, creative writers, scholars, and teachers in fifteen different sessions. Natasha Trethewey, 2007 Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry, will serve as the featured speaker for the event. Among the special guests and speakers, SAMLA also welcomes Claudia Emerson (2006 Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry), Kevin Young (a poet and professor from Emory Univ.), and Marina Mayoral (guest novelist from Spain). SAMLA's honorary member for 2007 is Harper Lee. SAMLA has also expanded the topics for special sessions this year to include many more presentations addressing first-year writing instruction, two-year-college issues, assessment, cultural studies, and institutional concerns. The conference will feature an expanded presentation format, including roundtables, workshops, and poster sessions. A full copy of the program will be available on the Web site (www.samla.org) late summer. Preregistration fees for the 2007 convention are $125 for regular members and $70 for graduate students, adjunct faculty members, and retired members. Participants may register as well as renew their memberships online at our redesigned Web site. Members of SAMLA receive four issues of the South Atlantic Review, the yearly newsletter SAMLA News, which includes the convention call for papers and preconvention program. Membership dues for 2006 are $60 for individual members, $40 for new members, and $35 for graduate students, adjunct, and retired members. For more information, please contact the SAMLA offices at Georgia State Univ. by phone (404 651-2693) or e-mail (samla@sama.org). Our Web address is http://www.samla.org. Membership forms along with information about the organization, the convention, the Job Information List, the Harper Travel Fund, and the journal are available on the Web site. The South Atlantic Review publishes essays and book reviews concerned with the study of languages and literatures. The SAR editorial staff includes Matthew Roudané, editor; Randy Malamud and Elena del Rio Parra, associate editors; Lara Smith, managing editor; Calvin Thomas and Ruth Sánchez Imizcoz, book review editors. Current Officers of SAMLA are President, Bert Hitchcock (Auburn Univ.); First Vice President, Allen Josephs (Univ. of West Florida); Second Vice President, Hunt Hawkins (Univ. of South Florida); Past President, Wendy Pfeffer (Univ. of Louisville); Executive Committee, Sandra Matthews (Georgia Perimeter Coll.), James Thompson (Univ. of North Carolina), Jim Clark (Barton Coll.), Frederick De Armas (Univ. of Chicago), Scott Yarbrough (Charleston Southern Univ.), and Carolina Marquez-Serrano (Tuskegee Univ.). Executive Director, Lynée Lewis Gaillet (Georgia State Univ.); South Atlantic Review, Editor, Matthew Roudané (Georgia State Univ.); Managing Editor and Business Manager, Lara Smith. We extend special thanks to the many SAMLA members diligently serving on standing committees. SAMLA is grateful for the generous support of Georgia State Univ., particularly the Department of English, chaired by Matthew Roudané, and the Coll. of Arts and Sciences, whose dean, Lauren Adamson, allocates resources to house SAMLA. LYNÉE LEWIS GAILLET Executive Director
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