Preston Lauterbach's Blog

If you can only endure one public address from the nation’s capital on Tuesday, February 5, let it be mine. I’ll talk Bluff City at the National Archives, 700 Constitution Avenue NW, noon EST. If you can’t make it, stream it. Please share! Advertisements

New York Times Book Review NPR Weekend Edition with Scott Simon Newsweek Lapham’s Quarterly Garden & Gun Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC) Jackson Clarion-Ledger Black Press USA (via New Tri-State Defender) New York Journal of Books Shelf Awareness Chapter 16.org   Advertisements

Newsweek features a long excerpt of Bluff City. Read it online here and on newsstands beginning Friday January 11. Newsweek features a long excerpt of Bluff City. Read it online here and on newsstands beginning Friday January 11. Advertisements

Bluff City: The Secret Life of Photographer Ernest Withers officially comes out next week. I’ll be appearing at several independent booksellers down South, so come on. Monday, January 14, 6:00pm, novel, Memphis, TN Tuesday, January 15, 5:00pm, Square Books, Oxford, MS Wednesday, January 16, 5:00pm, Lemuria Books, Jackson, MS Thursday, January 17, 6:00pm, Octavia Books, […]

Publishers Weekly calls the new book a “fantastic story.” I wish that all reviews were limited to two words. It’s out January 15 and I’ll launch January 14 in Memphis at novel.     Advertisements

This photo was taken inside the Dallas, Texas studio where Robert Johnson recorded “Hell Hound On My Trail” in June, 1937. The Brother Robert memoir project–Mrs. A.C. Anderson’s story of growing up with Robert Johnson–is just less than half-funded with a little over a week to go in the kickstarter campaign. It’s an all-or-nothing proposition, […]

The memoir of growing up with bluesman Robert Johnson is a little closer to life thanks to your help. There’s a new reward to backers of the Brother Robert kickstarter campaign. In gratitude for your $15 donation you’ll receive a print of this original pen and ink drawing of the block where Johnson’s family lived, […]

  Friends: I am delighted to share news of a project I’m helping out with, a memoir about growing up with Robert Johnson, by the last living soul who knew him well. I’m serving as ghostwriter and fundraiser. The author is the amazing Mrs. Annye C. Anderson. I’ve set up a kickstarter to introduce people […]

Listen out for me and look for Sax Kari’s photo of Rufus Thomas tonight, Saturday April 14, on HBO. ELVIS PRESLEY: THE SEARCHER He was a boy from Tupelo who grew up to become the biggest star in music. Along the way, he absorbed a staggering range of influences, creating a revolutionary sound in his […]

At 3pm Thursday, March 29, I’ll be at the Brooks Museum in Memphis, talking about Ernest Withers, for the Seeing Civil Rights Symposium, part of the MLK50 commemoration–fifty years and one day after Withers took the I AM A MAN photo. I’ll tell the unknown backstory of that picture. Register here, and come say hello! […]