Rick Bragg to speak at annual Berry College event

Pulitzer-prize winning southern author Rick Bragg will be featured as the speaker at the ninth Gloria Shatto Lecture at Berry College on March 22.

The lecture will take place Tuesday evening at the Spruill Ballroom of Krannert Center and is free to the public.

Author of best-sellers "All Over but the Shoutin," "Ava's Man" and "The Prince of Frogtown," Bragg is a native of Alabama who says he learned about storytelling from the masters of the art in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. His books have been called 'anthems' for the south and the critically-acclaimed works seem to have resonated with all audiences. They honor the poor and the working class and prove that Bragg deserved his Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University.

"All Over but the Shoutin'" is an ode to his mother, he said, to show how devoted she was to doing whatever it took to raise and create a better life for her three boys. His most recent work, "The Most They Ever Had," explores the Alabama cotton mill community and earned accolades from the New York Times.

The lecture series at Berry is in honor of Georgia's first female college president, who was determined to teach that there was more to a college education than what could be learned in the classroom.

Founded in 1902, Berry College is a private coeducational college enrolling about 2,100 students. Its campus is at 2277 Martha Berry Highway in Mount Berry, which is near Rome, Georgia.