Turning the page: New director at Southern Lit Alliance has a passion for the written word

Files and books are stored in the temperature-controlled storage room where historic archived documents are stored on shelves of the Paris Police Prefecture Archives department, in Paris, France, Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2015. France is opening police and legal archives from the collaborationist Vichy regime, allowing free access to previously classified documents from World War II. (AP Photo/Francois Mori) Files and books are stored in the temperature-controlled storage room where historic archived documents are stored on shelves of the Paris Police Prefecture Archives department, in Paris, France, Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2015. France is opening police and legal archives from the collaborationist Vichy regime, allowing free access to previously classified documents from World War II. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

By Susan Pierce February 22, 2016 4 min read

Darcy Welch

Darcy Welch by the book

› First book you remember reading? “Watership Down” by Richard Adams in elementary school. “I was entranced — my heart raced along with Fiver’s.”› Favorite Southern author? Flannery O’Connor› Favorite book written by a Southern author? “Wise Blood” by Flannery O’Connor› Book read multiple times that never gets old? “The Haunting of Hill House” by Shirley Jackson› Book that changed your life or your thinking about a specific topic? “Walden” by Henry David Thoreau› Book you recommend everyone read at least once? “The Shadow of the Wind” by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Coming Up in the SouthBound Lecture Series

› March 22: Fiction duo Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fennelly, co-authors of “The Tilted World.”› April 21: Claire Vaye Watkins, a new voice in American literature, author of “Gold Fame Citrus”› May 20: Humorist Harrison Scott Key, author of “The World’s Largest Man,” a memoir about his father.Source: www.southernlitalliance.org

Browsing book stacks in public libraries with her grandmother began a passion for reading that continues to influence Darcy Welch more than 30 years later.

“I’ve definitely had teachers along the way who helped grow my passion for reading, but I think it originated organically,” she recalls. “My grandmother taught elementary school, and I remember weaving in and out of the aisles of public libraries at a very young age, helping her pick out books for her students – a chore I adored.”

She is still suggesting good reads – whether they’re for her two young sons, Griffin and Lucas, or for book lovers who attend the SouthBound lecture series sponsored by the Southern Lit Alliance or even for inmates at the Bradley County Jail, where the alliance holds book discussions that provide an outlet for reflection and self-healing.