National Geographic photographer Alexandra Avakian comes to Fall for the Book on Tuesday, September 22, at 7:30 p.m. for a slide presentation and discussion related to her new book Windows of the Soul: My Journeys in the Muslim World. The book offers photographs from Avakian’s many years covering the Middle East and Africa, including extensive travel with Yasser Arafat (the only non-Arab photographer ever given such access), and also focuses on Muslim life in America. A recent New York Times blog article on the new book noted that “Alexandra Avakian takes chances. She faced down militias in Somalia and covered riots and conflict in Gaza, Lebanon and the Caucasus to make the photographs in her book…. Her daring extended to the visual composition of her often complex, multilayered photographs. Sometimes intense and complicated, other times gentle and intimate, Ms. Avakian’s photographs challenge the viewer.” The talk and slide presentation take place in the Johnson Center Cinema on George Mason University’s Fairfax, Virginia Campus, and in the meantime, check out Avakian’s blog here (and all our participants and partner blogs to the left of our homepage).

In addition to Avakian’s appearance, Fall for the Book will host a full exhibition of photography by legendary Southern writer Eudora Welty. “Welty: Other Places (Photographs)” — produced by the Museum of Mississippi History, a division of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History and sponsored by NOVEC — will be on view September 14-30 in the Concert Hall lobby, Center for the Arts, on Mason’s Fairfax Campus. In conjunction with the exhibition, Southern lit scholar Susan V. Donaldson will present the lecture “Dismantling Jim Crow: Welty, Wright, and the Crying Wound of Race” on Thursday, September 24, at 1:30 p.m. in Grand Tier III, just upstairs from the show.

A second exhibition turns from photography to the art of the book — with a twist. “Material Word: Book Arts and Visual Poetry” features artist’s books, altered books, visual poems, and poem-objects by Mason students, alumni, and faculty, including students of Mason’s School of Art Book Arts courses and of the English Department’s Bookish Beasts and Concrete Visual Collage courses. Curated by Helen Frederick, Susan Tichy, and Danika Myers, this exhibition will be on view in Johnson Center Gallery 123, Mason’s Fairfax Campus, September 21-25. And mark your calendars for a reception and reading in that space on Wednesday, September 23, at 6 p.m.

Finally, on the opening day of the festival, Monday, September 21, come to the Johnson Center Cinema for “Poetry Goes to the Movies” featuring a 4:30 p.m. screening of Immortal Cupboard: In Search of Lorine Niedecker, an experimental documentary of the reclusive poet by director Cathy Cook, and a 6 p.m. “Neo-Benshi” event with poets Nada Gordon and Robert Fitterman talking back to the screen in a tradition dating back to the silent film era in Japan and Korea.

For more information, check out Fall for the Book’s complete calendar of events just uploaded to our webpage. And watch this space for more features on other 2009 participants.