Two consecutive weekend book signings by well-known Southern authors will highlight the grand opening of Tallulah’s gift shop in Marion, which offers coffee, art and gift items.

On Saturday, Dec. 6,

Tallulah’s will hold its grand opening, according to Jennifer McMillan who, together with Buffy Taylor, owns the shop. Featured writers include Karren Pell, Wayne Greenhaw and Kirk Curnutt, all of Montgomery.

Pell will autograph copies of her book, Alabama Troubador. It combines photographs, essays and songs about 11

unusual

sites in Alabama &045; from the Coon Dog Cemetery to the Cross Garden to Sloss Furnaces.

With Pell will be Greenhaw, author of My Heart is in the Earth: True Stories of Alabama and Mexico; and Curnutt, author of

Baby, Let’s Make a Baby.

Also on Saturday there will be a block festival that will involve The Southern Belle, Marion’s newest gift shop. Pell will perform the music accompanying her book on the block of Washington Street where Tallulah’s is also located at 217 &045; on Marion’s courthouse square.

Tallulah’s grand opening will begin at 10 am, with book signings and performances following at 1 pm

On the next Saturday, Dec. 13, book signings will continue at Tallulah’s with Marion’s own Mary Ward Brown and Hale County native Norman McMillan. Brown will sign copies of Tongues of Flame as well as a more recent collection of short stories entitled, It Wasn’t All Dancing. Brown is a winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Lillian Smith Award, the 2002 Harper Lee Award and the 2003 Fellowship of Southern Writers Hillsdale Prize in Fiction.

McMillan will be signing copies of his memoir, &uot;Distant Son: An Alabama Boyhood,&uot; describing his growing-up years in poverty during the 1940s and 1950s. McMillan taught English at the University of Montevallo for almost 30 years and is in Montevallo where he spends most of his time reading and writing. &uot;Distant Son&uot; is published by the Cahaba Trace Commission and is the first in its &uot;Voices Along the Trace&uot; series.

Brown and McMillan will begin signings at 1 p.m. at Tallulah’s on Dec. 13.

Before opening their shop this past July, McMillan, an accountant, and Taylor, an artist, spent a good deal of time working on their business

plan, according to Alabama Outreach, a newsletter of the Alabama Entrepreneurial Research Network in the Perry County Chamber of Commerce that supports new businesses in small towns.

Tallulah’s is located at the northwest corner of Marion’s courthouse square and is in an 1830s building formerly housing a grocery store.

Tallulah’s is the first business in a half-block area being renovated – across the street from another block whose storefronts have been renovated.

For more information, call (334) 683-2477.