UA NOVELIST SEEKS RECOLLECTIONS OF TRAVELING MOVIES

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - Ozark novelist and University of Arkansas professor Donald Harington is trying to find people who remember the popular country entertainment of the 1930s and 1940s, when movie projectionists traveled the backroads of the hill country and showed their films in the open air or in tents, barns, brush arbors, schoolhouses and other public buildings.

Harington, who has won several awards for his eleven novels about the Arkansas Ozarks, is at work on a new novel called "The Pitcher Shower" (pronounced "shore") about an itinerant motion picture showman who brings the silver screen to the most remote areas of the Ozarks.

He is seeking to contact people who have memories of having attended such movies, or, if possible, were involved in the business of showing the movies. He himself recalls such movies shown in rural Madison County during his childhood, but wants to learn as much as possible about the subject.

Harington hopes that anyone who can tell him about their experiences with traveling movies will contact him. His email address is: dharingt@uark.edu, or he may be contacted by regular mail at 1784 Glenbrook Place, Fayetteville, AR 72701. The result will be a new novel from the writer hailed recently by the Boston Globe as "one of America's greatest contemporary authors."

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Donald Harington, novelist, professor of art history dharingt@uark.edu