ACETA News, Photos, and Archives

Former ACETA president Harry Moore’s poetry collection We the People: Confessions of a Caucasian Southerner has been chosen as 2024 Book of the Year by the Alabama State Poetry Society. Harry, a lifetime ACETA member, taught English in Alabama community colleges for four decades. He is now retired and lives with his wife, Cassandra, in Decatur. More at harryvmoore.com.

• Former Alabama community college professor, Harry Moore, will release a new collection of poetry this July. 
• Follow the link for more information:  We the People:  Confessions of a Caucasion Southerner

Visit ACETA's Facebook page for more pictures from events over the years.

It is with great pleasure that we congratulate Dr. Jeffrey Melton, the 2025 Eugene Current-Garcia winner.

After his graduate studies in English at the University of South Carolina, where he taught over 20 courses in Composition and American literature, Dr. Melton joined the Department of English and Philosophy at Auburn University-Montgomery where he eventually earned the rank of Full Professor. He spent most of his teaching duties focused on Composition and literature surveys. After 15 years at AUM, he joined the faculty at The University of Alabama in 2010, where he currently holds the rank of Full Professor in the Department of American Studies. His impressive record as a scholar in American literature particularly stems from his work in American travel literature and American humor.

The span of his work includes three books: Mark Twain, Travel Books, and Tourism (U of Alabama Press, 2002), which earned the Elizabeth Agee Prize for best manuscript submission focused on literature to The University of Alabama Press in 2002; a co-edited volume of Twain’s best travel writing, Mark Twain on the Move (U of Alabama Press, 2009); and The American Open Road: Narrative and Popular Imagination (U of Alabama Press, 2012), which also earned the Elizabeth Agee Prize. In addition, Dr. Melton has published eighteen peer-reviewed articles in significant journals and six notable essays in reference books. Furthermore, he has published eleven book reviews and has given numerous lectures at conferences.

Dr. Melton is a leading authority on Travel Literature, Mark Twain, and American Humor literature. In his professorial role, he teaches Literature, Composition, and American culture, always helping students in and outside the classroom, serving on master thesis and doctoral dissertation committees, and taking students to academic conferences to involve them in academia.

Please join us at our 2026 Conference where Dr. Melton will give our Eugene Current-Garcia keynote speech.

The award is named for the late Dr. Eugene Current-Garcia, who, in a distinguished academic career spanning five decades, mostly at Auburn University, published six books and dozens of articles and reviews on the short story genre and Old Southwest humor and also founded and co-edited the Southern Humanities Review.

2025 Dr. Jeffrey Melton
2024 Dr. Eric Smith
2023 Kieran Quinlan
2022 Heather White
2021 Alan Gribben
2020 Robert Evans
2019 Chris Metress
2018 David Cowart
2017 Kirk Curnutt
2016 Frye Gaillard
2015 Eric Sterling
2014 Wayne Flynt
2013 Sue Brannan Walker
2012 William A. Ulmer
2011 David Sauer
2010 Ralph Voss
2009 John Hafner
2008 Norman McMillan
2007 Elaine Hughes
2006 Nancy Anderson
2005 Robert W. Halli, Jr.
2004 Benjamin Buford Williams
2003 J. William Hutchings
2002 Trudier Harris
2001 Bert Hitchcock
2000 Don Noble
1999 Philip Beidler
1998 Claudia Durst Johnson