Wine Bar Opens in Emory Village

Purple Corkscrew Wine Bar opened in Emory Village on June 1, replacing Houqua Tea Room at 1445 Oxford Rd. below the pasta restaurant Saba.

Stefini Bethea, owner of the wine bar with Kellie Pwens, described the location as a “cozy, casual” wine bar that will cater primarily to local residents and graduate students, according to a May 22 article in the Virginia Highland-Druid Hills Patch.

“Everywhere we looked, they already had a wine bar,” Bethea said in the Patch article. “When we found this location at Emory, we found that this was a need that wasn’t met.”

Bethea told the Patch she envisions the bar to serve as a Starbucks-like hangout where people can enjoy their wine. She clarified, though, that the wine bar is “not going to be a college scene” but rather a “relaxed scene” with wine from countries around the world.

Tentative hours are Monday through Thursday 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. and Friday and Saturday 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. The wine bar might extend its hours to 12:30 a.m. depending on demand. Purple Corkscrew will also include weekly specials, including Wednesday Flight Night for $15, Thursday Wine Tastings and Friday Night Live, according to the bar’s website, purplecorkscrew.com.

In addition to the wine bar, as of this spring, Bad Dog Taqueria also serves alcohol in the Village with the addition of a new bar space.


Professor Named U.S. Poet Laureate

Natasha Trethewey, Emory’s Charles Howard Candler Professor of English and Creative Writing, has been named the 19th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, known as the nation’s official poet.

According to the Library of Congress website, the U.S. Poet Laureate is the nation’s “lightning rod for the poetic impulse of America” and is responsible for raising appreciation of reading and writing poetry. Specifically, the Laureate gives an annual reading and lecture for his or her own works and typically introduces the Library of Congress’ annual poetry series in Washington, D.C.

The Laureate receives an annual stipend of $35,000 from the Archer M. Huntington Foundation. The Librarian of Congress, currently James Billington, appoints a new Poet Laureate annually, and the appointee serves in the position from October to May.

"Natasha Trethewey is an outstanding poet/historian in the mold of Robert Penn Warren, our first Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry," Billington said in a June 7 Library of Congress press release. "Her poems dig beneath the surface of history — personal or communal, from childhood or from a century ago — to explore the human struggles that we all face."

Trethewey – who as a result of the position will live in Washington, D.C. from January through May – received the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the Lillian Smith Award for her poetry collection “Native Guard.” She has also published the collections “Bellocq’s Ophelia” and “Domestic Work,” and is expecting to release another collection, “Thrall,” this year.

She additionally published the nonfiction book Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast in 2010.

"Poetry is very close to my heart," Trethewey said in a June 11 University press release. "The idea of having this position from which to try to promote poetry to a wider audience is thrilling, but also humbling."

Trethewey’s term as Poet Laureate coincides with the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the Consultant-in-Poetry position in 1937, which had its name changed to Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry in 1986. She will work in the Poets Room of the Poetry and Literature Center – the first time the appointee has done so since the creation of the position.

Succeeding Philip Levine as the Poet Laureate, Trethewey joins the ranks of several others who have filled the position including Billy Collins, Rita Dove, Robert Pinsky and Rita Dove, among several others.

Trethewey will open the Library’s literary session on Thursday, Sept. 13 in Coolidge Auditorium at the Library of Congress.

She also currently serves as the Poet Laureate of Mississippi, a position to which she was named in January and that requires a four-year term. She will serve as both the U.S. and Mississippi Poet Laureate simultaneously.


Emory Healthcare Sued for Missing Patient Records

Two Alabama law firms filed a $200 million class-action lawsuit against Emory Healthcare earlier this month, seeking $1,000 for each patient affected by recently discovered missing patient records.

The lawsuit additionally calls for Emory to pay for three years of identity-theft and credit insurance for each class member, according to a June 7 Atlanta Journal-Constitution article.

Ten backup discs containing about 315,000 surgical patients’ information were reported missing from Emory University Hospital in April, as reported in an Apr. 19 Wheel article. The information relates to patients who have been treated at Emory University Hospital, Emory University Hospital Midtown and the Emory Clinic Ambulatory Surgery Center between September 1990 and April 2007.

Of the missing records, 228,000 included social security numbers as well as patient names, dates of surgery, diagnoses, procedure codes, device implant information, surgeon names and anesthesiologist names.

Attorney Keith Jackson filed the suit, according to the AJC, because “the cost of litigation would make it too expensive for a single patient to sue.”

— Contact Jordan Friedman.