The Southern Literary Review celebrates Southern authors and their contributions to American literature. We feature classic writers who have defined Southern literature, and we highlight emerging authors with interviews, profiles, and book reviews. We support independent bookstores. If you subscribe to our newsletter, please add southernliteraryreview@comcast.net to your email contacts list so that the newsletter doesn’t […]
“Everybody Here is Kin” by BettyJoyce Nash
April 17, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Everybody Here is Kin is a literal storm brewing in the middle of a place called Boneyard Island. This is supposed to be Lucille’s birthday trip onward to Key West, and the island a destination to bury her father’s ashes. Instead, her mother takes off with a new man, leaving a note: See you Wednesday…I’ll […]
“Harbor Lights” by James Lee Burke
April 16, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Harbor Lights (Atlantic Monthly Press January 2024) by James Lee Burke is a collection of eight varied and gripping short stories by the multiple award-winning, bestselling author of the long-running Dave Robicheaux series. While harrowing in places, the stories collectively are stunningly powerful and impeccably crafted. The book includes a previously unpublished novella, “Strange Cargo,” […]
Read of the Month: “Perpendicular Women: Adventures in the Multiverse” by Chris Coward
April 3, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Perpendicular Women: Adventures in the Multiverse (Atmosphere Press 2023) by Chris Coward has a stunning cover design befitting the exceptionally intriguing story inside. Speculative fiction, the novel is divided into three parts, each featuring a different character: “Connection 1: Kara, Dreamer”; “Connection 2: Pandora, Leader”; and “Connection 3: Dawn, Champion.” Each section takes places in […]
“To Free the Captives: A Plea for the American Soul” by Tracy K. Smith
April 2, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Tracy K. Smith had already been awarded a Pulitzer Prize and appointed to a second term as Poet Laureate of the United States when she did a reading at my local library (Arlington, Va.) Although I had read her warm and inviting poetry, I was not prepared for the way she pulled me into a […]
Dreama Frisk
April 1, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Dreama Frisk, born and raised on McCann’s Run, WV, won first place in the Northern Virginia Writers poetry contest (2021). She also convened Ice Writers in Romney, WV. Her poetry collection, Ivory Hollyhock is on reserve in Arlington, VA Library Writers Center, cited as “a slice of history and its importance to the understanding of Appalachian […]
“Valediction: Poems and Prose” by Linda Parsons
April 1, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Valediction: Poems and Prose (Madville Publishing 2023) by Linda Parsons is an achingly lovely collection in which the poet treks through ordinary facets of life weighing marvel against damage. Parsons’ poems and her micro-essays, which she calls visitations, are eminently relatable—the death of a beloved dog, a complicated father-daughter relationship, loving support from older women […]