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 […]
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 […]
“Idiot Men” by Scott Gould
March 19, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Scott Gould’s newest collection, Idiot Men, provides the stage for wayward characters who make poor choices in life and love against a backdrop of elegant prose. In “Word of the Day” (winner of the 2020 Larry Brown Short Story Award), a long-haul truck driver’s wife flees to Jamaica with her lover, leaving him to babysit her hairless tomcat, […]
“Louise and Vincent” by Diane Byington
March 19, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Louise and Vincent (Red Adept Publishing LLC 2023) by Diane Byington is a moving, well-written novel which should captivate readers, especially those who like history and stories of strong women. The book blends well-researched history with the author’s rich imagination and her talent to create a story about star-crossed lovers, domestic abuse, and the power […]