Donna Meredith interviews Mimi Herman, author of “The Kudzu Queen”

DM: Mimi, I fell in love with your coming-of-age novel, The Kudzu Queen. Writing any book is a big undertaking that takes many months if not years. How long did you work on this book? MH: I’ve recently discovered something that surprised me. For a long time, I was convinced that I’d spent sixteen years […]

“Heart’s Core” by Joann Gardner

Prize-winning poet Joann Gardner, PhD, dives deep into Florida’s underground rivers and gathers gems and experiences too complex for simple surface tellings in Heart’s Core (Finishing Line Press 2023). This new poetry book is structured as a journey. Gardner’s book explores concepts of belonging and identity in her far-flung European and U.S. North-South immersions as […]

Dawn Major interviews Chika Unigwe, author of “The Middle Daughter”

Introduction:  Associate Editor Dawn Major discovered The Middle Daughter while working with the chief editor of Dzanc Books, Michelle Dotter. Dzanc Books was awarded the prestigious 2023 AWP Small Press Publisher Award, so it should not be a surprise Chika Unigwe, who has received numerous awards, found a home with this wonderful and innovative press. […]

Claire Hamner Matturro interviews Sarah Bewley, author of “Burning Eden”

Claire Hamner Matturro: Thank you, Sarah, for taking some time out from your busy and creative time to chat a bit with Southern Literary Review about your debut novel, Burning Eden, and other things too. It’s been a long time since you and I met in Gainesville, FL at a writing conference in which you […]

Donna Meredith interviews Sheridan Brown, T. M. Brown, Charles M. Clemmons and Betsy Reeder about Civil War Era novels

Four new Civil War Era novels were released this year. Southern Literary Review Editor Donna Meredith interviewed  the authors to find out what similarities and differences there might be in their approaches to their subjects—and why they chose to write about them in the first place. Sheridan Brown’s novel, The Viola Factor, is based on […]

John Wall Barger interviews poet Adrienne Su

Raised in Atlanta, Georgia, Adrienne Su earned a BA from Radcliffe College of Harvard University and an MFA from the University of Virginia. She’s the author of the poetry collections Peach State (2021) (Finalist for 2022 Patterson Poetry Prize), Living Quarters (2015), Having None of It (2009), Sanctuary (2006), and Middle Kingdom (1997). Her poems appear in many anthologies, including five volumes of The Best American […]