Meet the Editors

Donna Meredith is publisher and editor-in-chief. Claire Hamner Matturro and Dawn Major serve as associate editors. RIGHT: Photographs by VanessaK Photography, LLC.

Dreama Frisk

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

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

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

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 […]

March Read of the Month: “A Glooming Peace This Morning” by Allen Mendenhall

Allen Mendenhall’s debut novel, A Glooming Peace This Morning (Livingston Press 2023), is an achingly lovely, stirring novel about confused youth, a tragically mismatched relationship, legal ethics, and small-town Deep South in the 1970s. The story is told in the voice of a mature man looking back forty years to events in his youth, and […]

Donna Meredith interviews Terresa Haskew, author of “Winston’s Book of Souls”

Background: To our complete surprise, when Terresa Haskew queried me about reviewing her novel Winston’s Book of Souls, we discovered we were once neighbors in Tallahassee. What a happy coincidence that we were not only former neighbors, but we both nurtured a lifelong love of books and pursued writing as careers. You can read the […]