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 […]
Jennifer Lewis Interviews Cynthia Leal Massey, Author of “Well of Deception”
April 1, 2026 by Leave a Comment
A finalist for the 2026 Spur Award for Best Western Contemporary Novel, Well of Deception (Stoney Creek Publishing 2025), by Cynthia Leal Massey, is a historical fiction novel taking place in south central Texas in the late 1950s. Inspired by true events, this story is about the murder of Maggie Schneider at her turkey farm […]
“Ava: A Novel” by Victoria Dillon
April 1, 2026 by Leave a Comment
Just as Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World invited us to imagine test-tube babies and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale invites us to imagine fertile women enslaved as breeders, Ava: A Novel by Victoria Dillon opens us to the possibility that in a post-Roe world, human birth might evolve into something entirely different. I mean, entirely […]
Read of the Month: “Art Work: On the Creative Life “by Sally Mann
April 1, 2026 by Leave a Comment
Almost without exception, seeing a book with the subtitle “On the Creative Life” I’d take a pass. But who can resist a book like Sally Mann’s Art Work Art Work: On the Creative Life (New York: Abrams Press, 2025), that begins with “This is a book about how to get shit done” ? Sally Mann, […]
“Well of Deception” by Cynthia Leal Massey
March 30, 2026 by Leave a Comment
Well of Deception (Stoney Creek Publishing 2025), by the multi-award-winning author Cynthia Leal Massey, is a new take on the classic small town murder mystery. A bullet shot in broad daylight seemingly out of nowhere kills turkey-breeder Maggie Schneider, and the prime suspect is missing. Everyone thinks they know who shot Maggie, but they can’t […]
“The Perfect Rom-Com” by Melissa Ferguson
March 30, 2026 by Leave a Comment
This book is totally aptly named, because it is The Perfect Rom-Com. I read it within twenty-four hours, laughed myself silly, wanted to be Bryony’s best friend because of her quick wit, fell a bit in love with Jack myself, cried through chapter twenty-five, and lobbed imaginary spit balls at Amelia’s “Choppy yellow hair that […]
Mary Ellen Thompson interviews Bren McClain, author of “One Good Mama Bone”
March 17, 2026 by 3 Comments
I met Bren McClain in 2017 at an author’s luncheon and book signing for her new novel, One Good Mama Bone. At some point, when she was living away, I offered Bren a writing respite at MarshSong Cottage. She never did take me up on it, but we started emailing each other and because we […]