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 […]
“Dancing Woman” by Elaine Neil Orr
August 3, 2026 by Leave a Comment
Elaine Neil Orr’s Dancing Woman (Blair, 2025) is a delicately visceral interrogation of what it means to be a woman in search of herself and what it costs when every choice—and every failure to choose—reshapes everything around her. The story is set in the 1960s, in northern Yoruba country, Nigeria, during the years between the […]
Betty Joyce Nash interviews John P. Loonam, author of “The Price of Their Toys: Stories of Men and Boys”
August 3, 2026 by Leave a Comment
Betty Joyce Nash crossed paths with John P. Loonam, author of The Price of Their Toys (Cornerstone Press 2026) when Betty Joyce and co-editor Deirdra McAfee chose John’s story, “Action Adventure,” for the anthology Lock & Load: Armed Fiction, (University of New Mexico Press 2017). John P. Loonam’s fiction has appeared in The Madison Review, Modern Shorts (an […]
“Dirty Myrtle” by Kennedy Weible
August 2, 2026 by Leave a Comment
Dirty Myrtle (Apprentice House 2026) by Kennedy Weible is an oft-times zany crime caper novel set in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and it moves at a furious pace, filled with quirky plot twists, unconventional characters, and even quirkier twists of fate. In that regard, it is comparable to the zany crime caper novels of Tim […]
Blair Lee Lunn
August 2, 2026 by Leave a Comment
Blair Lee Lunn is a writer and educator from North Carolina and the author of Emergence (Bottlecap Press). Her interests in reading and study include the craft of writing, speculative fiction, and queer and multicultural American literature. Among other places, her writing has appeared in American Short Fiction, The Sun, and The Masters Review Anthology. […]
“Understanding Jorie Graham” by N. S. Boone
July 15, 2026 by Leave a Comment
In Understanding Jorie Graham, (South Carolina Press, 2025), N. S. Boone presented an in-depth view of Jorie Graham’s background and a detailed view of her poetry. Extremely well-researched, this author also utilized personal phone interviews with Graham and quoted what others have said or written about her poetry. With Graham’s books for reference, N. S. […]
“Bullets in the Water” by Conor McAnally
July 15, 2026 by Leave a Comment
It is not often, in these days of perpetual motion and constant demands for our time and attention, that a book comes along and simply demands to be devoured in a single sitting. Conor McAnally’s debut novel, Bullets in the Water, is one such book. Mystery, murder, mysticism, political intrigue, redemption, and loss – this […]