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 […]
“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 […]
Donna Meredith interviews Phil Oakley, author of The Oakleys series
July 13, 2026 by Leave a Comment
Book Summaries Little Hatchet When his brother is kidnapped from their New Mexico cabin, 12-year-old Walter Oakley sets off in pursuit, launching a multi-generational saga. Following the Oakley family from 1800s frontier life among Apaches and Comanches through Prohibition-era Texas, Little Hatchet chronicles their courageous struggle for survival amid unimaginable tragedy, violence, and determination. Runners […]
Trillium Meeks interviews Conor McAnally, author of “Bullets in the Water”
July 13, 2026 by Leave a Comment
Conor McAnally is a Renaissance man of the media world, having produced television shows, worked as an investigative journalist, starred in plays he wrote, and published short stories. He has won awards for many of these pieces. I was asked to review his debut novel, Bullets in the Water, and became so engrossed in it […]
Trillium Meeks
July 12, 2026 by Leave a Comment
Trillium Meeks has loved stories – whether in books, on the screen, or in song form – for as long as she can remember. She defines the epochs of her life by what she was obsessively reading as much as by where she was living. She graduated from Auburn University with a degree in English […]
“Yellow” by Amy Pence
July 11, 2026 by Leave a Comment
Yellow (Red Hen Press 2026) is a multi-threaded transformation of the novel into an innovative form. Twelve-year-old Z learns about the world through the televised events of 1973 while the nation is taken by the Watergate hearings and Skylab’s launch into space. That summer she discovers an unclassified slime mold in her backyard which she […]