The stakes in a rogue divorce mediation couldn’t be higher—life and death for both the shaky mediator fresh out of rehab and the desperate husband who has never confronted an ethical line he will not cross. With that set-up, award-winning, best-selling Alabama attorney Robert Bailey is back with a new one, The Mediator (Max Ringo, […]
Read of the Month: “Kissing the Sky” by Lisa Patton
May 6, 2026 by Leave a Comment
Kissing the Sky (Lake Union Publishing 2026) by Lisa Patton is an engaging historical coming-of-age novel about finding and asserting one’s true self. Set during turbulent times, much of the story takes place at Woodstock—both the original 1969 famous music festival and the 50-year anniversary celebration. In her author’s notes, Patton admits she was too […]
“Sing Down the Moon” by Robert Gwaltney
March 17, 2026 by Leave a Comment
Robert Gwaltney undoubtedly has one of the most stunning imaginations of any author now writing. In his award-winning debut, The Cicada Tree—which, among other honors, won the Georgia Writer of the Year Award for a First Novel—he proved he excels in lyrical prose, richly drawn characters, and confident storytelling. Now, with his second novel, Sing […]
Claire Matturro interviews Robert Gwaltney, author of “Sing Down the Moon”
March 16, 2026 by 2 Comments
Claire Hamner Matturro: Robert, first, thank you for sharing some time and your answers with Southern Literary Review. You have a very full schedule of book release events for Sing Down the Moon, plus you are the vice-president in Atlanta of the Easter Seals North Georgia, Inc, and serve as Fiction Editor for the Blue […]
“1000 Pieces of Time” by Michael Minassian
February 10, 2026 by Leave a Comment
Literate, imaginative, erudite, precise, and lovely—the poems by Michael Minassian in 1000 Pieces of Time (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions 2025) are all that and more. Minassian blends the here and the gone, the realistic and the fanciful, the dreamy and the sharp, in a collection at once creative and impeccably well crafted. Divided into three distinctive parts, […]
“The Athlete Whisperer: An Improbable Voice in Sports” by Andrea Kirby
February 1, 2026 by Leave a Comment
To be truly captivating, a personal memoir needs to have at least these three things: an interesting baseline story, meaningful insight, and a strong voice conveyed well in quality writing. In all those ways, Andrea Kirby’s new memoir, The Athlete Whisperer: An Improbable Voice in Sports (FriesenPress 2025), excels. The baseline story tells readers how […]