BettyJoyce Nash interviews Carla Damron, author of “Justice Be Done”

Introduction: A social worker, Carla Damron is also an award-winning fiction writer. Her latest book is Justice Be Done (Bella Rosa Press 2023). Her titles also include The Orchid Tattoo (National Indie Excellence Award) and The Stone Necklace (Women Fiction Writers Award, also chosen as One Community Read for Columbia, S.C.) BettyJoyce Nash writes fiction in Charlottesville, […]

Southern Literary Review Editor Donna Meredith interviews Phyllis Gobbell, author of “Prodigal”

Novel Summary It’s the Fourth of July, 2000. In a small Southern town, fireworks light the sky above the City Park, while down the street a smaller flash of light changes everything for 19-year-old Connor Burdette. He has just lost the girl he loves. Now, buying beer at the Back Home Market, he becomes an […]

Donna Meredith interviews Martin Hegwood, author of “Queen of Memphis”

Queen of Memphis Summary: LuAnn Collier, a small-town beauty queen from the Delta, has eloped with Burniss Winnforth, the most sought-after bachelor in Memphis, and her new mother-in-law Maggie is furious. The Winnforths are the leaders of Memphis society, and the Colliers are what Maggie considers “common,” a bunch of low-class gamblers or worse, so […]

Donna Meredith interviews Clay Shwab, author of “Manny Shwab and the George Dickel Company: Whisky, Power and Politics During Nashville’s Gilded Age”

Book Summary Manny Shwab and the George Dickel Company: Whisky, Power and Politics During Nashville’s Gilded Age (McFarland 2024) There was once a Tennessee whiskey that dwarfed Jack Daniel’s, and a powerful man was behind it: V.E. “Manny” Shwab. Until now, virtually nothing has been written about either. Their story is one of a Jewish […]

Mary Ellen Thompson interviews Rickie Zayne Ashby, author of “Walton’s Creek, Land of Our Fathers”

Introduction: Rickie Zayne Ashby’s debut novel, Walton’s Creek, Land of our Fathers, is the first of two volumes chronicling the life of several families in rural Western Kentucky. Based on his own family, this book, Volume I, covers the years 1913 – 1955 and gives a bird’s eye view of what life was like in […]

Bradley Sides interviews Maggie Nye, author of The Curators

Maggie Nye’s debut, The Curators (Curbstone Books 2024), mixes magical realism with history. Set in Atlanta during the summer of 1915, The Curators follows a group of young girls–known as the Felicitous Five–as they create and deal with a golem in the aftermath of Mary Phagan’s murder and Leo Frank’s lynching. Nye’s novel boldly and […]