It is not often that an author can produce a prize-winning short story collection. To produce four in a row is simply astounding. And SLR just learned Mississippi author Becky Hagerston has just won yet another award, the Story Foundation Prize for a short story entitled “Woman of the House.” It will appear in Story […]
August Books of Special Note
August 1, 2023 by Leave a Comment
Nonfiction: Made from Scratch: Finding Success Without a Recipe (R.H. Boyd Publishing, 2023), an autobiography by entrepreneur Mignon Francois, tells the first-hand story of Francois as she turns her budget for a modest meal into a multi-million-dollar bakery brand. A New Orleans native, François is the descendant of enslaved people on a sugar cane plantation—and sugar […]
Toward the Corner of Mercy and Peace by Tracey D. Buchanan
July 18, 2023 by 5 Comments
Reviewed by Mary Ellen Thompson With her debut novel, Toward the Corner of Mercy and Peace, Tracey Buchanan has just spiced up the genre of semi-humorous historical fiction when she introduces the reader to Mrs. Minerva Place, a persnickety middle aged woman who converses with ghosts from the local cemetery in Paducah, Kentucky. The proverbial […]
“Malone Ridge” by James K. Dill
July 18, 2023 by Leave a Comment
Malone Ridge (Little Star Books 2023) is a well-conceived, well-told tale of spirit triumphing over circumstances. And for Eve Malone, the protagonist, the circumstances are, if not dire, close enough. Born in Nitro, a small West Virginia community in Appalachia, she is living in poverty in a trashy, once-abandoned hunter’s trailer with an outhouse in […]
July Read of the Month: “Deeper than African Soil” by Faith Eidse
July 5, 2023 by Leave a Comment
Deeper than African Soil (Masthof Press, 2023) by Faith Eidse is a most unusual and exceptionally fine memoir. No wonder Florida State University recognized it with the Kingsbury Award, given annually to a graduate student who demonstrates lasting intellectual value in writing, and with the English Department’s Ann Durham Outstanding Master’s Thesis Award. Several chapters […]
Gwaltney named Georgia Author of the Year for First Novel
June 21, 2023 by Leave a Comment
Congratulations to Robert Gwaltney for his latest award: Georgia Author of the Year for First Novel. Read Dawn Major’s review of his novel The Cicada Tree. Dawn also interviewed Robert. And here is an essay Robert wrote about a writer’s residency. See all the winners in the 2023 contest here.