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.
“With the Devil’s Help” by Neal Wooten
June 18, 2023 by Leave a Comment
Neal Wooten’s powerful memoir, With the Devil’s Help (Simon & Schuster 2022), begins with a knock-knock—and it isn’t a joke. The men in black suits have shown up at four-year-old Neal’s door and want to speak to his father. This is Neal’s introduction—and ours—to a family mystery: who are these men? Why are they threatening […]
“Yellow Wife” by Sadeqa Johnson
June 18, 2023 by Leave a Comment
Yellow Wife (Simon & Schuster, 2021) by Sadeqa Johnson has garnered much recognition already: A Best Book of 2021 by NPR and Christian Science Monitor, and a Goodreads Choice Award. Yet Southern Literary Review didn’t want to let this extraordinary historical novel escape our readers’ notice, so Donna Meredith and Claire Matturro discussed the novel’s merits […]
Jayne Moore Waldrop interviews Silas House, Kentucky Poet Laureate
June 14, 2023 by 1 Comment
In late April 2023, Silas House was inducted as the thirty-first poet laureate of Kentucky. He is the New York Times bestselling author of seven novels including Clay’s Quilt, A Parchment of Leaves, The Coal Tattoo, Eli the Good, Same Sun Here, Southernmost, and his most recent, Lark Ascending (2022) (Read SLR review of this novel here). Lark Ascending was a Booklist Editors’ […]
“Love Letters from an Arsonist” by David van den Berg
June 13, 2023 by 1 Comment
In his compelling, imaginative collection of poetry, Love Letters from an Arsonist (2023), David van den Berg treads through a grand old Southern literary campground of gothic, beauty and brutalism, religiosity, and nature—all in the same works. These are intense poems that cry out to be read and reread and absorbed, verses that will not […]
Darlyn Finch Kuhn
June 12, 2023 by Leave a Comment
Darlyn Finch Kuhn is a prolific poet, short-story writer, and novelist who edits the Scribbles literary e-newsletter and produces book trailer videos. Her debut novel, Sewing Holes, available from Twisted Road Publications, won First Place in the published novella category of the FWA’s 2015 Royal Palm Literary Awards. In addition to her two poetry collections […]