Meet the Editors

Donna Meredith is publisher and editor-in-chief. Claire Hamner Matturro, Dawn Major, and Mary Ellen Thompson serve as associate editors. RIGHT: Photographs by VanessaK Photography, LLC.

“Return to Hardscrabble Road” by George Weinstein

Return to Hardscrabble Road by George Weinstein takes the reader back to the rural South Georgia world inhabited by the characters of Hardscrabble Road. Shortly after World War II, the MacLeod brothers have returned to their homeplace as the result of a new crisis: the shooting death of their father Mance. Readers who eschew violence […]

2023 Rick Campbell Chapbook Prize

2023 Rick Campbell Chapbook Prize Ends on February 1, 2023 Open to all poets writing in English. Please submit 18-24 pages of original poetry. Individual poems may have been previously published. Please submit your manuscript without your name on it. Simultaneous submissions are fine. Please notify. Judges are the Anhinga editors. Winner receives: $200 and 25 […]

January Read of the Month: “Jar of Pennies” by John Yearwood

John Yearwood’s Jar of Pennies (John & Stephenie Yearwood Management Trust, 2022) is an impeccably written cultural and historical crime fiction novel.  The author knows how to spin a tale, capture a character, set a scene, portray a community, and write in stellar prose. However, as established in its opening chapter, it is not a […]

Claire Hamner Matturro interviews author John Yearwood

CHM: Thank you, John Yearwood, for giving Southern Literary Review a bit of your time and attention with these questions. First, let me congratulate you on writing such a powerful book. Jar of Pennies is an excellent novel, categorized as “cultural heritage fiction” and “historical murder mystery thriller.” Though primarily, perhaps, the story of a […]

“A Mother Speaks, A Daughter Listens: Journeying Together Through Dementia” by Felicia Mitchell

A profound and poignant collection of poems, A Mother Speaks, A Daughter Listens: Journeying Together Through Dementia (2022) by Felicia Mitchell can be read as a daughter’s memoir in verse or as a mother’s partial biography. Their merging stories are captivating and heartfelt, moving, and above all else, genuine. Anyone who has cared for a […]

Literary Books in Brief

This month Southern Literary Review takes a look at three recent publications from the University of Mississippi Press that focus on an aspect of Southern literature. “William Faulkner Day by Day” by Carl Rollyson I winced when I first saw the chronological, diary-like entries of William Faulkner Day by Day. I thought that format couldn’t […]