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 […]
“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 […]
“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 […]
“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 […]
“Tour of a Lifetime: Glenamaddy to Gomorrah” by Thomas Rabbitt
May 29, 2023 by Leave a Comment
When Thomas Rabbitt’s first acclaimed book of poetry, Exile (1975), won the prestigious Pitt award, he was a relatively young man. At that time, he was charged with starting a Masters of Fine Arts in creative writing program at The University of Alabama, a program he led to national prominence before retiring in 1998. Rabbitt’s […]