“Cormac McCarthy: The Great Optimist of American Literature” by James Wade

Associate Editor Dawn Major has not had the pleasure of meeting author, James Wade, who wrote the following piece, “Cormac McCarthy: The Great Optimist of American Literature.” She met him through another fellow Southern author. If anything, the Southern writing world is a small one. Everyone knows everyone in the end, well…maybe not Cormac McCarthy […]

Read of the Month: “Red Clay Suzie” by Jeffrey Dale Lofton

Named as one of the most anticipated LGBTQIA+ books of 2022 by Lambda Lambda Literary and winner of the Seven Hills Literary Prize for Fiction, Red Clay Suzie (Post Hill Press) was absolutely captivating. Calling it a page-turner does not do it justice, though its short chapters, sometimes only a few pages in length, make […]

Dawn Major interviews Jeffrey D. Lofton, author of “Red Clay Suzie”

Associate Editor Dawn Major recently had the opportunity to meet Jeffrey Dale Lofton at her virtual book launch for her debut novel, The Bystanders. Lofton embodies what one might imagine to be the epitome of a Southern gentleman—poised, articulate, perfect manners, and wearing a smart bowtie. It’s hard to imagine that underneath all his Southern […]

Donna Stanley Meredith interviews Dawn Major, author of “The Bystanders”

Southern Literary Review Editor Donna Meredith interviewed Associate Editor Dawn Major about her debut novel, The Bystanders. As you can see, their initials are the same. To differentiate, Donna used the initial of her maiden name Stanley, thus DSM.  DSM: So, Dawn. One of your main characters in The Bystanders, Shannon Lamb-Samples, is the ultimate […]

Dawn Major interviews Robert Gwaltney

Dawn Major has followed author Robert Gwaltney’s writing career and has been delighted to watch it grow in leaps and bounds after a very successful reception of his debut novel, The Cicada Tree. Since running into him at a fellow author reading at FoxTale Book Shop a couple of years ago, she counts him as […]

Dawn Major interviews Mary Ellen Thompson

Introduction: When Associate Editor, Dawn Major, heard that Robert Gwaltney, author of The Cicada Tree, had been selected as the Pat Conroy Literary Center’s writer in residency, she asked him to write about his experience. Gwaltney wrote a sublime piece called “Lick the Sherbet Sky,” where he kept alluding to an individual by the name […]