Aracelis Gonzalez Asendorf’s Dressing the Saints (Black Lawrence Press 2024) is a collection of nine short stories that vividly explores the lives of Cuban Americans. The book, which won the Gold Medal for Fiction at the 2025 Florida Book Awards, brings to life the close-knit immigrant communities of South Florida and the rich cultural heritage […]
2025 Word of South Music and Literary Festival April 4-6
March 21, 2025 by Leave a Comment
Tallahassee’s beautiful Cascades Park will host the tenth Word of South Music and Literary Festival April 4-6, 2025. This FREE event will feature music, authors, food and fun all weekend. The only paid event is the Violent Femmes and Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra on Friday, April 4. You can buy tickets here. Everything else is free. […]
“Boy With Wings” by Mark Mustian
March 21, 2025 by Leave a Comment
Is Johnny Cruel an angel or a demon or just an ordinary boy with an unusual birthmark? In Mark Mustian’s literary novel Boy With Wings (Koehler Books 2025), characters often struggle to make sense of Johnny Cruel’s unusual wings—and readers may feel the same. At times, Johnny is heroic; at others, vengeful. In this novel of […]
“2000 Blacks” by Ajibola Tolase
March 21, 2025 by Leave a Comment
2000 Blacks (University of Pittsburgh Press 2024) by Ajibola Tolase is a powerful poetry collection that has garnered significant recognition, winning the Gold Medal for Poetry in the 2025 Florida Book Awards as well as the Cave Canem Poetry Prize. Tolase’s poetry is deeply evocative, blending personal history with broader cultural and political themes. The […]
“The Best That You Can Do” by Amina Gautier
March 21, 2025 by Leave a Comment
Amina Gautier’s The Best That You Can Do (Soft Skull, 2024) is a powerful, multi-award-winning collection of short stories centered on characters from the Puerto Rican and African diaspora. The book has received numerous accolades, including the Midwest MLA Book Award, the Florida Book Awards Silver Medal, and the 2023 Soft Skull-Kimbilio Publishing Prize. It […]
“Filling the Big Empty” by Rhonda Browning White
March 6, 2025 by Leave a Comment
It’s easy to understand why Rhonda Browning White’s debut novel, Filling the Big Empty (Redhawk Publications 2024) was shortlisted for the 2022 Neilson Prize. The novel is a tour-de-force, relentlessly examining environmental issues in Appalachia. While never losing focus on a young couple’s relationship, the story drops readers into the horrors of mountaintop removal to extract coal, the […]