November Read of the Month: “A Short Time to Stay Here,” by Terry Roberts

Reviewed by Matthew Simmons It is difficult to give Terry Roberts’s debut novel, A Short Time to Stay Here, the full and proper treatment it deserves.  This is not because it is a novel marked by “difficulty” of some experimental sense; to the contrary, it is a highly-readable, easily-digestible book.  But in that statement lies […]

North Carolina Writers’ Network Fall Conference

CARY, NC–Boasting scores of independent bookstores, nationally recognized publishers, and the largest population of members in the state, North Carolina’s Research Triangle is the ideal host for the 2012 North Carolina Writers’ Network Fall Conference, November 2-4 at the Embassy Suites in Cary, NC. The annual Fall Conference is North Carolina’s premier literary event and […]

“Sinners of Sanction County,” by Charles Dodd White

Review by Danilo Thomas Charles Dodd White’s Sinners of Sanction County, set in the heart of Appalachia, is packed full of booze, animals, backwoodsmen and woodswomen, as well of as the blood that can be drawn from each of them in the most violent, if not creative, of means. These tropes have come to be […]

“MISS JULIA ROCKS THE CRADLE,” BY ANN B. ROSS

Reviewed by Paul H. Yarbrough If you haven’t read any of Ann Ross’s Miss Julia series, you have missed a clever protagonist and delightful character with whom you could have become quite close. Miss Julia is a light-plotted Miss Marple with a touch of Jan Karon’s easy-going, Southern, genteel, feminine style (think Mitford series). Ms. […]

“The Lacuna,” by Barbara Kingsolver

Reviewed by Bonnie Armstrong Barbara Kingsolver’s first novel in ten years, The Lacuna, opens with the words: “In the beginning were the howlers.”  The howlers are monkeys on an island off the coast of Mexico, and the year is 1929. Born in the United States, Harrison William Shepherd spent his boyhood in Mexico with his […]

North Carolina Writers’ Network’s Annual Fall Conference

 North Carolina Writers’ Network’s Annual Fall Conference November 18-20, 2011 Asheville, NC     The NCWN Fall Conference, first held in 1985, has grown into one of the nation’s largest and most inclusive writers’ conferences.   Registration for the 2011 Fall Conference is now open at www.ncwriters.org.