The Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance has released its “Okra Picks” for the Summer of 2017.
Among them is Blight by Alexandra Duncan. The author, who lives in the mountains of Western North Carolina, is a science fiction writer whose first two books, Salvage and Sound were very well received. Blight is set in North Georgia and deals with a polluting agribusiness facility. It is scheduled for release in August.
If the Creek Don’t Rise by Leah Weiss is another Summer 2017 Okra Pick. This is an explicitly Appalachian novel from an author with ties to both North Carolina and Virginia. It received a starred review in Library Journal. The novel has fourteen narrators, all connected in some way to the fictional Baines Creek community. It is Leah Weiss’s first novel set for release in August.
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Leah Hampton, who is from Waynesville, North Carolina, and is currently a student in the James C. Michener Center for Writers MFA Program at the University of Texas, has won the $50,000 Keene Prize for Literature. It was awarded for her short story, “Boomer,” set in Appalachia.
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Among the authors invited to present at the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville from Friday, October 13, until Sunday, October 15th are: Wiley Cash, Cathryn Hankla, Ron Rash, and Karen Spears Zacharias
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Do you wonder why David Joy, one of the most promising writers of our youngest generation, writes about folks who live lives of quiet, and sometimes raucous, desperation? Read this essay he published this month: http://bittersoutherner.com/digging-in-the-trash-david-joy