It would be impossible to assemble a list of all the incredible books by Alabama writers that deserve your attention, but, in the interest of serving the good at the expense of the perfect, what follows is an incomplete list, a glimpse.

Recipient of the 2014 Writers Exchange Award from Poets & Writers, Harry Moore taught writing and literature for four decades in Alabama community colleges. He lives with his wife, Cassandra, in Decatur, Alabama, and currently serves as an assistant editor of POEM magazine, His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in the Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Avocet, Pudding Magazine, Main Street Rag, South Carolina Review, Anglican Theological Review, Xavier Review, and other journals. In his latest chapbook, Beyond Paradise (Main Street Rag, 2020), Moore uses sound as a vehicle into space and life. Jake Berry calls the language and beauty of this book “an unweeded paradise.”

Bruce Berger, the author, finally came home 50 years after the Vietnam war when his memories crystallized into the 34 poems in Fragments. He shipped to Vietnam as an Infantryman in 1970 but was assigned most of the year to the Casualty Branch of the 101st Airborne Division at Camp Eagle, near Phu Bai. As “next-of-kin” editor, he wrote hundreds of sympathy letters to grieving families back home for loss of their soldier, and sometimes helped gather fallen brothers on battle grounds to begin their long journeys home. Writing these poems brought him home. Many of the poems are illustrated with artwork created by members of the Providence Art Club in Rhode Island. All earnings from this book will be donated to the Vietnam Veterans of America.

And a few more books, some of which we’ve featured in the recent past, that make great gifts for friends and family—and, of course, yourself….

WHEN STARS RAIN DOWN by Angela Jackson-Brown

CLOSED RANKS by Foster Dickson

THE BOOK OF AWESOME BLACK AMERICANS by Monique L. Jones

THE SOCIAL DISTANCE by Highland Poets

AWC 2019 Anthology

CODE by Charlotte Pence

I WALK A FRAYED TIGHTROPE WITHOUT A SAFETY NET by Carey Link

LITTLE GEARS OF TIME by Susan Martinello

MONARCH MYSTERIES by Claire Datnow

HUMAN REACTION by Mysti S. Milwee

ALABAMA NOIR edited by Don Noble

ROOT & PLANT & BLOOM by Dodie Watson Horne

HEAL MY WAY HOME by Rachel Tanner

DEBRIS CLOUD by James N. Ezell

AROUND THE CORNER by John W. Davis

MARRIAGE ADVICE FROM A DIVORCED GUY by Karim Shamsi-Basha

POST-CONVICTION RELIEF: SECOND LAST CHANCE by Kelly Patrick Riggs

TUSCALOOSA STORIES by Tuscaloosa Writers and Illustrators Guild

And don’t miss the huge selection of other books published by Alabama writers in recent years—everything from poetry to nonfiction to history to short story collections to anthologies…

2022 - 2025 Alabama Poet Laureate Nominations Guidelines 

Deadline for nominations: MARCH 15, 2021.

The Board has decided that, given the extenuating circumstances associated with the pandemic, we would like to extend the deadline for nominations for the next state Poet Laureate. The new deadline for receipt of nominations will be March 15. Queries, including information regarding electronic submission, can be sent to AWC President TJ Beitelman, who is serving as the selection process coordinator. His email address is tjbeitelman@asfa.k12.al.us.

What is the Alabama Poet Laureate Position?

The Alabama Poet Laureate recognizes and honors a citizen poet of exceptional talent and accomplishment. The Alabama Poet Laureate also encourages appreciation of poetry and literary life in Alabama. This position was created by the state legislature May 5, 1931.  

What is the Term of Service and Compensation?

The term of service is a four-year renewable term. The award is honorific; the state provides no compensation. The term begins January 1, 2022.  Currently, the position of Alabama State Poet Laureate is filled by Jennifer Horne of Cottondale, Alabama.

Who is eligible to be nominated Alabama Poet Laureate?

Any citizen of the state of Alabama may nominate a poet for the Poet Laureate position.  A poet may not self-nominate him or herself, and no award will be given posthumously.  Nominations for Alabama Poet Laureate will be accepted for Alabama poets who meet the following eligibility requirements:

1. Must currently be a resident of Alabama and have resided in Alabama for at least ten years.

2. Must be at least 21 years old.

3. Must have at least one book of poetry published by a commercial or small press within the past ten years.

4. Must be available to travel and give presentations.

5. Must have produced work of the highest caliber and critical acclaim and have contributed substantial service to the development of the literary arts as demonstrated by the submitted application.

What is the selection process for Alabama Poet Laureate?

The President of Alabama Writers Conclave will appoint a Poet Laureate Nominations Committee who will review applications and present a candidate for election at the annual meeting on or about August 15, 2021. The Governor of the State of Alabama will then appoint the selected candidate in an official ceremony.

How will Alabama Poet Laureate nominations be evaluated?

1. Excellence as evidenced by the submitted poetry sample.

2. Exemplary professionalism as evidenced by an established history of substantial and significant publications in journals and books including at least one book of poems published by a commercial or small press (see eligibility requirements) and special honors, awards, fellowships, or other recognition.

3. Advancement of poetry in Alabama communities as evidenced by an established history of activity in Alabama’s literary community through readings, publications, public presentations and/or teaching. 

To be considered, nominations must include the following:

1. Completed nomination form (attached), signed by nominator and nominated poet that include a binding statement that the poetry sample is the nominee’s and the materials submitted are true and complete.

2. A cover letter from the nominator of no more than two pages providing the following information: name and a short biography of the nominated poet and a summary of significant awards and published works.

3. The poet-nominee’s resume or CV.

4. A summary of no more than one page indicating (A) why the nominator considers the work of the nominated poet to be of the highest quality and (B) why the nominee is well-suited to help promote the reading, writing, and appreciation of poetry in our state.

5. A work sample of no more than ten poems.  Submissions may not exceed 15 continuously numbered 8 1/2” x 11” pages (one side), no less than 12 point type.  Please provide copyright information where appropriate; all submissions become part of the public record. Both published and non-published poetry may be submitted. All submissions must be typewritten or computer generated.  Materials hand-written will not be accepted.

Receipt deadline for all nominations is MARCH 15, 2021.

To learn more about the laws and constitutional criteria governing the position of state poet laureate,
please download the document below.

Sunrise, 1873. Oil on canvas by Claude Monet

Painters employ color, light, and shadow. Writers use small, standardized black marks set against a white background. Yet these marks can inspire, condemn, evoke tears, laughter, anger, or regret. They can sweep a reader into a different reality, even bring a vanished time to life. What is the secret of their power?

All the elements of writing well and writing good fiction apply to writing the historical novel: characterization, voice, plot, theme, and solid research about the time period. But what makes a good historical novel—a novel that uncorks the magic of historical fiction, engrossing the reader in a story that transforms the past from a misty construct into something “real”?

To do that, there must be an authoritative voice that makes the characters and the historical setting believable and allows the reader to “suspend belief.” Part of establishing that voice is found in the advice to writers that characters in historical fiction need to think/speak/act as they would in the era we are writing about, as they are products of their time and upbringing. And we can aim for that. We can put effort into thinking about the words and phrases we use in order to avoid the anachronisms that pull a reader out of the story, and we can season the story with the spices of our careful research. But in reality, we can’t really accomplish it; it’s all anachronism—our very language is different from the language of the past in many ways.

Remember your high school Chaucer?

WHAN that Aprille with his shoures soote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote,
And bathed every veyne is swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour:

Obviously, if you wrote a story in the real style of that time, it might be authentic, but who would, or could, read it? Structure can also be an issue. You might write a Moby Dick or Ivanhoe, but no modern day publisher (and very few readers) would put up with such meandering beginnings. The secret is to write a story structured in a way that is understandable and engaging to the modern reader yet creates an illusion of being an accurate reflection of the past.

Art, even a photograph, is a symbolic representation of what the artist wishes to communicate. It is the same for writers. Good dialogue, for example, is no more a true replication of how people speak to one another, than a brush stroke of green paint is actually grass. Well written dialogue is condensed, shaped, and structured to accomplish the writer’s goals—to reveal character, forward the plot, or build atmosphere. It creates the illusion of real dialogue. In the same vein, use of dialect can help create the illusion. Applied too thickly, however, even though it might be more accurate, it can bog down or confuse the reader. Even information—the historical novelist’s primary tool—must not overwhelm the story but enhance the suspension of belief.

How much is too much? There is not a definitive answer to that question. It is a matter of what works. M. T. Anderson pushed the envelope in incorporating the style of a time period in the structure of his language, writing of events in 1770’s in his novel, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing:

 Some few months later, a mob assembled in Old South Meeting House, and, after a rousing word by Mr. Adams, some habited themselves as Mohawk Indians and repaired to the wharves where they dumped tea.

I did not hear of this charade until the next day and did not understand its purport; rather thinking it a pleasant interlude from the more brutal games of the Sons of Liberty. There was something almost gentlemanly about it, a hint of sport. Dr. Trefusis and I walked along the wharves and spake of disguise, color, substance, and the solidity of matter.

Far out in the harbor, tea clotted the brilliancy of sun upon the water. Men thin as insects rowed scows between the clumps, shepherding them with paddles, pressing down upon them, dousing them, drowning them, so that light might play unimpeded upon the winter sea.

In his notes, Anderson explained that he used selected words and phrasings to create the sense of the time period and style of writing but had to temper it significantly in order to make it understandable for the modern reader. I believe Anderson spent as much time studying the words and phrasing of writing in the 1700’s as he did historical facts. What he did was daring and not for beginners, but it worked beautifully.

On the other hand, my debut novel, Noah’s Wife, was set several thousand years in the past. No one knows what language was spoken in ancient Turkey in 5500 BCE. It was impossible to have “authentic” dialogue or duplicate the accurate structure of the language (writing having not been invented yet). Similarly, in Angels at the Gate—the story of Lot’s wife set in the time of Abraham—the spoken languages were a mixture of Akkadian, Egyptian, and Canaanite. Attempting anything like what Anderson did would have been ludicrous and would have had the opposite effect of the one intended.

In both books, avoiding the use of words or metaphors that would not have been part of the characters’ worlds and using slightly different sentence structures than those expected by the modern ear helped create the subtle illusion of an older time. And of course, utilizing information and extrapolations about the culture and environment of the time periods in a way that flowed naturally from the story deepened the illusion. From my novel Angels At The Gate:

 If the path of obedience is the path of wisdom, it is one not well worn by my feet. I am Adira, daughter of the caravan, daughter of the wind, and daughter of the famed merchant, Zakiti. That I am his daughter, not his son, is a secret between my father and myself. This is a fine arrangement, as I prefer the freedoms of being a boy.

At the head of our caravan, my father and I walk together beside our pack donkeys, the late day sun casting stubby shadows before us. Our sandaled feet raise a cloud of dust along the dry path that winds through Canaan’s white-and-taupe hills, studded with shrubs and spring flowers. We are taking a gift of sheep to our tribe’s elder, along with a portion of our recent purchase of olive oil and wine. I am less than enthusiastic.

Father sees this in my face. He reads me well—often, too well. “You are not happy to see Abram and Sarai?” he says, giving my donkey a pat. “Why not, Adir?” He always uses the masculine form of my name, even when we are alone. He is afraid if he does not, he will forget one day when he is angry or tired.

I shrug. “I am happy to visit with my cousin, Ishmael, but Abram is old and likes to talk.”

“He is a wise and learned man,” my father says, resting a hand on my shoulder. “You should listen to him.”

I should do many things I do not . . . .

The Impressionists often painted with thin brush lines that individually seem chaotic, but together (and at the right distance) transforms and suspends belief, so that the viewer “sees” what was intended. So too does the novelist, and the historical novelist does so with both the additional challenge and the additional tools of rich information about the past. It is all illusion, but then science tells us that what we think of as reality is also an illusion, a reconstruction created by our minds. This reconstructed “truth” of our perceptions is no less beautiful, tragic, or engaging . . . like a good story.

---

About the Author

T.K. Thorne’s childhood passion for storytelling deepened when she became a police officer. “It was a crash course in life, in what motivated people and what mattered to them.” She served more than two decades in the Birmingham police force where she worked in the patrol, detective, and administration bureaus, retiring as a precinct captain. Following that, she was executive director of CAP (City Action Partnership), a downtown business improvement district that focused on safety, retiring after seventeen years to write full time. Her writings roam wherever her interests and imagination take her, from award-winning historical fiction to civil rights nonfiction and urban fantasy where she mixes murder and mystery with a bit of magic. She writes from her mountaintop home northeast of Birmingham, often with a dog and a cat vying for her lap.

Click on the image to download a PDF copy of the flyer.

Click on the image to download a PDF copy of the flyer.

Deadline for proposals and contest entries is Wednesday September, 23rd.

“Carolyn is a creative writer. She takes you places and to historic events while growing up living inside two New York Public Library apartments. It is a page turner from beginning to end. It is a true upbeat story that only a library girl could have experienced.”

— Barbara Barker, Professor Emeritus, University of Alabama

About the Author

Carolyn Rhodes earned her B.A.in Dramatic Arts and Dance, College of Staten Island, New York City, 1973. She wrote, directed, and choreographed her first screenplay and performed in Lincoln Center. Carolyn maintained her dance skills and picked back up again after retirement from University of Alabama (UA) as an exercise instructor, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) on campus.  Her writing credits, (over one hundred essays, articles and reviews) Birmingham Arts Journal; The Executive, UA Alumni Magazine feature writer; Travel Editor, Prime LifeStyle of Alabama; Press Reporter, Consumer Electronics show(CES)reviewer of tech devices and products.  Carolyn maintains two blogs and a website for her book, www.librarygirlsofnewyork.com. She can be reached at writegems@gmail.com . Carolyn lives in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

---

Library Girls of New York: How It Started

Library Girls of New York, A Secret Place by Carolyn Rhodes (Borgo Publishing, December 2019)

How did I get to live inside a New York Public Library? Library Girls of New York is a unique true story, a memoir rooted in the recollection of growing up in an unusual place, an Institution we all love and support.

From the 1930s to 1970s, my Dad, Joseph Mitchell was a custodian for three NYPL branches. I lived in an apartment in two of those branches – one in Manhattan’s lower east side, Tompkins Square Library, overlooking a park; the other one in Staten Island’s St. George regional branch where we had our own side entrance. 

The author and her sisters.

From the Big Apple to a Historic Alabama Town

My unique story began long before the last twenty-five years of living under Alabama’s twinkling stars, the Milky Way, and a moon so bright, the craters define themselves. Before my stars fell on Alabama, I was a New York City girl who found herself again during the writing of my memoir.

Can you imagine discovering old neighborhoods, both, now historic landmarks. It is the evolution of time – old places change, new generations live to pass the stories. I am privileged to share a story not too many families can tell about growing up in New York City, inside a library, of all places. 

Baseball was king during the depression and post-depression days. It was a part of our lives and Dad’s favorite sport. Dad played baseball on his time off at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. Legends like Robinson and Stengel made their first home runs there. Dad played local teams when the Dodgers played out of town. Yogi was once quoted when he invited a friend to dinner and gave him directions to his home, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” The guest yelled out while Yogi drove away, “Left, or right?” In the end, both roads led to his house. We still use the quote nowadays, but it is not Yogi’s. He said it, and that is all it took for fans to repeat it and for motivational speakers to run with it. 

It was around 1937 when Dad began his library career washing down the marble statues at the Main Library on Fifth Avenue (now Stephan A. Schwarzman Building). Not long after, he applied for a custodian position at the Rivington Street branch, downtown Manhattan, near Orchard Street where Helen was born. 

Middle sister, Irene, and I were born when Dad transferred to the Tompkins Square Library Branch in the 1940s on the lower east side. In 1957, he moved us to the St. George library branch on Staten Island. Our apartment had a separate side entrance. It was a noticeably quieter place compared to the hustle and bustle of the city. Soon enough I had sleepovers and friends and we shared many stories about exploring the library during high school days. I loved my lifestyle and my new friends.

Sisters Helen, Irene and I particularly enjoyed the library when it was closed on holidays and Sundays. We rode bikes around the book stacks, Helen took piano lessons and celebrated her sweet sixteenth party in the Banquet Room. I practiced cheerleading with friends, performing jumps and cartwheels and we imagined ghosts were alive in the many books that surrounded us.  Meanwhile, Mom, an accomplished seamstress, made our clothes, cooked, and kept our home running smoothly.   Meanwhile, history made my memoir so much more than about our lives. It was clear that I was a part of the history of a generation long gone and an era which shaped America. 

Carolyn Rhodes and her family in In front of the Tompkins Square  Public Library, East 10th Street, New York. 

Libraries Are Like Museums

The branch libraries displayed valuable art sculptures, art, and prints, often lithographs from famous artists, although not quite as elaborate as the Fifth Avenue 42nd Street Main Library, (Name). Special artifacts were housed within glass cabinets to admire. There were some bronze statues and ornate frames, all valuable. The music room was stocked in both libraries with record albums, sheet music, biographies of famous musicians. In the St. George library, we had antique ships in a bottle and wooden ships with sails sitting on higher shelf in the children’s room. In the music room, I listened to Monk with Irene and Mozart with Helen but tuned into Broadway show albums which is where my love of dance began. Musicals were popular in the fifties and sixties – My Fair Lady, Guys and Dolls, Carousel, Showboat, Oklahoma, American in Paris, and Singin’ in the Rain. 

 The library of the fifties, sixties and seventies was “our” information highway, our computer of the day. Librarians, usually women, and an oak card cabinet directed us to a shelf on a bookshelf someplace unfamiliar. Modern day librarians have many more tools to help a patron gather information, from anyplace in the world. You can ask a librarian via email and you will get an answer without an exceptionally long wait. That is how much easier it is to become an author today with research at our fingertips using technological tools, great software and computers, smartphones. Presently libraries offer free events to teach these skills-- so needed in this century.  A librarian is still your best guide. Believe me, they have connections to information you may not know exists as I found out.  

From Eutaw, Alabama to Tuscaloosa

Eutaw is a quaint town and passed the test for charming, quiet, historic, and less chaotic. It seemed the perfect place to consider moving to after my husband passed away at forty years old. A close friend who lived part time in Eutaw, and the other half in the city, invited my son and I to stay a while in town before making a big decision to pack up. There were available affordable homes with rose gardens, big yards, smiling teenagers excited for us to come; beautiful churches and homes built before the Civil War with antique shops, a pizza parlor run by a teacher from the private school and a rental video shop. We moved, all three of us – me, my son and Ziggy, our dog.

Soon after The University of Alabama hired me as an Office Associate. Then I moved to Tuscaloosa. During those desk assignments, over the years, I took on extra work, edited a newsletter and a journal. I wrote feature articles for the Alumni Magazines at Culverhouse College of Business and other magazines. I sold antique jewelry at the local antique shop all while I worked full time. I learned to write better by attending conferences and joining writing groups. I never imagined writing a book, but retirement was the perfect time to consider it. 

Libraries Still Nourish This Writer

Recently, I had the pleasure and honor to be interviewed by librarian, Ron Harris, in his local author series with Tuscaloosa Writers and Illustrators Guild (TWIG).  We delved deeper into my book’s chapters—everything from documentation, my 65 photos and postcards from past travels, other historic references and the New York Public Library’s digital collection, and my favorite website. I read from my chapter on Carl Sandburg when I sat in his lap as he read to a group of children. You can watch and share the library video below.

The Rules of Baseball & Memoir-Writing

I thought a lot about baseball during the development of this memoir and the rules Dad taught me on our trips to Yankee Stadium when we stood online to buy hot dogs and soda before the game or intermission. So many years later in Alabama I hit some home runs. When I got lost, or lost sight of my goals, I could hear Dad cheering me on:“Take your time but hurry up. You can do it kid.” 

---

A review by Don Noble of Carolyn’s new book

Library Girls of New York: A Secret Place

​A review by Don Noble

The millionaire industrialist Andrew Carnegie believed deeply in philanthropy. He was famous for giving a dime to anyone who asked, which sounds cheap, but is not really. Most millionaires did not want to be bothered.

Carnegie believed “Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community.” During the last 18 years of his life he gave away $350 million, about $65 billion in today’s money. He is in this sense a forefather of Bill and Melinda Gates and other generous billionaires of today.

Since Carnegie also believed that one should spend the first third of one’s life acquiring an education, he especially like to endow and build libraries. Carnegie built some 3,000 libraries, in the U.S., Canada and elsewhere around the world.

Of these, 65 were built in New York City and at first, 30 of these had apartments for the custodian and his family to live in.

Carolyn Rhodes’ father was one of these custodians. In this, her memoir of an unusual childhood, she tells how this was a 24/7 job. Early every morning, her father stoked up the coal furnace, so the building was warm for the librarians and first patrons when it opened at 9 a.m.

For their inhabitants, the buildings were not just warm; they were elegant. Carnegie favored the beaux-art style and hired fine architects. Besides living in beautiful surroundings, Carolyn and her two older sisters could use the library after closing hours and on Sunday to finish up schoolwork they still needed to do.

Over time Carolyn lived in two libraries: one in Manhattan and the other one on Staten Island.

In one chapter, Carl Sandburg sings and recites to a group of schoolchildren. Rhodes remembers one scene well, quotes Sandburg while sitting on his lap.

After high school Rhodes lived a while in San Francisco, during a ’60′s hippie stage. She trusted a cute stranger she met at a laundromat (he had a big, sweet, shaggy dog), but, after consuming “brownies laced with mind altering drugs and ... pills sprinkled on top,” she lost a few days. It’s not fair to expect people to remember the ’60′s.

Later, Rhodes traveled in Europe and worked in New York theater as a dancer and choreographer, including one show she directed during college and toured with. It featured Renaissance and Medieval musical instruments such as “sackbuts, zinks, [and] krumhorns” as well as lutes and bells.  The Troupe performed at Lincoln Center.​

As with several other segments, there was more to say. I would be happy to hear it.

​Don Noble is host of the Alabama Public Television literary interview show “Bookmark with Don Noble.” His most recent book is Belles’ Letters 2, a collection of short fiction by Alabama women.

Angela Jackson-Brown [Photo credit: Chandra Lynch, Ankh Productions]

“Truth telling is what we need more of these days. Fear has allowed us to become apathetic. I refuse to live in fear and I refuse to keep my fictional characters in a place of fear. Even when their lives are traumatic, I work hard to always redeem their minds. I want their stories to end with hope. Not happily ever after, but definitely hope.”

— Angela Jackson-Brown

ALINA STEFANESCU: I want to start with your time in the South, with your childhood and the spaces that raised you. Tell us about Angela Jackson-Brown's Alabama--it's hidden places, it's hearths, it's favorite flowers, it's music, it's traditions, it's kin.

ANGELA JACKSON-BROWN: Growing up a little “Negro girl” in rural Alabama, I always felt the sense of community in the little town that I grew up in -- Ariton, Alabama. There, I was surrounded by family and friends who loved and nurtured me, and saw no limitations for me, even when society may have seen otherwise. In 1973, my daddy tried to enroll me in the local kindergarten. At the time, the kindergarten wasn’t part of the public school system; it was private, and the person who taught it said to our faces, “I don’t teach Negroes.” I was only about five years old at the time, but instantly I understood that I was different from the white children who went to that private kindergarten. From that woman’s words, I instantly picked up on the fact that I wasn’t always going to be as loved by the world as I was by my daddy, his family, and other members of the Black community.

Thankfully, I was blessed with a daddy who never believed in making excuses and who spent the rest of his life telling me my black was beautiful and my mind was brilliant. So even though I didn’t get the opportunity to attend kindergarten, I did learn a lot that year leading up to first grade thanks to public television. My preschool and kindergarten teachers were characters on shows like Sesame Street, Captain Kangaroo, Mr. Rogers, and Electric Company, not to mention my daddy who surrounded me with books from an early age. Somehow, this man who had to quit school at the age of 15 to help sharecrop with his family, understood the importance of reading and writing. By the time I made it to first grade, I was reading on a third grade level, out-performing many of those children who attended that segregated kindergarten.

Stories came to me before I even knew how to form words on paper. I loved the little books on my bookshelf, and somehow, I understood stories had power. They had the power to transport a little “Negro” girl from rural Alabama into far away lands.  So when I started making up little stories  of my own, long before I could even write words, daddy would proclaim to anyone who would listen, “My little girl is going to be a writer some day.” Daddy planted that seed early, and although he never lived to see the harvest, I wouldn’t be a writer today, had he not sowed seeds of hope and belief into me before I could hold a pencil correctly.

My Alabama was made up of summer barbecues; playing games outside with my cousins; seeing up close and personal some of the Tuskegee Airmen who I thought were just a bunch of chatty old men visiting my retired, Navy daddy, but who were, in fact, walking history books; sitting outside underneath the altar of Alabama skies, pecan trees, and starry nights as my daddy and his brothers told tall tales that I probably had no business hearing, but still they resonated in my spirit, activating the storyteller within me. My Alabama was growing up on a street that was integrated by virtue of the size of our little town. There was no suburbs; no “off-limit” streets to Negroes. No, we all lived amongst each other and somehow figured out how to negotiate our way through systemic racism that permeated the nation. Racism happened in Ariton, but love and community also happened there too. I played in the yard of my best friend Michele, a beautiful, young white girl who never thought twice about being my best friend. We saw color, but it didn’t stop us from loving each other like sisters. We were both happy to have a friend who kept secrets good and who had wide open spaces to play in.

My Alabama prepared me to believe, like Alice Walker stated, “activism is the rent I pay for being on this planet.”  When I was a child, too young to write words, I helped my daddy stuff envelopes for the NAACP. I went with him in the community when he was campaigning for various state and local candidates. I listened intently when he described his first time voting and having to walk through a double line of white men from the community holding rifles to intimidate the Black voters. 

My Alabama taught me that a simple phrase like “Bless Your Heart” could both be a curse or a blessing to the hearer. My Alabama taught me that no matter where in the world I resided, I would always be an Alabama girl at heart. I am fast approaching the age where I can say I have lived more years out of Alabama than within but I still feel that state coursing through every word, every phrase and every sentence I write. I tell people I am an unapologetic southern writer. My characters might travel to New York City for a spell, but it won’t be long until boiled peanuts, kudzu, and the Alabama/Auburn game calls them back home.

AS: “My Alabama” feels like the anaphora in a poem—and it is beautiful—and I want to thank you for that lyrical moment in the space of an interview which reveals why some writers (particularly, you) absolutely cannot exist without writing, which is to say, bringing the image and music into the moment. In a recent feature interview, you mentioned the role that your own life plays in your fiction, and how Sylvia Butler's (the protagonist of your novel, Drinking From A Bitter Cup) experiences "mirrored" your own. Did you worry about setting it in your hometown of Ariton, Alabama? Were you concerned with how friends and family back at home might "read" it? I have always been concerned by the way my Southern-set fiction might be misread by those close to me, especially when the story being told challenges southern myths. How do you deal with the way in which writing lays bare and makes solid things things drawn from life?

AJB: There was a time in my life when I would not have written either Drinking From a Bitter Cup or House Repairs. As the young folks say,” I included receipts” in both of those books that trace directly back to people both living and dead. I did not sugar-coat the truth. But it took becoming a mature woman and a mature writer, to feel comfortable telling my truth and not being afraid of the fall-out. Of course, it helps that I live 714 miles from my hometown, but even if I still lived there, I was ready to “birth these babies.” My family and friends knew my backstory when I wrote those two books, so when they read about it in DFABC and HP, they were not surprised. A few people reached out to me and asked why I was telling these stories now, but they were in the minority. Most people supported me telling my truth. Truth really does set us all free.

The other thing that allowed me to feel free to tell these stories, was that my daddy had passed away. He was unaware of most of the abuse I experienced, so I never would have published these books if he had been alive, or at least, I wouldn’t have blindsided him. I would have revealed to him the things I was writing about. But as far as everyone else, I had no reservations about telling my truth. I also work hard to protect the innocent. I don’t name names in my books BUT the major players know who they are and if they want to come for me at this stage of our life, I am not afraid. Truth telling is what we need more of these days. Fear has allowed us to become apathetic. I refuse to live in fear and I refuse to keep my fictional characters in a place of fear. Even when their lives are traumatic, I work hard to always redeem their minds. I want their stories to end with hope. Not happily ever after, but definitely hope.

AS: I love that your poetry collection, House Repairs, was published by Negative Capability Press, an Alabama publisher that has been supporting poetry for years under the wing of a generous poet, educator, and writer named Sue Brannan Walker. It is intimate, raw, and fearless. Both you and Sue used poetry as a vehicle to explore the  experience of adoption into verse form, and I feel as if that space is still undertrodden. Adoption is part of the fabric of life for so many persons, and yet it is rarely touched in poetry. A friend who was adopted once told me that she doesn't like to mention it because people tend to get nervous and quiet--she called it an "awkward-maker topic". I wonder if there is a taboo, a sort of wall of silence, that surrounds the discussion of adoption, and how your own experience speaks (or doesn't speak) to this.

AJB: I did not have a healthy relationship with my adopted mother. Ever. She never wanted to adopt a child. It was always my daddy who wanted...no...needed a child. He was meant to be a daddy. All of his nieces and nephews gravitated to him because he was always the “cool Uncle.” I had a few cousins who resented me when I came and took their spot with Daddy...LOL. In fact, Daddy was so determined to become a father, he said to his wife, after twenty-four years of marriage, either they would adopt a child or he was going to have to leave the marriage. She agreed, but she was never happy about it. I was abused by her -- physically and mentally. Mainly because I wasn’t her biological child, but also because she was never mentally healthy. Possibly due to her own abusive childhood and her inability to get pregnant. She made a special point of telling me at a very young age, before I was even in school, that I was adopted. And she said it in a way that let me know she felt adoption wasn’t a good way to get a child. My daddy, on the other hand, only saw me as his little girl. The word “adoption” never entered into a conversation between him and I. Ever. But, since this word “adoption” was part of my lexicon at a very young age, some of my first stories were about my birth mother. I didn’t know who she was, but in my stories, she always ALWAYS was on a search to find me. I imagined she was being held against her will by an evil tyrant but because of her love for me, she would find a way to escape and then she and my daddy, M.C. Jackson, would live “happily ever after” raising me and loving me unconditionally in my little stories.

Those stories sustained me. Kept me going at a time when a mother’s love was absent from my life and my daddy could only compensate for that so much. So, even when I became an adult, I still wrote stories about little girls and women grappling with the loss of their parents and the trials and triumphs of being raised by a parent who chose them (or not). Through writing I have been on a journey of self-discovery and healing. I don’t think I will ever not have “mommy issues.” I found my birth mother at the age of 32, and she and I formed a bond.. The bond wasn’t the same as it would have been had she raised me with her other children, but I am grateful for the 16 years she and I did get to have together before she passed away.

AS: Your poem, "I Must Not Breathe," speaks to Eric Garner's tragic murder at the hands of police officers. In the backstory for this poem, you mention music and how it readies the room or sets the tone of writing for you. What music informed your books, and did this vary by genre? What should we hear when reading each one?

AJB: Every story, every play, every poem I write, has some type of playlist attached to it. When I write, I often listen to music to take me to the era or time I am writing about. When I sat and watched the murder of Eric Garner, the only thing that brought me peace of mind was the gospel song by the late, great James Cleveland, “I Don’t Feel No Ways Tired.” That day, I was done. I thought, “I will never find words to show what I am feeling right now,” and then I thought about that song I remembered hearing play on the radio in my home growing up or sung at the church where I and my family attended. I realized that the very least I could do as a writer was to not grow weary and let my words attempt to capture the moment and perhaps bring clarity to some and comfort to others. Eric Garner lost his life that day. I had no space to claim weariness and that James Cleveland song reminded me of that fact, which led me to write, “I Must Not Breathe.”

When I wrote Drinking From a Bitter Cup, I listened to a lot of Motown, Gospel music, and Rock, particularly Pink Floyd, who my young protagonist loved. “Comfortably Numb” was one of the songs she listened to often in the book, and likewise, I tried to wrap my brain around this young, Black country girl and her passion for rock bands like Pink Floyd, Guns & Roses, The Rolling Stones, etc. 

When I wrote my play “Still Singing Those Weary Blues,” I listened to Bessie, Sarah, Ella, and Dinah on repeat. The blues singer in my play was their contemporary, so I knew not only did I have to be knowledgeable of that era, my characters had to be too. She had to know their music and where her music fit within the genre and the time. And having that genre of music, jazz/blues playing as I wrote, allowed me to be transported to that time. I literally felt like I was time traveling every time I wrote when that music was playing.

I can’t imagine the writing process minus music. The two are so intrinsically connected in my mind. Right now, I am doing the edits for When Stars Rain Down and my soundtrack consists of The Carter Family, songs from the Methodist hymnal, and Sacred Harp. All of this music found its way into my novel. So just like the music grounds me, it also grounds  my characters and it also grounds the reader. 

AS: Your new novel, When Stars Rain Down, is set in Georgia during the Great Depression. How did you choose this time and this story to tell? What sort of research was involved in setting this narrative during a time that intersected with Reconstruction and the rise of the Klan? I would love to know more about your novel-writing process in this case.

AJB: The  characters in When Stars Rain Down were originally part of my graduate thesis when I was a student at Spalding University’s low residency in creative writing program, so I knew, ahead of time, the era that they were living in. When Stars Rain Down started out as a short story, but then it became this expansive story. I knew Opal and her story and the stories of all of the major players in the fictional town of Parsons, Georgia which made writing this novel easier than some of my other novels where I begin with a blank page. My research for this novel was extensive. I read a lot of books about black domestic workers because my main character was a housekeeper, along with her grandmother, for a white family in Parsons. I wanted to reclaim the “maid narrative” in fiction and truly write a book that showed respect to the profession and those working in it. I grew up with family members who were maids/housekeepers, and I wanted to write a novel that reflected what I saw as a young person who often got taken to work by various family members to their places of work. So, I wanted to pay homage to all of those men and women who worked with dignity and diligence to do good work even when their employers might not have always shown them the respect they deserved. BUT let me preface this by saying I didn’t rest on the fact that I KNEW these characters. I did the hard work. I took nothing for granted and I went out of my way to make sure my characters were multifaceted and multidimensional. I was not content to have stock characters or caricatures -- no writer should BUT I specifically wanted to make sure these characters got the respect they so richly deserved.. 

Therefore, I read nonfiction books like The Maid Narratives: Black Domestics and White Families in the Jim Crow South, Cooking in Other Women's Kitchens: Domestic Workers in the South, 1865-1960, Telling Memories Among Southern Women: Domestic Workers and Their Employers in the Segregated South, to name a few. I also spoke with family members and family friends who cleaned houses and cooked for white families and asked some pointed questions about their experiences.  I shared my book with white friends and associates who grew up with Black domestic workers to get their insight. 

As far as the other historical details go, I spent time in Atlanta and McDonough, Georgia doing research. I went to The Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History in Atlanta and The Genealogical Society of Henry and Clayton Counties, Inc. in McDonough as well as the courthouse in McDonough. I chose McDonough for some of my research because my fictional town of Parsons, GA sits somewhere in between Atlanta and McDonough. 

Google was also my friend. Google, when used strategically and thoughtfully, can generate a lot of information that once we would have only been able to find in a library. I also include some historical people  in my novel like Satchel Paige and his wife, Janet and the sheriff in the story. I read as much as I could about them and then I tried to make sure my inclusion of them in my stories honored who they were historically -- based on books, letters, newspaper articles, interviews, etc.

I spent months researching this novel before I typed the words Chapter One. I believe firmly in researching and outlining my books. I don’t like a lot of surprises. I try to work through the kinks BEFORE I sit down to write because that allows the writing to go much faster for me. So I spent about six months researching, doing character development, and plot development.  I understood these characters and their world to the point where I knew what was on every street and who lived in all of the houses. Yes, that is a pretty anal approach, I admit, but for me, it allows me to feel like I am writing about real, live breathing people, not fictitious characters. 

AS: This reminds me of the way Kwoya Fagin Maples prepared to write her poetry collection, MEND. In a workshop for the Alabama State Poetry Society, Kowya described immersing herself completely in the voices and history and time of the enslaved Black women named in Marion Sims’s autobiography: Anarcha, Betsey, and Lucy. She did a tremendous amount of research before sitting down to give these women voices. Maybe this research--this painstaking reading--is how writers offer honor the silenced voices in fictional or poetic spaces. Your work is so impressive in the way it crosses genre boundaries and mediums. As a playwright whose work has been staged in multiple venues, how do you decide whether an idea or an inspiration is suited for a particular genre? Why does one story become a play while another one needs a novel? And what advice would you give playwrights trying to get their work published or performed locally?

AJB: Because I have directed and produced most of my plays myself, I truly think about the cost before sitting down to write a play. I know that sounds very “business-like” but literally, if my idea is so expansive that there has to be numerous characters and numerous settings, I will often say, “Okay, that’s a short story or a book. We don’t have the budget to recreate what you have in your mind, ma’am.” 

But if my idea is on a smaller scale and I can get away with five or six characters and one or two set changes that aren’t too expensive to recreate, then I think to myself, “Okay, that could work as a play,” because bottom line, I, for the most part, write plays for community theatre. That’s my lane of choice for now. And I know that community theatre companies don’t have Hamilton level budgets. So, I try to write plays that I know can be put on with props like a table and a chair for the setting, and basic costumes that can be bought at Goodwill or some other thrift store. I write plays that allow the audience to suspend their disbelief and accept my very minimalistic approach to storytelling. Now, I have a play, that if I win the lottery, I am going to direct and go full out with casting, setting, costumes, etc. But until then, I am content writing plays the way that I do.

So, my advice to new playwrights is to follow the KISS principle which is: Keep it simple, stupid. Hamilton is a phenomenal show, but if you are writing your first musical, don’t try to mimic what Lin-Manuel Miranda did. The budget for Hamilton was 12.5 million. The likelihood of getting that type of budget for your first, second, or 50th musical is nil next to none. So, think smaller….much smaller….if you want your work to see the light of day.

My first musical, Dear Bobby had six main characters with the option for a chorus. The amazing director, Deborah Asante of the Asante Children’s Theatre, in Indianapolis, IN, was able to put together a show that left the audience mesmerized, and the audience didn’t notice what wasn’t on the stage, they only cared about what was on the stage. So write a show that you know the local high school or community theatre can put on as well as a New York theatre on Broadway, if that is your goal. Simplicity is key. Write shows that are heavy on character, not on setting and costumes. Tell a story that is good, and you increase your chances of getting it produced somewhere other than in your own mind.

In other words, don’t give theatres a reason to say no. And now that we are living in the age of Covid-19, my best advice would be to write a one person play. Or write a play that allows for social distancing or write a play that can be performed outside. Think outside of the proverbial box and give theatres a reason to tell you and your play yes!

AS: Your words are so encouraging—they are a testament to your talent as well the passion of the following a dream and working ceaselessly towards its realization. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk about writing, life, and all its wonders with us. And for AWC members, librarians, educators, and Alabama readers, please support this incredible writer by pre-ordering a copy of her new novel, When Stars Rain Down (forthcoming April 2021). If you are interested in receiving an Advanced Review Copy, those inquiries are welcome.

A special reading from Angela Jackson-Brown

Angela Jackson-Brown is an award winning writer, poet and playwright who teaches Creative Writing and English at Ball State University in Muncie, IN. She is a graduate of Troy University, Auburn University and the Spalding low-residency MFA program in Creative Writing. She is the author of the novel, Drinking From A Bitter Cup and has published in numerous literary journals.  Angela’s play, Anna’s Wings, was selected in 2016 to be a part of the IndyFringe DivaFest and her play, Flossie Bailey Takes a Stand, was part of the Indiana Bicentennial Celebration at the Indiana Repertory Theatre. She also wrote and produced the play It Is Well and she was the co-playwright with Ashya Thomas on a play called Black Lives Matter (Too). In the spring of 2018, Angela co-wrote a musical with her colleague, Peter Davis, called Dear Bobby: The Musical, that was part of the 2018 OnyxFest in Indianapolis, IN. Her book of poetry called House Repairs was published by Negative Capability Press in the fall of 2018, and in the fall of 2019, she directed and produced a play she wrote called Still Singing Those Weary Blues. Her new novel, When Stars Rain Down, to be published by Thomas Nelson, an imprint of HarperCollins, is forthcoming in 2021.

Meet AWC Board Member, Katie Boyer. Trained as a journalist and employed as a teacher, Katie Boyer counts storytelling as one of her great passions. Her work has been published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, James Gunn's Ad Astra, and Birmingham Arts Journal. A short film she wrote and produced screened at the 2019 Johnson City Film Festival. She lives in Birmingham and teaches composition, creative writing, and literature at Jefferson State Community College. 

---

1. Tell us about your background as a writer.

I’ve been writing since I was very young, though context and genre have shifted a lot over the years. I was on the yearbook staff in high school and college. I edited my high school’s literary magazine for a year, and I was editor-in-chief of my college newspaper. I actually went to college thinking I wanted to be a broadcast journalist, but I quickly switched to an English major.  I went to graduate school for comparative literature, but when I almost had my MA, I realized I was far more interested in creative writing than academic writing. I started teaching literature, composition, and creative writing at Jefferson State Community College, and I completed an MFA in fiction at Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky.  When I was almost finished with the MFA, I decided to take up screenwriting. I guess you could say I’m restless. Or maybe that I like to try new genres. 

2. What hats do you wear as a writer?

Right now I’m still teaching at Jeff State. I also direct the Red Mountain Reading Series there, which invites 3-4 visiting writers a year, mostly in spring, and I edit our literary and arts magazine, Wingspan. I’m one of the coordinators of Pioneer Con, an annual event that’s half academic conference and half comic con. In what free time I have, I also write and edit the text of essays for the Trekspertise channel on YouTube, which is run by my husband Kyle Sullivan. Kyle owns a small video production services company called Screen Door Pictures, and we’ve got a couple of narrative film projects on the horizon.

3. What was your latest creative project?

Earlier this year I executive produced a short film from a script I wrote titled Garden of the Gods. It’s a modern, Birmingham-based adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story “The Cask of Amontillado.” Kyle directed the film, and we had a great local crew. The short is in post-production now, and we hope to screen at film festivals next year.

 [ Now I’m going to borrow from some interesting questions from 50 Good Questions to Ask an Author by John Fox.]

4. What literary pilgrimages have you gone on?

I have a bit of an obsession with getting my writing space and my writing time just so, and I’ve always been fascinated with other writers’ working spaces. One summer in graduate school I had the chance to spend a semester studying Russian language and literature in St. Petersburg, Russia, and I spent a lot of time visiting the museums of famous writers so I could see what ‘material conditions’ had made it possible for them to write their masterpieces. The Dostoevsky museum is housed in the apartment where he wrote The Brothers Karamazov. There I learned that Dostoevsky would stay up all night, composing in his head, then recite pages of material to his wife in the morning. She would type the material, he would play with his kids for a while, then take a long nap, then wake up and edit the previous day’s pages in the evening. And so on until a masterpiece was achieved. One of many memorial spaces dedicated to poet Alexander Pushkin is in the apartments he lived in with his family, in a Petersburg mansion. There I saw what must be the world’s best writing desk. It has what I can only describe as “shelf drawers” all around, so that he could pull them one at a time as he needed more space for his papers. The drawers could nearly double the surface area of his desk. He even had a mobile version, a lectern-looking device that also had pull-out surfaces and which he could use as he sat on the very beautiful divan. I also toured the apartment of Soviet-era poet Anna Akhmatova, whose space was much smaller and more utilitarian. Akhmatova had only a small writing desk, no more than a hutch, really, but set in front of a window looking out on the building’s courtyard. I didn’t see any conditions in these places that I could fully reproduce, but I did at least come to the conclusion that there’s no universally-perfect setup for a writer’s room. Instead, I’m stuck with the conclusion that I’ll just have to make my space work with what I’ve got.  

5. Does writing energize or exhaust you?

Dorothy Parker once said, “I hate writing. I love having written.” I can definitely empathize with that! I tend to be energized when I have a new idea and am just getting started. Exhaustion sets in for a lot of the middle, and it’s something to push through at the beginning of most writing sessions when the project is in the process of becoming real. Then I get energized again as I get to the end, or when I find a solution to a problem I’ve had in a piece. But I almost always find it worth the effort.

6. Does a big ego help or hurt writers?

I think ego helps when it extends far enough to give you confidence that you have something worth saying. Ego helps when it persuades you to spend time writing instead of doing something else. Ego helps when it makes you polish and sharpen a piece as much as possible so that it doesn’t embarrass you when it goes out into the world. You also need some kind of ego (or at least the appearance of one) to market your work in this oh-so-saturated landscape. On the other hand, though, I think ego becomes a hindrance when it blinds you to your mistakes or weaknesses. If your ego is so powerful that you can’t see how to make the work better, then it’s getting in the way. If your ego inspires you to hurt or belittle other writers, it’s also a problem.

7. Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly?

I think a lot depends on what kind of writing you’re doing and what effect you want to have on your reader. If you’re writing a technical manual, of course, emotion really has no place. And there are genres of fiction in which the pleasure is derived from aspects other than emotion. In science fiction, for example, which I read a lot of, the story is often about a handful of things other than emotion, and so characters in scifi can often feel a little flat. But even if I’m writing a story in which people feel things deeply, I can’t assume that the emotion will translate unless I can get enough distance from it to choose my words carefully. As Wordsworth famously said, poetry is “emotion recollected in tranquility.” Or as I realized from some reactions to my early work, I can’t assume something is interesting to other people just because it really happened to me. So I think it takes deep feeling, plus time and patience, plus skill, to recreate an emotion you remember in someone who is reading your work. 

8. What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer?

I’m part of a writing group with a couple of other alums from my MFA program at Spalding. We’re starting up again after a bit of a break. For a few years we’ve exchanged work every three months or so, taken some time to read it, and met up via Skype for a workshop session. I have no words to express how powerful this type of exchange is. Both the people in my group are so incredibly talented. Their styles and the feel of their work are very different, but we all share an interest in setting stories in Alabama and working through what that means to us. We also share a Christian background and a shorthand of phrases and symbols. It is so much fun to see what they do with these things. They’re great readers as well as writers, and they have a knack of hitting on the biggest weaknesses of whatever piece I’ve shared with them. But, thank goodness, we also share a commitment to encouraging each other and to celebrating when something goes well or when it’s worth spending time on a piece. 

9. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer?

In college when I decided to be an English major, I took a one-hour keyboarding class so I could learn to type. It’s a basic and non-sexy skill, but I use it all day, every day. (If I can ever afford it, I also want a writing desk like Pushkin’s.)

10. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power?

I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian tradition with heavy emphasis on the Bible as the source of truth. As a kid I’m sure I did my share of fidgeting and misbehaving during Sunday service, but I also remember listening to sermons that closely analyzed a Scriptural text. Everyone was expected to bring their own Bible so they could read along with the preacher and see the words for themselves, make sure he didn’t make a mistake. The preacher would talk about the Greek or Hebrew meaning of a word, apply it in context, apply it to the congregation. Every sermon was basically a lesson in textual analysis. I’m not active in that tradition anymore, but there’s a very deep part of me that understands the universe as being knit together by words.

11. What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel?

I know of several of these, but one is Gob’s Grief by Chris Adrian. It’s set just after the Civil War and brings in some real historical figures, including Walt Whitman and Victoria Woodhull, an early leader in the women’s suffrage movement and the first woman to run for U. S. president. The story revolves around a man named Gob, the fictional son of the real Victoria Woodhull. Gob is grieving the loss of his brother in the war, and his grief is his defining characteristic. He’s a medical doctor who has made a pact with a dark, magical power to help him build a machine that will bring back all the dead from all the wars. He wants to use his friend Walt Whitman as the machine’s battery. The novel is a weird and really wild story that captures, for me, what it must have felt like to be a certain kind of American at the end of the 19th century. The novel serves as a kind of emotional cornerstone for me when I think about, and teach about, that period in American literature. The story is also told in multiple sections, from multiple points of view. That’s something I really enjoy as a reader – being challenged to put things together to see the big picture. 

12. Do you view writing as a kind of spiritual practice?

Yes, I definitely do. For me, using words and using them well is intimately connected with living a conscious life. Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg talks a lot about this, and it’s a craft book I return to over and over.

13. Do you believe in writer’s block?  

 I do believe we can come to a stopping point in a project, where we’ve taken the project as far as we can at that moment in time. I don’t, however, think that reaching that point means that all creative work has to shut down. Kenny Cook, one of my workshop leaders in the Spalding MFA program talks about “creative polygamy,” having more than one project going at a time. That way, if you hit a wall with one project, you can work on another one for a while. I’ve found that to be a really useful approach, and it means there’s always SOMETHING to work on—and all projects end up benefiting from the cross-pollination of ideas. Of course, it’s still frustrating to come to that stopping point in a project you really want to finish, but I think sometimes we just haven’t yet lived into or seen the solution to a problem in our writing. Sometimes we have to wait to catch up to ourselves. 

14. How do you want to see the AWC grow? 

I feel very grateful to have been able to join the AWC board this year, just after the change of our name from “Conclave” to “Cooperative.” I was at the member meeting when the name change was voted in, and one reason I was interested in serving on the board is that I’m excited about the vision for the future and the goals represented by the change in just that one word. I’d like to see the organization meet its goals of being more inclusive and diverse, to reach and support writers of all genres, ages, and backgrounds in Alabama. There are so, so many ways to make wonderful art with words, and I’d like to see this organization really become a forum for showcasing the creativity of Alabama writers.

Alabama writer Liddie Cain interviews herself about the writing life, Tuscaloosa, paranormal romances, parenting while writing, and following her dreams into writing.

What part of Alabama do you call home—and why?

I am originally from Walker County but currently live in Tuscaloosa and we love it here. The Riverwalk is beautiful and we go there often when the weather is nice. My daughter loves the parks and there are so many to choose from. We also enjoy being so close to the University of Alabama campus, hearing Denny Chimes (especially when it plays Harry Potter), and listening to the Million Dollar Band practice. There are so many fun concerts the University does at Moody Music Hall. If you've never been to the Spectrum Concert, it is a MUST (when there isn't a pandemic). 

What gets you to the page—and what prevents it?

My three year old makes it her mission in life to make writing a book take as long as possible. There are times when she is actually hanging onto my back or sitting on my shoulders as I’m trying to get a scene wrapped up. She’s a super cute distraction.

 What was an early experience where you learned that language had power?

I wrote a poem when my grandfather passed away that my family really loved. It was read out loud as a part of his funeral service. He was a well-loved southern preacher and I got dozens of letters and many people coming up to me telling me how much it helped them deal with his loss and how proud he would have been to hear it.

The protagonist in your paranormal romance series is named Rozalyn. What made you want to write Rozalyn’s stories and are we going to see more of her in the future?

We are definitely going to see more of Roz! Her second book releases on July 14th and is titled The Thrice Marked. The third book is titled, The Glittering Halo and it will release on August 11th. So far, Roz’s series will end with this trilogy but I would be very open to revisiting these characters in a future series. After Glittering Halo releases, my next book will be a new and unrelated series that I am currently writing.

I really love the feel of southern vampire stories. This series ended up being more of a demon/angel story than I had originally planned, but that just means I can do a more vampire central series in the future. I wanted to write a story that was like the many many paranormal romances that I love. I also strongly appreciate the polyamorous lifestyle and chose to write a reverse harem romance, which could also just be called polyandry. It's something that is a little taboo in our culture, but love is love!

Why did you choose to self publish and what are the challenges you face with self publishing?

It came down to control. I have queried plenty and gotten manuscripts back from editors plenty of times that wanted me to take away this or that element, be more conservative, be less conservative, change the main character in this or that way, etc. I know they are basing it on their industry experience, and making those changes would be a valid marketing choice, but when the story I want to tell gets that much guidance it no longer feels like my story. It takes the fun out of writing it. So I am sacrificing some level of success to do it my way, but it's more enjoyable to do it!

Do you enjoy hearing back from your readers?

Absolutely! I get messages Facebook, Twitter and Instagram almost daily. It is so exciting to hear from someone who wants to talk to me about the characters I've created, and for them to be as real to them as they are to me. I haven't really gotten used to it yet. 

How do you relax?

We have a pool and we spend a lot of time in it! I love a lot of fantasy movies and tv shows, me and my hubby are both big Trekkies. Making a pizza and cuddling on the bed with our daughter while we watch a movie is my favorite way to spend any night. 

What is your current project?

I haven't chosen a title yet for my next book, but it is going to be another paranormal reverse harem romance in an old west setting with shifters. Gunslinger cowboy werewolf sounds like a lot of fun to me!

What are some of your favorite places to eat, when there isn't a quarantine, in Alabama? 

I love Bahama Bob's when we are in Gulf Shores, and Barefoot Island Bar and Grill, also in Gulf Shores. Closer to home, I always love going to Dreamland BBQ. Lai Lai is my favorite Chinese place in Tuscaloosa and Sitar has amaaaazing Indian cuisine!

What is something you want to do when the pandemic is over?

We really want to buy an RV and do a cross country road trip. I want to see Yellowstone! I think it would be a lot of fun and I would still be able to work from the RV. 

Liddie Cain grew up in Alabama right next door to her poet Grandmother. Writing has always been a large part of her life. She grew up to marry her high school sweet heart then spent a few years working in health care. Once her daughter was born in 2016, she resolved that it was time to focus on her dream of writing. When not writing, she enjoys watching Disney and Harry Potter movies, hiking, swimming and making arts and crafts with her daughter. Her paranormal romance series is now available in Kindle format on Amazon. Learn more about her writing online at www.liddiecain.com.

Foster Dickson is a writer, editor, and teacher who lives in Montgomery, Alabama. Foster’s work has centered on subjects from the American South, the arts & humanities, education, and social justice. His most recent book, Closed Ranks: The Whitehurst Case in Post-Civil Rights Montgomery, about a police-shooting controversy in the mid-1970s, was published by NewSouth Books in November 2018. Foster’s previous book, Children of the Changing South, was published in 2011 and contains memoirs by eighteen writers and historians who grew up in the South during and after the Civil Rights movement. His other published books are biographical works on two often-neglected Southerners, The Life and Poetry of John Beecher (Edwin Mellen Press, 2009) and I Just Make People Up: Ramblings with Clark Walker (NewSouth Books, 2009), and a book of poetry, Kindling Not Yet Split (Court Street Press, 2002). He also acted as general editor for the place-focused curriculum guide Treasuring Alabama’s Black Belt (Alabama Humanities Foundation/Auburn University at Montgomery, 2009).

In the video below, Alina Stefanescu sat down for a pandemic-appropriate chat with Foster Dickson and his works in progress.

---

Foster Dickson On Writing, Southern Myths, and New Projects in the Works

Level: Deep South

In March 2020, Foster began a new project called level:deepsouth, which is an online anthology created with the goal of documenting the experiences of Generation X in the Deep South during the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s by collecting personal essays and memoirs about our lives back then and since then. The project is now open for submissions. Though any submission that fits the subject matter will be considered, Foster is especially interested in essays or memoirs by writers who were born between 1965 and 1980, and who grew up in the region.

---

A writer and his books.

The Whitehurst Case

Foster’s most recent book Closed Ranks: The Whitehurst Case in Post-Civil Rights Montgomery was released in November 2018 and is available in paperback and e-book formats. The release was covered by the Montgomery Advertiser, WSFA, and The Crime Report.If you missed that event or others, the Read Herring bookstore has autographed copies in stock. You can also read the Alabama Writers Forum’s review of the book.

To schedule a signing or book talk, please use the contact form on his About page. While you might think of these as public events that occur in bookstores or on college campuses, Foster will also schedule invitation-only readings and discussions with book clubs, civic organizations, and school groups.

Foster decided to help nurture the local soil by starting a community garden.

Call for Submissions: Modern Southern Folklore

Foster has received one of four Literary Arts Fellowships from the Alabama State Council on the Arts for the 2021 year! The fellowship “recognizes artistic excellence as well as professional commitment and maturity. It is intended to contribute to the further development of the literary artist and the advancement of his or her professional career.”

The announcement of this year’s recipients was made in June, and fellowships begin in October 2020. Foster’s project for the fellowship is titled Nobody’s Home: Modern Southern Folklore, which will be an online anthology of creative nonfiction about the prevailing beliefs, myths, and narratives that have driven Southern culture over the last fifty years, in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

You can keep up with Foster by liking his author pages on Facebook and Amazon, or by connecting with him on LinkedIn. To view Foster’s complete CV of writing credits and related experience, click here.

An update from longtime publisher, author, and AWC member Joe Taylor—with a reminder that supporting Alabama presses matters more than ever. And buying directly from the Press or ordering it using Bookshop helps support local indie bookstores at well.

Now to pass the mic to Joe …..

---

Is Livingston Press having a Summer of Love? Has its director undergone an LSD flashback and reverted to his hippie days? Is California getting ready to drop into the ocean? OR, is there some lurking, dark, deep-state reason that the Press is publishing FOUR works of fiction set in California this fall?

Only you can decide the truth. But it is true, for all four are set in California—and three take place in San Francisco! You decide . . . but don’t tell anyone else the secret you learn. 

Publication for all four comes in November, delayed because of That Of Which We Shall Not Speak. Available through the usual places, but cheapest on our lovely website.

1)      Jon Boilard, Junk City, stories and poems. 222 pages. ISBN 978-1-60489-261-1 $19.95. 

Set in San Francisco, the stories and poems in JUNK CITY are linked by characters and the characters are linked by addiction in one form or another. A hard-drinking mail carrier struggling to find deeper meaning when he comes across a suicide on his route. A seasoned city cop trying to make it to retirement before he ends up viral on YouTube. A teenage runaway selling his body for dope. An aging stripper named Eskimo convinced she can turn over a new leaf by getting her poetry chapbook published (and whose poems link the stories). A cross-dressing accountant running a Ponzi scheme on his clients. And a legend of the local street fighting scene whose life is spiraling out of control in a swirl of brown booze and pain pills. Each character lives in a shadowy down-and-out world, where only occasional slivers of light break through their fog. Not for a faint-hearted reader.

2)      Ken Janjigian, A Cerebral Offer, novel. 336 pages. ISBN 978-1-60489-258-1 $21.95

Harry Gnostopolos is frantically trying to keep his beloved indie theater afloat while his frustrated girlfriend implores him to let it go along with his other neuroses. Harry’s fate suddenly changes with the arrival of an old bohemian friend and an exotic woman who tempt him with a chance to save the theater and his life. All he has to do is join a subversive cabal of thieves, who have planned a heist that will rewrite history. A bang up ending lies in store for the reader. If you’re a Beat poet fan, this novel is a must.

3)      Irving Warner, Student in the Underworld, novel. 250 pages. ISBN 978-1-60489-267-3 $19.95

The setting of Student in the Underworld takes place fifty years ago—in the 1960’s, mostly in San Francisco’s historic Butcher Town. It’s ironic, however, that Student is not about the anti-war/flower child movement; nor is it a work set in academia, although both do appear in the novel’s background. At that time there was far more going on in the city of St. Francis than the media-dominated vision of the Haight-Ashbury/student protest scene. And that much more happens via the framework of the Butcher’s Town Writers’ Guild. The main character, Student, has just left the Vietnam wartime Navy as an officer to find he must deal with anachronistic characters steeped in political causes thirty years gone—from the Great Depression and Wobblie days. But he too must fight his own anachronistic dreamscape of pre-fab homes, starched blouses, and—above all—name-brand normalcy. Student takes a bumpy ride through all this as he comes to terms with modern femininity in the persons of three women. A whimsical tone intermixes with poignancy to carry the reader along Student’s journey.

4)      Al Kline, Journey through a Land of Minor Annoyances, How I came to Embrace Being an Insignificant Speck of Dust on a Meaningless Trip through an Apathetic Universe trade paper ISBN 978-1-60489-264-2 $21.95

Even though the “Journey” is a spiritual one toward death, this is the lightest of the four books. A talking dog, loads of movie and pop tune trivia, ghosts. Whoopee! —After being diagnosed with a cerebral cancer and given three months to live, 20-year-old misfit CHAZ CHASE decides a road trip will help him find the meaning of life—and maybe apologize to certain people for being a jerk along the way. He adopts a dog as a traveling companion, but questions his sanity when MAX suddenly talks, claiming to be the canine reincarnation of a famous Hollywood director. Chaz meets many folk along his journey, some bordering on hallucinogenic in the actions they perform, the wisdom they proclaim. And then comes CLITTY, a pistol-packing femme fatale dreaming of Hollywood stardom. In the most important piece of the meaning-of-life puzzle, Chaz falls in love. Together he and Clitty drive to Salton Sea where Max directs the final scene of Chaz's brief but quirky life. 

There you have it. Livingston’s Summer—er, Fall of Love!