Author Roundup

It's the dog days of summer and we are back with another press news roundup! First thing's first: some press news about the press! Check us out in the Independent Book Review's list of awesome indies. And if we haven't mentioned this enough yet, read Leah Hampton's review of Whiskey & Ribbons in the LA Times. She knows what the rest of the book world is getting wrong about Appalachia, and that Leesa Cross-Smith and Elizabeth Catte are nailing it. (We get a brief mention here too.) Leesa's book also appeared on this super cool "Fabulous Feminist Fiction for the End of Summer" list from the venerable Ms. Magazine!

Kathryn Schwille's What Luck, This Life was a feature on Charlotte Talks, thanks for Sally Brewster of Park Road Books. She says it's one of the best books she's read this year. (We agree! Preorder now!)

Michel Stone celebrated the paperback launch of her novel Border Child (a sequel to HCP's The Iguana Tree) at at the bookshop in conversation with new broad member Dr. Araceli Hernandez-LaRoche! Get your fresh, travel friendly copy at the store for your next read! For shorter bits of Michel's wisdom, check out her essay in LitHub and at Read Her Like an Open Book on researching Border Child and why fiction reminds us that we're all in this together.

We want our protagonists to writhe a bit, don’t we? They need to face tough, often seemingly insurmountable obstacles so that we, the reader, will want to turn the page."

—Michel Stone

Lots of congrats in order for Ashley M. Jones, winner of the Back Bone Press's 2018 Lucille Clifton Poetry Prize selected by Camille Dungy for her poem "The Kid Next To Me At The 7pm Showing Of The Avengers Has A Toy Gun." Click through to read this moving poem and hear what Camille has to say.

Ashley was also awarded a $5000 literary arts fellowship. Fellowships are grants awarded to outstanding individual artists from Alabama who create important works of art and make valuable contributions to the entire state.

Need more Ashley news? Check her out in interviews with Black Warrior Review, AWP Writer, and NPR's Code Switch Live from Birmingham!

Leesa Cross-Smith's Whiskey & Ribbons is still racking up lists and reviews, most recently from PopSugar, Chicago Review of Books (The Best Books of 2018 So Far!), and the Raleigh News Observer. The Post & Courier says "Cross-Smith explores the joy and heartbreak of relationships, and the complex layers within families and between friends, and how these dynamics shift and morph, like dancers in a pas de deux, or like a piano sonata, or a fugue, where varying voices build on each other, and repetition becomes the anchor."

Check out Esteban Rodriguez's poem "Ode to a Texas Porch" in the Chattahoochee Review. We also interviewed Esteban on his manuscript, writing process and more.