Literary Friday, Edition 82

Telling Someone Else’s Love Story & A Giveaway

Joshilyn Jackson’s new book and one of our Fall/Winter Reading picks Someone Else’s Love Story was released this week. The story of Shandi Pierce, a 21-year-old single mother who claims she had a virgin birth and falls in love William Ashe during a robbery at the Circle K, it explores the themes of loss, love and human connection. We enjoyed chatting with Jackson via SheReads on Monday night. Our review of the book includes a few fun moments from the chat and some insight into the story from Jackson herself.

We also have one copy of Someone Else’s Love Story to give away. To *enter, comment on Literary Friday and we’ll choose one winner at random on Monday.

Upcoming Twitter Chats

Our chats with authors on our Fall/Winter Reading List continue next month with Ann Hite on December 13, Jesmyn Ward (December date TBA) and Wiley Cash on January 31. Mark your calendar!

Literary News

The National Book Award for fiction went to James McBride for The Good Lord Bird on Wednesday night. A fictionalized story about abolitionist John Brown and a slave in Kansas mistaken for a girl who ends up living as a young woman, the book’s win was a shock for McBride, considered the underdog at the awards.

On a less happy note, writer and authority on Southern food John Egerton passed away yesterday. Co-founder of the Southern Foodways Alliance, Egerton was also an authority on Nashville history and the early days of the Civil Rights Movement. He was 78 years old.

Some of you may remember photographer Dinah Fried’s photos of literary meals, like the chicken breakfast from To Kill A Mockingbird. Well, her project has now been turned into a book, and Fictitious Dishes: An Album of Literature’s Most Memorable Meals will be published by Harper Collins this April.

In honor of its centennial, the U.S. Department of Labor released its list of Books That Shaped Work in America, which includes Kathryn Stockett’s The Help.

Karen Russell’s Swamlandia and Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones earned a spot on Flavorwire’s 50 Books That Define the Past Five Years in Literature.

Sassy Belles author and Alabama native Beth Albright completes her trilogy just in time for the holidays with Sleigh Belles. Blogger Tamara Welch has the review.

(Non)Required Reading 

The New York Times spends 36 hours in Charleston, S.C., revealing the city’s tie to an important Christmas icon and proving why wintertime is a great time to visit.

Literary Events

Race through the French Quarter tonight during the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival’s Books and Booze Literary Scavenger Hunt, starting at the Beauregard-Keyes House.

Joshilyn Jackson is currently on tour for Someone Else’s Love Story and will be signing books in Asheville at Malaprop’s tonight, BookMark in Neptune Beach, Florida, tomorrow and GJ Ford Bookshop on St. Simon’s Island on Sunday. See her full signing calendar here.

The Key West Literary Seminar will be held January 9-12 and 16-19 this year with the theme “The Dark Side.” Guest authors include Megan Abbott, Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Percival Everett, Gillian Flynn, Attica Locke and Joyce Carol Oates.

New in Southern Voice

A story and a poem about food: Francis’s Famous Okra Chowder by Laura Lamm and First You Make a Roux by Robert D. Bennett.

*We will only mail copies of giveaway books to winners living in the United States. If you’re located outside of the country, feel free to comment but please disclose that you are not eligible to win.

To find out more about Southern authors’ haunts and hangouts, download the Deep South Literary Trail App, available direct from iTunes and for Android.