Literary Friday, Edition 154

Road Trip & Twitter Chat & Giveaway With Mary Alice Monroe 

Our first author chat of the summer is with bestselling writer Mary Alice Monroe, who calls South Carolina home. Her latest book is the conclusion of her “Lowcountry Summer Series” titled The Summer’s End. The third installment in a trilogy that began with The Summer Girls and The Summer Wind, Summer’s End returns to Sullivan’s Island and the Muir family — three half sisters bound by love for their grandmother and the Carolina lowcountry.

Monroe’s own love for the region is evident in all of her work. In preparation for the chat, she shared a Lowcountry Road Trip itinerary with us that includes stops in Pawleys Island, Mount Pleasant, Sullivan’s Island and Charleston. Travel with her along Coastal Highway 17 as she points out sites from many of her novels, including The Summer’s End.

We chat with Mary Alice Monroe via Twitter today from 1-2 CST (that’s 11 a.m.-noon PST & 2-3 p.m. EST) using the hashtag #southernlit. You can log into our chat room here to participate or just follow the hashtag on Twitter. We also have two copies of The Summer’s End to give away. One will go to a lucky chat participant, but to win the other copy comment on her road trip through the weekend and we’ll choose a winner on Monday. U.S. only entries please.

View our full Summer Reading List here and the complete Twitter chat schedule here. 

Literary News 

Read about Louisiana author John Kennedy Toole in Spanish over at El Cultural magazine.

In Stephen King’s recent By the Book interview in The New York Times, he says he’d want to invite Flannery O’Connor to a dinner party, is embarrassed he hasn’t read Faulkner’s Requiem for a Nun but does plan to read James Lee Burke’s Wayfaring Stranger next.

Town & Country tells us What 10 Favorite Authors Loved to Drink. It’s no surprise that Southerners dominate the list.

Savannah’s Brice Hotel has introduced an Inspired Writer Package with the help of Mary Kay Andrews that includes supplies, a do not disturb sign, thesaurus, dictionary and more.

Literary Events

The Welty Biennial in Jackson, Mississippi, is happening now through July 3 with exhibits, concerts, a dance party and snapshot contest.

SAFTA’s Fiction Writing Retreat is coming up this weekend, and their Poetry Writing Retreat takes place June 12-14 at Firefly Farms in Knoxville, Tennessee.

See Mary Kay Andrews at Foxtale Books in Woodstock, Georgia, June 8 for the launch of Beach Town.

Walker Percy Weekend in St. Francisville, Louisiana, is June 5-7 with panel discussions, craft bourbon, culinary events and documentary films.

New in Southern Voice

Resignation (1974), a coming of age story about a summer road trip during the Nixon era, by Marie Lathers.

To find out more about your favorite Southern authors’ haunts and hangouts, download the Deep South Literary Trail App, available direct from iTunes and for Android and perfect for those fall road trips.