Literary Friday, Edition 184

Coming Up! 

We’re still finalizing our Southern lit-filled calendar for 2016, but here are a few highlights readers can look forward to in the coming months:

February – Readalong of Joshilyn Jackson’s new book The Opposite of Everyone kicking off February 16 and culminating in a Twitter chat with the author on March 18. More details coming soon!

March – Interview with Southern lit great Dorothy Allison in advance of her appearance at the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival.

April – A poem a day for National Poetry Month. We are still taking submissions, so send your Southern poetry to [email protected].

Literary News

Literary Hub presents Writing While Black, on cliche, stereotype, and the struggle to describe blackness, by Morgan Jerkins.

Read about the story that destroyed Truman Capote — and high society in The New York Post. It has all the intrigue of an episode of “Real Housewives,” only with a literary twist.

A rare recording of Virginia Woolf made the rounds for her birthday on Monday and led us to both Flannery O’Connor and Eudora Welty in Dead Writers Reading Aloud on milq.com.

And Electric Literature has a podcast with South Towards Home author Margaret Eby about why Flannery O’Connor’s work is so hard to adapt for film.

Get 26 Books You Should Read This Spring from Pop Sugar, including Karen White’s next novel and another set in the glamorous social scene of 1950s Houston, Texas.

(Non)Required Reading

We couldn’t ignore the fact that #MississippiRoast was trending on Twitter earlier this week. A quick investigation revealed a piece titled The Improbable Rise of the Mississippi Roast in the food section of The New York Times and an expose of one of the most popular recipes on the Internet.

Literary Events & Contests 

ZORA! Festival celebrating author Zora Neale Hurston in Eatonville, Florida, takes place through January 31.

White Oak Kitchen & Cocktails in Atlanta invites poets from across the Southeastern U.S. to participate in its inaugural annual prize in Southern Poetry. Poems must be on the topic of love and are due by February 5.

Sundress Academy for the Arts in Knoxville, Tennessee, presents a series of workshops as part of its OUTSpoken platform for the LGBTQ community on February 20 and March 26.

Tennessee Williams Birthday Celebration is scheduled for March 1-31 in Key West, Florida, with a party, classic film series and forum, theater performances, art exhibits and more.

And the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival takes place March 30-April 3 this year with Megan Abbott, Dorothy Allison, Mary Badham, Kiese Laymon, Rick Bragg and lots more.

Win the chance to work in Ernest Hemingway’s Key West writing studio by entering the new Florida Keys Flash Fiction Contest. Entries are due March 31.

Save the date for the first annual Dave Robicheaux Literary Festival coming to Iberia Parish, Louisiana, April 8-10, 2016.

New in Southern Voice 

Lone and Need a Miracle, a pair of flash fiction by Alabama author Karie Fugett.

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 winter road trips.