James Villanueva’s essay “The Gathering” from Crooked Letter i: Coming Out in the South, an anthology recently published by NewSouth Books, was excerpted in the “Personal Journeys” section of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution this Sunday. “Personal Journeys” features “stories that define” the Southern region and “connect our community” …
The historical novel Forsaken by Ross Howell Jr., due for release on February 1, has been named a Winter 2016 Okra Pick by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance. The Picks recognize “the best in forthcoming Southern lit, according to the people who would know.” Selections are made from titles nominated by employees of independent bookstores throughout the region. Featured titles highlight up-and-coming authors whose books are likely to become bestsellers …
On the occasion of the recent 60th anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, NPR’s Michel Martin held an important and far-reaching panel discussion at the historical Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, with a live audience and also aired live on NPR. Panelists included historian Taylor Branch, Alabama State University president Gwendolyn Boyd, Ebony Howard of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Reverend Bob Graetz, pastor of Trinity Lutheran church during the boycott and author of A White Preacher’s Message on Race and Reconciliation (NewSouth Books, 2006) …
Popular NewSouth author and nationally syndicated columnist Rheta Grimsley Johnson favors us with a striking and poignant read given the recent events in San Bernardino. In “Thankful for Small Moments of Peace,” the column illustrates Johnson’s determination to celebrate a restful and restorative Thanksgiving among friends. She lists many things for which she gives thanks, from Bradford pears through books read and music enjoyed …
Fred Gray was among the civil rights pioneers honored by a new state historical marker to be unveiled at Alabama State University. Attorney Gray spoke at a ceremony on December 1 at 3:00 pm, joining ASU President Gwendoyn Boyd and Joe L. Reed …
NewSouth Books salutes distinguished civil rights attorney Fred Gray, author of Bus Ride to Justice: Changing the System by the System, the Life and Works of Fred Gray, who received a Phoenix Award presented by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation at a ceremony held in Washington, D.C. recently …
NewSouth Books is delighted to announce that Halley by Faye Gibbons has won the Silver Medal for Young Adult Fiction in the ninth Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards …
An essay by bestselling author Dorothy Allison, which serves as a foreword to Crooked Letter i, has won the attention of the Huffington Post. The essay frames a smart and moving anthology of LGBT stories about coming out in the South, edited by Connie Griffin and newly published by NewSouth Books. In recalling the days before “this new wondrous age with Supreme Court decisions affirming gay and lesbian marriage,” Allison reminds us of the courage it took to self-identify as LGBT …
As Confederate symbolism, hostility to immigration reform, voting rights, and Donald Trump mania roil the waters of Deep South politics in the run-up to the 2016 elections, Steve Suitts — author of Hugo Black of Alabama: How His Roots and Early Career Shaped the Great Champion of the Constitution — reveals the irony in a Southern Spaces blog post that white ex-Confederates were early beneficiaries of U.S. amnesty for illegal aliens …
Kentucky poet Charles Semones died on September 13, 2015. He was 78. Although he lived in Harrodsburg in his latter years, he was originally from the Deep Creek community of Mercer County, Kentucky, west of Harrodsburg, a rural landscape of stark ridges and hollows which informed much of the writer’s work. He was the author of And All the Layered Light: Last Poems, published in NewSouth Books’s “The Conecuh Series” in 2007 …