Anthology Book Reviews

These anthologies were recently released by Alabama authors or publishers, or they cover subjects related to our state. View the complete list…

By Richard E. Creel and Grace B. Lebo, eds.; Phillip E. Levin, Editor in Chief
Gulf Coast Writers Association, 2011
$11.95, Paper

Anthology

Reviewed by Sue Scalf

After having read a number of very long novels recently, your reviewer was surprised anew by the enjoyment of reading a collection of short stories, especially one whose guidelines were “fictional stories with Southern themes, Southern locations, and Southern characters.” The panel who chose these stories, did, however, include a few nonfiction stories and five poems. Read the complete review…

By Linda Busby Parker, ed.

Reviewed by Sherry Kughn

Christmas is a holiday that evokes feelings of angst and joy, which makes it a perfect topic for writers. Christmas Is a Season! 2008 has twenty-eight short stories and personal essays by writers from throughout the nation. It is edited by Linda Busby Parker, who highlighted writing communities by inviting them to write about Christmas. Many of their voices come from places in their hearts where emotions are as tangled as a wad of string lights.

By: Frye Gaillard, Sheila Hagler, and Peggy Denniston
Reviewed by: John Sledge

Bosarge. Lyons. Morris. Reid. Wigfield. McCall. Simmons. Nguyen. Ngam. These are just some of the families of south Mobile County white, black, and Asian whose lives were impacted by Hurricane Katrina. Their stories, and the colorful, difficult history of the stretch of coast that they call home, are movingly presented in a new book, In the Path of the Storms: Bayou La Batre, Coden, and the Alabama Coast....

By: Jeanie Thompson, editor
Reviewed by: Anita Garner

You will instantly want this book the minute you see it with its impeccable selections from an all-star list of our state’s very best writers. But you will also immediately think of all the ways you will want to use this book after you greedily read it. Teachers will plot ways to use it in their classrooms. Book groups will include this in their line up, knowing it will re-introduce beloved writers to newer members, writers whose works they will want to further explore.

By: Editorial Staff
Reviewed by: Liz Reed

An Alabama Christmas is a gift of memories written by people whose Christmases share common Alabama ground. These are not the stories of sleigh rides and ice-skating, except for a few, rare, snow-laced days that have graced Alabama Christmases in the last century.  The folks who contributed these stories write of Christmas wishes granted (or not), of good times in the midst of economic depression and war, of lessons learned, of people remembered. 

By: Wade Hall, ed.
Reviewed by: Jessica Hume

Before leaving Kentucky to return to his birth state, Alabama, Wade Hall composed a work of honesty and devotion for what he left behind. In this case, however, what he left behind was not a lover, but an intimate relationship with the craft of writing in Kentucky, and Hall’s Kentucky Anthology: Two Hundred Years of Writing in the Bluegrass State is not simply a love letter. The anthology, which includes a wonderfully articulate and sometimes pleasantly surprising selection of historical, literary, and creative works spanning the entire history of the commonwealth, is a prime example of Hall’s inspired and meticulous work.