This collection of thirty Southern writers gathers some of the finest authors in the country — with stories, essays, and a poem. Demonstrating a range of styles, topics, and themes these stories display each writers craftsmanship and talent and together form a testament to the grand literary tradition of the South.

“The more you transform your life from the material to the spiritual domain, the less you become afraid of death.” Leo Tolstoy spoke these words, and they became Henry Stuart’s raison d’etre. The Poet of Tolstoy Park is the unforgettable novel based on the true story of Henry Stuart’s life, which was reclaimed from his doctor’s belief that he would not live another year.Henry responds to the news by slogging home barefoot in the rain. It’s 1925. The place: Canyon County, I...

In His Name, She Said is a Gospel-based story addressing the mystery of what Jesus might have written in the sand at his feet as described in the Gospel of John, Chapter 8, verses 2 through 11.

In the same vein as Marley and Me and My Dog Skip, this “mostly true” novel is at once a whimsical campfire mystery and a universal story about the friendship between a man and his dog.Cormac, a golden retriever who has always been afraid of thunderstorms and lightning flashes, runs away one stormy night while his master is away.So begins a strange adventure that lands Cormac in the back of a red pickup truck driven by a mysterious woman, t...

P. J. ORourke said, “Creative writing teachers should be purged until every last instructor who has uttered the words Write what you know is confined to a labor camp… The blind guy with the funny little harp who composed The Iliad, how much combat do you think he saw?” Like ORourke, William Faulkner had his own take on the Other Commandment for writers, the one that goes, “Thou shalt not quit thy day job”. Faulkner, who won the 1949 Nobel Prize for Literature, had, twenty-five years before, w...

Like the parlor chorus of conversation at a Southern family reunion, the voices in the 'Stories from the Blue Moon Café II' anthology are loud, or they are soft. They are crazy, but not asked to be quiet: “Go ahead, Uncle Ralph, where was it they landed?” And no one laughs. Or they do, and somebody pulls a gun and everything goes quiet again. But not for long. Bookended by stories from Larry Brown and William Gay — two masters of storytelling from a tradition thats rooted south of the Maso...

Following the success of 'Stories from the Blue Moon Café' volumes I, II, and III, we are pleased to serve up another hearty helping of Southern writing in this fourth edition. Offering the best in contemporary Southern fiction, from a tale inspired by a sculpture to another written by a popular Nashville singer and songwriter, along with essays by Pulitzer Prize winners and poems by up-and-comers, 'Stories from the Blue Moon Café IV' promises to satisfy everyones appetite.

From the Editor: An old friend of mine once said to me, “You oughta go ahead and get the graveyard people to cut your stone now. Have em write on there, If this is anything like his life, he wont be here long. ”Ive thought a dozen times to get a paperweight-size version of that very epitaph. Ill get around to it someday. Or the graveyard people will. Anyway, with this short attention span Im blessed with, I sat at my breakfast table on an Alabama springtime morning, ideas sprouting like the g...

The magnificent Ghosthead Oak has stood watch over coastal Alabamas mysterious backwater bays and slow-running rivers, where bull alligators rumble the nerves of lesser creatures and every living thing has the capacity to kill, for five hundred years. Some say the fabled giant tree was once a knee-high seedling brushed by the black boot of Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortez. No other tree along the entire coastal crescent from New Orleans to Apalachicola can rival its majesty or its power t...

Cormac — a dark-red Golden Retriever who has always been afraid of thunderstorms and lightning flashes — runs away one stormy night while his master is away. So begins a strange adventure that lands Cormac in the back of a red pickup truck driven by a mysterious woman, takes him to a series of dog pounds and rescue shelters, and ultimately brings him to the suburbs of Connecticut. Meanwhile, his owner, devastated and trying to juggle his family and his new novel, becomes determined to solve t...

Proving that the waters of Southern talent run deep and that traditions are meant to be both honored and stood on their ear, the third volume of 'Stories from the Blue Moon Café' presents the most talented practitioners of Southern writing. Readers need not ever have set foot south of the Mason-Dixon Line to appreciate the bold, the brash, the horrifying, and the humorous short stories, essays, poems, and even songs from the Souths preeminent authors and its strongest new voices, gathered ...

This book is based on the true life of Henry Stuart. When the 67-year-old former professor finds out he is dying of tuberculosis, he vows to "learn in solitude how to save myself." He sets off for Fairhope, Alabama, with only the writings of his beloved Tolstoy for company. There, the barefoot poet builds himself a small hut and slowly becomes an inspiration for the rest of the utopian town. When his last few months become his last few years, Henry's attempt to understand death becomes a l...