Mojo Rising: Volume 2 - Contemporary Writers is a short story anthology that contains the work of some of the finest writers associated with the geographic region known as the Mojo Triangle (Mississippi, Memphis, New Orleans and Nashville). Included in this collection are stories written by New York Times bestselling author Ace Atkins, author of two dozen novels, including The Fallen; writer Sheree Renee Thomas is editor of the Dark Matter anthology, which was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year; William Boyle, author of Gravesend and numerous short stories; author Julie Smith is the author of numerous novels, including P.I. On a Hot Tin Roof and Mean Woman Blues; Steven Barthelme is the author of two short story collections, Hush Hush and And He Tells the Little Horse the Whole Story (he lives in Hattiesburg, MS, where he is a professor at the University of Southern Mississippi); Maurice Carlos Ruffin is the author of a forthcoming novel to be published by One World/Random House, and the winner of the 2014 Iowa Review Award for fiction; former University of Mississippi journalism professor Jere Hoar is the author of a novel, The Hit, and a short story collection, Body Parts; Corey Mesler, who co-owns Burke's Bookstore in Memphis, is the author of numerous poems, short stories and novels, including Memphis Movie; James L. Dickerson is the author of more than 30 books, including Mojo Triangle and Memphis Going Down; Margaret Skinner, author of Cold Eye: A Short Story Collection and two novels published by Algonquin Books, Old Jim Canaan and Molly Flanagan and the Holy Ghost ; and the editor of this book, Joseph B. Atkins, who maintains a day job as a journalism professor at the University of Mississippi; he is the author of a novel, Casey's Last Chance.

Harry Dean Stanton (1926-2017) got his start in Hollywood in TV productions such as Zane Grey Theater and Gunsmoke. After a series of minor parts in forgettable westerns, he gradually began to get film roles that showcased his laid-back acting style, appearing in Cool Hand Luke (1967), Kelly's Heroes (1970), The Godfather: Part II (1974), and Alien (1979). He became a headliner in the eighties - starring in Wim Wenders's moving Paris, Texas (1984) and Alex Cox's Repo Man (1984) - but it was his extraordinary skill as a character actor that established him as a revered cult figure and kept him in demand throughout his career. Joseph B. Atkins unwinds Stanton's enigmatic persona in the first biography of the man Vanity Fair memorialized as "the philosopher poet of character acting." He sheds light on Stanton's early life in West Irvine, Kentucky, exploring his difficult relationship with his Baptist parents, his service in the Navy, and the events that inspired him to drop out of college and pursue acting. Atkins also chronicles Stanton's early years in California, describing how he honed his craft at the renowned Pasadena Playhouse before breaking into television and movies. In addition to examining the actor's acclaimed body of work, Atkins also explores Harry Dean Stanton as a Hollywood legend, following his years rooming with Jack Nicholson, partying with David Crosby and Mama Cass, jogging with Bob Dylan, and playing poker with John Huston. "HD Stanton" was scratched onto the wall of a jail cell in Easy Rider (1969) and painted on an exterior concrete wall in Drive, He Said (1971). Critic Roger Ebert so admired the actor that he suggested the "Stanton-Walsh Rule," which states that "no movie featuring either Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmet Walsh in a supporting role can be altogether bad." Harry Dean Stanton is often remembered for his crowd-pleasing roles in movies like Pretty in Pink (1986) or Escape from New York (1981), but this impassioned biography illuminates the entirety of his incredible sixty-year career. Drawing on interviews with the actor's friends, family, and colleagues, this much-needed book offers an unprecedented look at a beloved figure.

Wealthy Memphis Underworld FigureHires Sniper To Kill Mississippi Labor Organizer.Written by University of Mississippi journalism professor Joseph B. Atkins, Casey's Last Chance has garnered high praise, including: "Move over Greg Iles and make room for another novelist who traffics in treachery, wild rides, unreconstructed Nazis and rogue agents. In Casey's Last Chance, Joseph B. Atkins establishes for himself a place in the top ranks of Southern gothic storytellers, with a cast of evil characters and a few good men and women to fight them."-Curtis Wilkie, author of The Fall of the House of Zeus "Joe Atkins's Casey's Last Chance is such pitch-perfect vintage noir, you can almost smell the cigarette burning in the ashtray, a woman's perfume drifting past. With a twisty plot, vibrant characters, and hardboiled grit to burn, it's everything you want in a crime novel."-Megan Abbott, Edgar-award-winning author of Dare Me and The Fever "Joe Atkins has crafted an original, provocative take on the 1960s South. This story has it all - mobsters, assassinations, romance, gothic landscapes, and a cast of characters you'll remember long after you've read the final sentence."-Neil White, author of In the Sanctuary of Outcasts "The sense of place in Casey's Last Chance is palpable. The author knows the long dark stretches of blacktop between dim lights on Mississippi secondary roads, the dangerous sections abruptly encountered in our few cities, the little towns with photographs in filling station windows of mere boys and handwritten signs that say STOP THE KILLING. You can follow Casey's route with this novel as a richly annotated road map. But take my advice. Drive a clean reliable car in daylight under the speed limit, but not too much. Speak politely if stopped. At night, I wouldn't drive Casey's route except with puncture proof tires, a bright flashlight, and a .38 caliber detective special in my glove box."-Jere Hoar, author of Body Parts and The Hit Written in a hardboiled, noir style, Casey's Last Chance takes you back to the days of Raymond Chandler, when characters knew only one direction-straight ahead, their fedoras tilted into the wind. Author Atkins writes fiction the way Jimi Hendrix played guitar, with delicate fingering that explodes into soaring, lyrical riffs when least expected. Casey Eubanks, is a small-time North Carolina hustler on the run after angrily firing a shot over the head of his girlfriend Orella during an argument and accidentally killing his cousin. He seeks refuge with a crony, Clyde Point, who steers him to a big operator in Memphis, Max Duren, a shadowy former Nazi with a wide financial network across the South. The story takes place in the U.S. South in July 1960 and is reflective of underworld opposition to organized labor. Duren hires Casey to kill Ala Gadomska, a labor organizer who is stirring up trouble at one of Duren's mills in northern Mississippi. Casey sets up for a sniper shot during a rally, but can't go through with it. She's beautiful, makes sense, and maybe he's developing a conscience. Now he's on the run again, this time from Duren's goons as well as the cops. Enter Martin Wolfe, a freelance reporter investigating Duren's operation. He tries to talk Casey into joining forces with him and FBI agent Hardy Beecher to bring Duren down.Casey dumps Wolfe, steals his car, and returns home to Orella. A Duren goon awaits him there, however. A bloody shootout leaves Orella dead and convinces Casey to partner with Wolfe and Beecher. It's Casey's last chance. The three take off across the South to execute a plan-with the help of Ala Gadomska-to destroy Duren. Everything works according to plan until the explosive end, at which point no one is able to escape unscathed.

"Covering for the Bosses: Labor and the Southern Press" probes the difficult relationship between the press and organized labor in the South from the past to the present day. Written by a veteran journalist and first-hand observer of the labor movement and its treatment in the region's newspapers and other media, the text focuses on the modern South that has evolved since World War II.

In gathering materials for this book, Joseph B. Atkins crisscrossed the region, interviewing workers, managers, labor organizers, immigrants, activists, and journalists, and canvassing labor archives. Using individual events to reveal the broad picture, "Covering for the Bosses" is a personal journey by a textile worker's son who grew up in North Carolina, worked on tobacco farms and in textile plants as a young man, and went on to cover as a reporter many of the developments described in this book.

Atkins details the fall of the once-dominant textile industry and the region's emergence as the "Sunbelt South." He explores the advent of "Detroit South" with the arrival of foreign automakers from Japan, Germany, and South Korea. And finally he relates the effects of the influx of millions of workers from Mexico and elsewhere. "Covering for the Bosses" shows how, with few exceptions, the press has been a key partner in the powerful alliance of business and political interests that keep the South the nation's least-unionized region.