Dear Booklover: P J O'Rourke said, "Creative writing teachers should be purged until every last instructor who has uttered the words 'Write what you know' is confined to a labour 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, worked at the post office in his hometown of Oxford, Mississippi. Mister Faulkner was known to say, "One of the saddest things is that the only thing a man can do for eight hours, is work. You can't eat eight hours a day, nor drink for eight hours a day, nor make love for eight hours." He must have been determined to give something else (writing, we may assume, perhaps a glass of whisky on the side) a whirl when he tendered his resignation to the postmaster. "I reckon I'll be at the beck and call of folks with money all my life", he said, "but thank God I won't ever again have to be at the beck and call of every son of a bitch who's got two cents to buy a stamp." The authors in this book have tried their hands at some of the same jobs you have held, or still keep. They've worked on the railroad, busted rocks with a sledgehammer, fought fires, wiped tables, soldiered and carpentered and spied, delivered pizzas, lacquered boat paddles, counted heads for the church, sold underwear, and, yes, delivered the mail. Theyve driven garbage trucks. And, like William Faulkner, they have quit those day jobs. And like Faulkner they write. They tell good tales. If you wonder what work preceded their efforts to produce a great pile of books, if you would like to know how they made the transition to, as William Gay said, "clocking in at the culture factory", then this is the book you have been waiting for. -- Sonny Brewer, Editor, Fairhope, Alabama. List of Contributors: Barb Johnson; Brad Watson; Cassandra King; Clay Risen; Connie May Fowler; Daniel Wallace; George Singleton; Howard Bahr; Janis Owens; John Grisham; Joshilyn Jackson; Larry Brown; Matthew Teague; Michelle Richmond; Pat Conroy; Rick Bragg; Silas House; Steve Yarbrough.; Suzanne Hudson; Tim Gautreaux; Tom Franklin; William Gay; Winston Groom.

Tim Gautreaux. Fannie Flagg. Diane McWhorter. Charles Simic. Daniel Wallace. Steve Yarbrough. These are just a handful of the acclaimed writers whose work has appeared in the Blue Moon Cafe series since its 2002 inception. Now in the fifth instalment of the series, Sonny Brewer has selected a new crop of stories, essays, and poems that promise to satisfy even the most discerning of tastes. In these contributions from up-and-coming writers and seasoned prize-winners, we witness a man searching for redemption in the form of a fish, a young woman piecing together her life after tragedy, an adolescent's struggle with his changing body, and a portrait of a community in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. This dynamic collection is a must-read, offering the best in contemporary Southern writing and a glimpse into the future of Southern literature.

"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, Idaho. Henry is sixty-seven, a retired professor and a widower who has been told a warmer climate would make the end more tolerable. San Diego would be a good choice.
Instead, Henry chose Fairhope, Alabama, a town with utopian ideals and a haven for strong-minded individualists. Upton Sinclair, Sherwood Anderson, and Clarence Darrow were among its inhabitants. Henry bought his own ten acres of piney woods outside Fairhope. Before dying, underscored by the writings of his beloved Tolstoy, Henry could begin to "perfect the soul awarded him" and rest in the faith that he, and all people, would succeed, "even if it took eons." Human existence, Henry believed, continues in a perfect circle unmarred by flaws of personality, irrespective of blood and possessions and rank, and separate from organized religion. In Alabama, until his final breath, he would chase these high ideas.
But first, Henry had to answer up for leaving Idaho. Henry's dearest friend and intellectual sparring partner, Pastor Will Webb, and Henry's two adult sons, Thomas and Harvey, were baffled and angry that he would abandon them and move to the Deep South, living in a barn there while he built a round house of handmade concrete blocks. Hisnew neighbors were perplexed by his eccentric behavior as well. On the coldest day of winter he was barefoot, a philosopher and poet with ideas and words to share with anyone who would listen. And, mysteriously, his "last few months" became years. He had gone looking for a place to learn lessons in dying, and, studiously advanced to claim a vigorous new life.
"The Poet of Tolstoy Park "is a moving and irresistible story, a guidebook of the mind and spirit that lays hold of the heart. Henry Stuart points the way through life's puzzles for all of us, becoming in this timeless tale a character of such dimension that he seems more alive now than ever.

"From the Hardcover edition."

The fourth edition of the acclaimed Blue Moon Cafe series serves up another hearty helping of Southern fiction, essays, poems, and musical musings by both seasoned prize-winners and up-and-coming writers. With stories ranging from a heartbreaking funeral for a beloved goat and an aspiring musicians move to Nashville to the memory of two children who disappear in the thick summer heat, this diverse and captivating collection is sure to satisfy everyones appetite.

New York Times best-selling writer Pat Conroy (1945-2016) inspired a worldwide legion of devoted fans numbering in the millions, but none are more loyal to him and more committed to sustaining his literary legacy than the many writers he nurtured over the course of his fifty-year writing life. In sharing their stories of Conroy, his fellow writers honor his memory and advance our shared understanding of his lasting impact on twentieth- and twenty-first-century literary life in and well beyond the American South. Conroy's was a messy fellowship of people from all walks of life. His relationships were complicated, and people and places he thought he'd left behind often circled back to him at crucial moments. The pantheon of contributors includes Pulitzer Prize winners Rick Bragg and Kathleen Parker; Grammy winners Barbra Streisand and Janis Ian; Lillian Smith Award winners Anthony Grooms and Mary Hood; National Book Award winner Nikky Finney; James Beard Foundation Award winners Nathalie Dupree and Cynthia Graubart; a corps of New York Times best-selling authors, including Ron Rash, Sandra Brown, and Mary Alice Monroe; Conroy biographers Katherine Clark and Catherine Seltzer; longtime Conroy friends Bernie Schein, Cliff Graubart, John Warley, and Walter Edgar; Pat's students Sallie Ann Robinson and Valerie Sayers; members of the Conroy family; and many more. Each author in this collection shares a slightly different view of Conroy. Through their voices, a vibrant, multifaceted portrait of him comes to life and sheds new light on the writer and the man. Loosely following Conroy's own chronology, the essays in Our Prince of Scribes wind through his river of a story, stopping at important ports of call. Cities he called home and longed to visit, along with each book he birthed, become characters that are as equally important as the people he touched and loved along the way.

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 pick-up 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 the "dog-napping" case, watching his small-town community come together in search of his lost companion.