Belles' Letters 2

With a rich assortment of subjects, themes, settings, and writing styles, the 37 stories from Belles Letters II will make readers aware of the great variety and quality of fiction being written by Alabama women. As might be expected, a number of stories are love stories first loves, lost loves, strange loves, from the most transient, feckless, grotesque, even abusive, to the permanent and heartwarming. Likewise, there are many stories of family relationships. Communication between generations is, as always, an issue. It would not be Alabama without a number of treatments of religion, from angels to ghosts to snakes and a little magic. The stories range geographically from the Gulf Coast to north Alabama, from the inner city to the countryside. And, as in all Southern fiction, a number of dogs make their appearances. Featuring 37 authors, including Lee Smith, Sena Naslund, Fannie Flagg, Gail Godwin, Shirley Ann Grau, and Vicki Covington.

Don Noble is professor emeritus of English at the University of Alabama, host of Alabama Public Television s author interview program Bookmark, and book reviewer for Alabama Public Radio. He is the editor of volumes on Harper Lee, Hemingway, Steinbeck, and Fitzgerald and two collections of Alabama fiction, Climbing Mt. Cheaha and A State of Laughter. Raised in Arkansas and a longtime resident of Alabama, Jennifer Horne is a writer, editor, and teacher who explores Southern identity and experience, especially women s, through prose, poetry, fiction, and anthologies and in classrooms and workshops across the South. Among her books are Bottle Tree: Poems (2010), Tell the World You re a Wildflower: Stories (2014), and a second collection of poems, Little Wanderer (2016).