Richelle Putnam

Richelle Putnam is a Mississippi Arts Commission (MAC) Teaching Artist/Roster Artist (Literary), a Mississippi Humanities Speaker, and a 2020 and 2014 MAC Literary Arts Fellowship recipient. She earned her BS in Marketing Management at Western Governors University and received her Master of Arts in Creative Writing at the University of North Alabama.

Her YA biography, The Inspiring Life of Eudora Welty (The History Press, April 2014), received the 2014 Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards Silver Medal and was nominated for the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters award, nonfiction category. She is also the author of Lauderdale County, Mississippi; A Brief History (The History Press, 2011) and co-author of Legendary Locals of Meridian, Mississippi (Arcadia Publishing, 2013). Her book, Mississippi and The Great Depression, was released November 13, 2017, by The History Press and was nominated for the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters award, nonfiction category, and is a 2017 Foreword Indies Book Awards Bronze Medal recipient in the regional nonfiction category. To celebrate Mississippi's bicentennial anniversary, the Mississippi Secretary of State’s Office commissioned Richelle to write the history of the nine counties (Clarke, Kemper, Lauderdale, Newton, Neshoba, Leake, Smith, Scott, Jasper) in East Central, Mississippi, for the 2017 Mississippi Bicentennial book released December 2017. In November 2021, Arcadia Publishing released her latest book Mississippi in the Great Depression, with more than 200 photos, as an “Images of America imprint.” She co-wrote with Diane Williams, A Guide to Mississippi Museums (The History Press, 2024) and is working on other writing projects with her.

Her short memoirs and fiction have earned awards and recognition from major publications, including Writers Digest, Writers Forum (World Wide Writers), Fish Publishing, and New Millennium Writings. She co-wrote Was It Worth It, which won first place in the Tallahatchie Riverfest’s William Faulkner Playwriting Competition and performed several times on stages around Mississippi. Richelle also co-wrote Women of Potta Chitto and the soundtrack. The play was shown on two community theatre stages, and she performed the soundtrack in venues around the state. She is the executive editor and writer for The Bluegrass Standard Magazine. Her literary work has been published in Pif Magazine, Flashquake, The Copperfield Review, Birmingham Arts Journal, and several bestselling Adams Media, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, anthologies. She has contributed to Parents & Kids Magazine, Social South, Portico, Well Being, eat. drink. Mississippi, and Mississippi Magazine.

As a singer-songwriter, radio and Internet stations and American Songwriter Magazine have featured her songs and lyrics, including American Songwriter Magazine. As a former talk radio host for Supertalk Mississippi 103.3, she researched and facilitated two popular shows: Behind the Scenes (Mississippi Arts & Entertainment) and Looking Back (Mississippi History). As a writer and teaching artist, she aims to help children and adults experience the beauty of words and realize their power.