Between the Pages of WELL READ Magazine

Robert Gwaltney & Jeffrey Dale Lofton introduce James Wade.

James Wade is the award-winning author of Beasts of the Earth, All Things Left Wild, and River, Sing Out. He is the youngest novelist to win two Spur Awards from the Western Writers of America, and the recipient of the MPIBA’s prestigious Reading the West Award. James’s work has appeared in Southern Literary Magazine, The Bitter Oleander, Writers’ Digest, and numerous ...

Robert Gwaltney & Jeffrey Dale Lofton introduce Parul Kapur.

Parul Kapur is a novelist, journalist, and literary critic. Her short fiction centers on the aftermath of colonialism in India and the lives of Indian immigrants. Her stories have appeared in Ploughshares, Pleiades, Wascana Review, Prime Number, Midway Journal, and the anthology {Ex}tinguished & {Ex}tinct. As a journalist and critic, she has written for The New Yo...

Robert Gwaltney & Jeffrey Dale Lofton introduce Lo Patrick.

Lo Patrick is a former lawyer and current novelist living in the suburbs of Atlanta. Her debut, The Floating Girls, earned a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly, was a finalist for the Townsend Prize for Fiction, and was a Reader’s Digest Editor’s Pick. It was named by the Georgia Center for the Book, a book all Georgians should read. She is also the author of The N...

Robert Gwaltney & Jeffrey Dale Lofton introduce Andie Burke & Lindsay Hameroff.

Andie Burke writes romantic comedies in between her pediatric RN shifts. She lives in Maryland with an alarming number of books, ultra-fine point pens, dehydrated houseplants, and two small humans. Her debut Fly with Me was listed as one of POPSUGAR’s Best Romance Books of 2023 and AUTOSTRADDLE’s Best Queer Books of the Year. Her latest book is ...

Robert Gwaltney & Jeffrey Dale Lofton introduce Flannery Buchanan.

Flannery Buchanan moved to Crozet with her family in 2018 from the Chicago area. She was trained and worked briefly as a school librarian until she began having children and then she stayed home for 15 years raising her four kids. When Flannery was ready to go back to work, she opened Bluebird Bookstop out of a vintage trailer and took it around to vineyards, fe...

Robert Gwaltney & Jeffrey Dale Lofton introduce Valerie Nieman  

Valerie Nieman is the author of novels and short story and poetry collections. Her novel In the Lonely Backwater won the Sir Walter Raleigh Award and was a Foreword Indies Book of the Year finalist. Her critically acclaimed work includes To the Bones and Blood Clay. She has held a National Endowment for the Arts creative writing fellowship. She is a professor emer...

Robert Gwaltney & Jeffrey Dale Lofton introduce Jeffrey Blount

Jeffrey Blount is the award-winning author of four novels. Almost Snow White, winner of the 2013 USA Best Book Awards, Hating Heidi Foster, winner of the 2013 Readers Favorite Book Award for young adult literature, The Emancipation of Evan Walls, winner of the 2020 National Indie Excellence Award for African American fiction and other awards, and Jeffrey's latest no...

Robert Gwaltney and Jeffrey Dale Lofton introduce Emily Carpenter

Emily Carpenter is the critically acclaimed, bestselling author of suspense novels, Burying the Honeysuckle Girls, The Weight of Lies, and Every Single Secret. After graduating from Auburn with a Bachelor of Arts in Speech Communication, she moved to New York City. She’s worked as an actor, producer, screenwriter, and behind-the-scenes soap opera assistant for the CB...

Robert Gwaltney and Jeffrey Dale Lofton introduce Shastri Akella

Shastri Akella’s debut novel, The Sea Elephants, was published by Flatiron Books in the USA and Canada and by Penguin in India. He was a writing resident at the Fine Arts Works Center and the Oak Springs Garden Foundation. He is the winner of the 2022 FracturedLit Flash Fiction Contest and the 2023 Best Microfiction Contest. His writing has appeared in Guernica, Fairy...

Robert Gwaltney and Jeffrey Dale Lofton interview The Biscuit Queen!

Mary Martha Greene is a South Carolina native and government relations consultant who perfected her entertaining skills for making friends and engaging clients during her forty-year career. She divides her time between Beaufort and Columbia, SC. She is the author of the bestselling book, The Cheese Biscuit Queen Tells All and the sequel, The Cheese Biscuit Queen, ...

Robert Gwaltney and Jeffrey Dale Lofton interview Kalela Williams Kalela Williams is an author, a proud auntie, a cat mama, and a "Black History Maven." She is the Director of the Virginia Center for the Book and directs the Virginia Festival of the Book and other events. She has created and produced literary events for the Philadelphia library system, a youth writing non-profit, a university poetry center, and other institutions. ...

Robert Gwaltney and Jeffrey Dale Lofton introduce Kimberly Brock

Kimberly Brock is the bestselling author of The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare, which was shortlisted for the prestigious Townsend Prize for Fiction, and The River Witch, recipient of the Georgia Author of the Year Award. She is the founder of Tinderbox Writers Workshop and has served as a guest lecturer for many regional and national writing workshops including at the P...

Robert Gwaltney and Jeffrey Dale Lofton interview Federico Eribia

Federico Erebia received the 2024 Lambda Literary Exceptional New Writer Award. His debut novel, Pedro & Daniel, follows two gay, neurodivergent, Mexican American brothers, over a twenty-four year span, who experience joy and laughter, despite years of abuse and oppression.  Pedro & Daniel has won numerous awards, starred reviews, and other accolades, includi...

Robert Gwaltney and Jeffrey Dale Lofton introduce James Wade

James Wade is the award-winning author of Beasts of the Earth, All Things Left Wild, and River, Sing Out. He is the youngest novelist to win two Spur Awards from the Western Writers of America, and the recipient of the MPIBA’s prestigious Reading the West Award. James’s work has appeared in Southern Literary Magazine, The Bitter Oleander, Writers’ Digest, and numerous a...

Robert Gwaltney and Jeffrey Dale Lofton introduce Piper G. Huguley

Piper G. Huguley’s biographical historical fiction, By Her Own Design: a novel of Ann Lowe, Fashion Designer to the Social Register (William Morrow Publishing) tells the inspiring story of the Black fashion designer of Jackie Kennedy’s wedding dress. By Her Own Design was a Booklist top 100 Editor’s Choice selection for 2022 and was named one of the top 100 books of...

Robert Gwaltney and Jeffrey Dale Lofton introduce Mimi Herman.

Mimi Herman is a Kennedy Center teaching artist and codirector of Writeaways writing workshops in France, Italy, Ireland, and New Mexico. She serves as vice-chair of the Board of Directors for the Association of Writers & Writing Programs, and has taught in the Masters of Education programs at Lesley University, served as the North Carolina Piedmont Laureate and bee...

Robert Gwaltney & Jeffrey Dale Lofton introduce Curtis Chin A co-founder of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop in New York City, Curtis Chin served as the non-profits’ first Executive Director. He went on to write for network and cable television before transitioning to social justice documentaries. Chin has screened his films at over 600 venues in twenty countries. He has written for CNN, Bon Appetit, the Detroit Free Press ...

Clay Smith is the literary director at the Library of Congress. In that role, he curates the lineup of the National Book Festival and oversees the Library’s ambassador-ships, which include the United States Poet Laureate and the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. Previously, he was the editor-in-chief of Kirkus Reviews and the literary director of the San Antonio Book Festival and the Texas Book Festival and worked ...

Robert Gwaltney and Jeffrey Dale Lofton introduce essayist, playwright, and cultural critic, Gwydion Suilebhan.

“…for me, the process I rely on is deeply entwined with my subject matter, and I’m never following a formula when I make art.”

Gwydion Suilebhan is a cultural critic, essayist, and play-wright. A lifelong arts advocate, he serves as both the Ex-ecutive Director of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation and the Project Director of th...