Mark Powell may be southern literature's best kept secret - but not for long.

By Margaret Evans, Editor

Mark Powell is one of my favorite mysteries.

I discovered Mark through his novel The Sheltering, published by Pat Conroy'€™s Story River Books in 2014. I was working as Pat'€™s assistant at the time, and we both thought Mark'€™s manuscript was nothing short of brilliant. Moody, complicated, and deeply disturbing, it rang with the dissonant harmonies of a profound new southern voice. Except it wasn't new. The Sheltering was Mark'€™s fourth novel.

Ride Along on an Epic Quest in Teresa Bruce'€™s Memoir The Drive

Interview by Mark Shaffer
Photographs by Gary Geboy

"We will follow my father'€™s route into the Peruvian highlands, through the looking glass of the girl I once was. I am ready. I have maps. I am prepared. But it will not matter. Whatever will happen next will do so without any regard for my plan or purpose."€ - Teresa Bruce, The Drive

Tragedy is a sneak thief in the night; an unannounced, unexpected intruder who takes the thing most precious to you without reason or explanation and vanishes amid the wailing. Or so it seems.

A Conversation with Bestselling Author Patti Callahan Henry

By Margaret Evans, Editor

Patti Callahan Henry is a New York Times bestselling author of twelve novels, including the The Bookshop at Water's End, which is dedicated to Pat Conroy and will be published in July. She's been a finalist in the Townsend Prize for Fiction, an Indie Next Pick, a Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) Okra pick (a booksellers'€™ favorite), and a multiple nominee for the SIBA Novel of the Year. The mother of three children, Patti now lives in both Mountain Brook, Alabama, and Bluffton, South Carolina, with her husband. She will be the Pat Conroy Literary Center's Visiting Writers Series guest author on July 14, appearing in conversation with fellow novelist Ellen Malphrus. Patti recently joined me on the virtual porch of the Conroy Center to chat about her new novel and her writing life.