Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne

Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne grew up reading, writing, and shooting in East Tennessee, with two brothers and one sister, and a wide assortment of animals who ran away often. After graduating from Amherst College, she worked as an editor at The Atlantic Monthly, fact-checking stories on topics such as rocket science, the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, and autism. After The Atlantic, she worked as a journalist, writing stories about public health, patient-led disease research organizations, drug-resistant tuberculosis in South Africa, and U.S. efforts at HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention in Uganda and Kenya. Her journalism has appeared in The Atlantic, Boston Globe, Boston Magazine and Globalpost, among others. Her essay, “Killing In T

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Ciera Horton McElroy

Ciera Horton McElroy (b. 1995) was raised in Orlando, Florida. She holds a BA from Wheaton College and an MFA from the University of Central Florida. Her work has appeared in AGNI, Bridge Eight, Iron Horse Literary Review, the Crab Orchard Review, and Saw Palm, among others. She currently lives in St. Louis with her husband and son.
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Anna Quindlen

Anna Marie Quindlen is an American author, journalist, and opinion columnist.
Her New York Times column, Public and Private, won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1992. She began her journalism career in 1974 as a reporter for the New York Post. Between 1977 and 1994 she held several posts at The New York Times. Her semi-autobiographical novel One True Thing (1994) served as the basis for the 1998 film starring Meryl Streep and Renée Zellweger.

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Kaye Gibbons

Kaye Gibbons is an American novelist. Her first novel, Ellen Foster (1987), received the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, a Special Citation from the Ernest Hemingway Foundation and the Louis D. Rubin, Jr. Prize in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Gibbons is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers and two of her books, Ellen Foster and A Virtuous Woman, were selected for Oprah's Book Club in 1998.
Gibbons was born in Nash County, North Carolina, and went to Rocky Mount Senior High School. She attended North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, studying American and English literature. She has
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Dorothy Allison

Dorothy Earlene Allison was an American writer from South Carolina whose writing focused on class struggle, sexual abuse, child abuse, feminism and lesbianism. She was a self-identified lesbian femme. Allison won a number of awards for her writing, including several Lambda Literary Awards. In 2014, Allison was elected to membership in the Fellowship of Southern Writers.
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Sandra Brown

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Sandra Brown is the author of more than sixty New York Times bestsellers, including STING (2016), FRICTION (2015), MEAN STREAK (2014), DEADLINE(2013), & LOW PRESSURE (2012), LETHAL (2011).

Brown began her writing career in 1981 and since then has published over seventy novels, bringing the number of copies of her books in print worldwide to upwards of eighty million. Her work has been translated into over thirty languages.

In 2009 Brown detoured from romantic suspense to write, Rainwater, a much acclaimed, powerfully moving historical fiction story about honor and sacrifice during the Great Depression.

Brown was given
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Kent Haruf

Kent Haruf was born in eastern Colorado. He received his Bachelors of Arts in literature from Nebraska Wesleyan University in 1965 and his Masters of Fine Arts from the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1973. For two years, he taught English in Turkey with the Peace Corps and his other jobs have included a chicken farm in Colorado, a construction site in Wyoming, a rehabilitation hospital in Colorado, a hospital in Arizona, a library in Iowa, an alternative high school in Wisconsin, and universities in Nebraska and Illinois.

Haruf is the author of Plainsong, which received the Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Maria Thomas Award in Fiction, and The New Yorker Book Award. Plainsong
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Eileen Goudge

I began writing at the age of eight and wrote my way through the lean years before I found success as New York Times' bestselling author with my first novel GARDEN OF LIES. To date I have published 19 novels and a cookbook. Every life experience I've weathered has found its way into my novels in one form or another: bad exes, births, deaths, divorces, romances, and even true crime. My heroines are like me: tough cookies who don't crumble.

My latest novel, Book One of my Gold Creek series, ALL THEY NEED TO KNOW, is the story of a woman fleeing her abusive ex who finds refuge in a small California mountain town, where she's befriended by a group of women who call themselves The Tattooed Ladies and reinvents herself as a police sketch artist.
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Clyde Edgerton

Clyde Edgerton is widely considered one of the premier novelists working in the Southern tradition today, often compared with such masters as Eudora Welty and Flannery O'Connor.

Although most of his books deal with adult concerns--marriage, aging, birth and death--Edgerton's work is most profoundly about family. In books such as Raney, Walking Across Egypt, The Floatplane Notebooks, and Killer Diller, Edgerton explores the dimensions of family life, using an endearing (if eccentric) cast of characters. "Edgerton's characters," writes Mary Lystad in Twentieth-Century Young Adult Writers, "have more faults than most, but they also have considerable virtues, and they are so likable that you want to invite them over for a cup of coffee, a piece
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Charles Martin

Charles Martin is a New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author. He and his wife, Christy, live in Jacksonville, FL. Learn more at charlesmartinbooks.com; Instagram: @storiedcareer; X: @storiedcareer; Facebook: @Author.Charles.Martin
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Lee Smith

Growing up in the Appalachian mountains of southwestern Virginia, nine-year-old Lee Smith was already writing--and selling, for a nickel apiece--stories about her neighbors in the coal boomtown of Grundy and the nearby isolated "hollers." Since 1968, she has published eleven novels, as well as three collections of short stories, and has received many writing awards.

The sense of place infusing her novels reveals her insight into and empathy for the people and culture of Appalachia. Lee Smith was born in 1944 in Grundy, Virginia, a small coal-mining town in the Blue Ridge Mountains, not 10 miles from the Kentucky border. The Smith home sat on Main Street, and the Levisa River ran just behind it. Her mother, Virginia, was a college graduate wh
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Monica Wood

Monica Wood is the author of four works of fiction, most recently The One-in-a-Million-Boy, which won a 2017 Nautilus Award (Gold) and the 2017 fiction prize from the New England Society in the City of New York. She also is the author of Any Bitter Thing which spent 21 weeks on the American Booksellers Association extended bestseller list and was named a Book Sense Top Ten pick. Her other fiction includes Ernie’s Ark and My Only Story, a finalist for the Kate Chopin Award.

Monica is also the author of When We Were the Kennedys, a memoir of her growing up in Mexico, Maine. The book won the Maine Literary Award for Memoir in 2013, and the Sarton Women's Literary Awards for Memoir in 2012.
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Catherine Mann

USA Today bestseller Catherine Mann has written women's fiction, romance, and romantic suspense for Lake Union, Harlequin, HQN, Berkley, Tule, and Sourcebooks, with titles released in more than 30 countries. Catherine’s novels have won numerous awards, including a RITA Award, the Romantic Times Magazine Reviewer’s Choice Award, and the Bookseller’s Best Award.

A South Carolinian at heart, after years of moving around the country Catherine has settled back in her home state with her Harley-riding husband. Empty nesters, they have a blended family of nine children, nine grandchildren, two dogs, and three feral cats, who all provide endless inspiration for new novels. For more information, visit: http://catherinemann.com
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Holly Kennedy

Under "recent updates" below I've listed some of my favorite books and gave them each 5 bright stars because I admired them so much.
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Nicola Kraus

Kraus graduated from New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study. She met Emma McLaughlin while both were attending New York University, and working as nannies. She lived as a child at 1000 Park Avenue, whose residents she claims inspired some of the characters in her fiction.
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Julia Heaberlin

Julia Heaberlin is the internationally bestselling writer of six thrillers, including WE ARE ALL THE SAME IN THE DARK, a #1 Audible bestseller and the winner of Best Novel by the Writers’ League of Texas. In her latest thriller, NIGHT WILL FIND YOU, an astrophysicist and reluctant psychic explores the controversial, conspiracy-laden case of a lost girl. Heaberlin first broke out with the psychologically dark BLACK-EYED SUSANS, which examines the Texas death penalty and the use of high-tech DNA to identify old bones. SUSANS was published in more than fifteen countries and a top five Times of London bestseller. Heaberlin followed that with the creepy Texas road trip, PAPER GHOSTS, a finalist for Best Hardcover Novel by the International Thril
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Ellen Marie Wiseman

Ellen Marie Wiseman is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author known for writing novels based on real historical injustices, including THE LIES THEY TOLD, THE ORPHAN COLLECTOR, WHAT SHE LEFT BEHIND, THE PLUM TREE , COAL RIVER, THE LIFE SHE WAS GIVEN, and THE LOST GIRLS OF WILLOWBROOK, which was an Indie Next selection, an Amazon Editor's Pick and the B&N “Our Monthly Pick.” Born and raised in Three Mile Bay, a tiny hamlet in northern New York, Ellen is a first-generation German American who discovered her love of reading and writing while attending first grade in one of the last one-room schoolhouses in New York State. Since then, her novels have been published worldwide, translated into more than twenty languages, and sold nearly
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Sarah Loudin Thomas

Sarah Loudin Thomas grew up on a 100-acre farm in French Creek, WV, the seventh generation to live there. Her historical fiction is often set in West Virginia and celebrates the people, the land, and the heritage of Appalachia.

Sarah is the director of Jan Karon’s Mitford Museum in Hudson, NC. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Coastal Carolina University and is the author of the acclaimed novels The Right Kind of Fool–winner of the 2021 Selah Book of the Year–and Miracle in a Dry Season–winner of the 2015 Inspy Award. Sarah has also been a finalist for the Christy Award, ACFW Carol Award and the Christian Book of the Year Award. She and her husband live in western North Carolina.
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Brooke Harris

Also writes as Laura Anthony - The Women on Platform Two out now!!
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Heather Frese

Heather Frese’s fiction, essays, and poetry have appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, the Los Angeles Review, Front Porch, the Barely South Review, Switchback, and elsewhere, earning notable mention in the Pushcart Prize Anthology and Best American Essays. She received her master’s degree from Ohio University and her M.F.A. from West Virginia University. Coastal North Carolina is her longtime love and source of inspiration, her writing deeply influenced by the wild magic and history of the Outer Banks. She currently writes, edits, and wrangles three small children in Raleigh, North Carolina.
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Greer Macallister

This author is also published under the pen name G.R. Macallister.

Raised in the Midwest, Greer Macallister earned her MFA in creative writing from American University. Her historical novels have been named Indie Next picks, Target Book Club and Book of the Month selections, and optioned for film and TV. Her new novel The Thirteenth Husband is inspired by Aimée Crocker, the most scandalous tattoo-sporting heiress of the Gilded Age. A regular contributor to Writer Unboxed and the Chicago Review of Books, she lives with her family in Boston.
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Meagan Church

Meagan Church is the author of emotionally-charged, empathy-inducing novels, including The Mad Wife, The Last Carolina Girl, and The Girls We Sent Away, a Southern indie bestseller and North Carolina Reads state-wide book club pick for 2025. After receiving a B.A. in English from Indiana University, Meagan built a career as a freelance writer. She is an adjunct for Drexel University’s MFA in creative writing program, and helps authors tell their own stories through editing, coaching, and workshops. A Midwesterner by birth, she now lives in North Carolina with her high school sweetheart, three children, and a plethora of pets.
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Michelle Shocklee

Michelle Shocklee is the author of several historical novels, including ALL WE THOUGHT WE KNEW, a 2025 Christy Award Finalist; APPALACHIAN SONG, a 2024 Christy Award Finalist; COUNT THE NIGHTS BY STARS, winner of the 2023 Christianity Today Book Award in Fiction; and UNDER THE TULIP TREE, a Christy Award & Selah Award finalist.

As a woman of mixed heritage--her father's family is Hispanic and her mother's roots go back to Germany--she has always celebrated diversity and feels it's important to see the world through the eyes of one another. Learning from the past and changing the future is why she writes historical fiction.

With both her sons grown and happily married, Michelle and her husband make their home in Tennessee.

Click the "Influen
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Cara Wall

Cara Wall is a graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and Stanford University. While at Iowa, Wall taught fiction writing in the undergraduate creative writing department as well as at the Iowa Young Writer’s Studio in her capacity of founder and inaugural director. She went on to teach middle school English and history and has been published by Glamour, Salon, and the San Francisco Chronicle. She lives in New York City with her family.
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Shauna Robinson

Shauna Robinson writes contemporary fiction with humor and heart. Originally from San Diego, she now lives in Virginia with her husband and their sleepy greyhound. Shauna is an introvert at heart—she spends most of her time reading, baking, and figuring out the politest way to avoid social interaction.
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Ciera Horton McElroy

Ciera Horton McElroy (b. 1995) was raised in Orlando, Florida. She holds a BA from Wheaton College and an MFA from the University of Central Florida. Her work has appeared in AGNI, Bridge Eight, Iron Horse Literary Review, the Crab Orchard Review, and Saw Palm, among others. She currently lives in St. Louis with her husband and son.
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Caroline Cleveland

Caroline Cleveland is the founding partner of the law firm Cleveland & Conley, LLC, where she represents private and public employers, including law enforcement. A native South Carolinian, she inevitably writes from a Southern perspective. She gravitates -- both as a writer and a reader -- toward mystery and suspense, and she cannot resist a character with a dark secret.

She lives in Charleston, South Carolina with her husband, David.
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Leanne Morgan

Leanne Morgan is a comedian, actress, writer, producer, wife, mother, and grandmama. Her first Netflix special, I’m Every Woman, was one of the most-watched specials on Netflix in 2023. Leanne has been named to the Forbes 50 Over 50 list and Variety’s 10 Comics to Watch list. When she’s not on the road, Leanne loves to be at home in Knoxville, Tennessee, with her husband, three children, two grandbabies, and beagle.
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