Porchlight: A Journal of Southern Literature

Volume 1, Edition 6 Porchlight is proud to publish the winner and runners-up in the 2025 William Gay Memorial Prize in Short Story: DANIEL REISS is the winner for his short story, "The Princess Motel." He received $500 and a trophy.  Runners-up: KEN TEUTSCH for "Marylou Birdwell&

Porchlight is proud to announce that DANIEL REISS is the winner of the inaugural  William Gay Memorial Prize for his short story, "The Princess Motel." As winner, Daniel will receive $500 and a trophy. His story, and well as the three runner-up entries, will be published in Porchlight

Volume 1, Edition 5  Poetry by Amy Le Ann Richardson, John Davis Jr., Jonathan Fletcher, and Scott T. Hutchison. Fiction by Bethany Bruno, Eldridge Thomas III, Hayden Crawford, Heather Bell Adams, Paul Bowers, and T.A. Walker. Craft essay by Zyen Mingo-Smoot. Volume 1, Edition 4  Fiction:  Brian Longacre, "

Zyen Mingo-Smoot is an African-American and Afro-Indigenous poet from Varnado, Louisiana. Her primary themes are tackled through the contemporary southern gothic where she gathers the 20th century genre to examine modern-day socialization, landscape, and culture of the Deep South.   Craft: Language into Language Demographics Language into language: when the language

Michael Farris Smith is an award-winning writer whose novels have appeared on Best of the Year lists with Esquire, NPR, Southern Living, Garden & Gun, Oprah Magazine, Book Riot, and numerous other outlets, and have been named Indie Next, Barnes & Noble Discover, and Amazon Best of the Month selections.

Interviewed by WES HUTCHESON for Porchlight   I first met David Joy at the Tremont Writers’ Conference, where his honesty about writing—and about life in general—stood out right away. He spoke about craft with a kind of grounded wisdom that made everyone in the room sit up and listen.

One of the biggest pitfalls for writers is dialogue. Dialogue should be a busy tool in fiction. The legendary crime writer Elmore Leonard famously said his most important rule for writing was that if it sounded like writing, he rewrote it. Leonard, who is considered one of the greatest writers

Bookstores tell their own stories—especially the independents that pepper the Southern landscape and become special, almost revered safe havens for lovers of the written word. Can you imagine a world without them? In a time when some of the greatest literary works are under attack, being pulled from library

Maybe it’s become a familiar story—book lovers open a bookstore—but Landmark Booksellers in Franklin is an exceptional difference, and their name suggests why. With twenty years of experience behind them now, Carol and Joel Tomlin have built another landmark in Middle Tennessee, a place that serves as

Porchlight is pleased to feature George Singleton in our Author Spotlight segment, and to publish a new story of his, “Why I Quit Caring,” for subscribers. We asked George if he would take time to answer a few questions about himself and his craft, and his response was a quick

We all need to create John Gardner’s vivid and continuous dream. We need characters that have their own voice and walk their own way and drink their own drinks. We need setting and scene and plot and tension and all those other things you’ll find in any book

At the heart of great literary fiction lies the ability to immerse a reader fully—transporting them beyond the page and into a world that feels lived-in, tactile, and true. This magic often stems from one of the most overlooked tools in a writer’s kit: sensory detail. The best

David Joy At Porchlight, we’re thrilled to shine our porch light on David Joy, a masterful voice in contemporary Southern and Appalachian fiction whose work grips the heart and doesn’t let go. Roots in the Mountain South A 12th-generation North Carolinian, Joy grew up along the Catawba River