read - Porchlight: A Journal of Southern Literature

Porchlight: A Journal of Southern Literature

Sign in Subscribe

read

A collection of 88 posts

Fiction by Chaz Lilly

Fiction by Chaz Lilly

Chaz Lilly is a writer who has rambled from Georgia to Texas, down through the Louisiana Delta, and up into the mountains of Western North Carolina. He is currently pursuing an MFA at the University of Arkansas. His work has appeared in The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, The

Poetry by Micah Wingard

Poetry by Micah Wingard

Micah Wingard is a South Carolina-based emerging writer with a BA in English and an MA in Communication. She works in an academic library, where she spends her days in close proximity to scholarship, curiosity, and the many ways people search for and shape meaning through research. Outside of writing

Fiction by Steve Wick

Fiction by Steve Wick

Porchlight is proud to continue the American tradition of serialization by offering a novella, Mr. Wilson by Steve Wick, in monthly installments, beginning with this edition. Steve Wick is a journalist and writer living on eastern Long Island. His stories about the last farm labor camp in the region ran

Fiction by Sheldon Lee Compton

Fiction by Sheldon Lee Compton

Sheldon Lee Compton is the author of twelve books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. His novel, Oblivion Angels, is currently nominated for the Chaffin Award for Fiction, and the Independent Fiction Alliance named his novel, Alice, a best book of the year. His work has also been published in Best

Poetry by Sarah Small

Poetry by Sarah Small

Sarah Cummins Small, originally from the Finger Lakes region of New York, lives in Alcoa, Tennessee, at the foothills of the Smoky Mountains. Her poetry has appeared in Salvation South, Appalachia Bare, Cider Press Review, Smokies Life Journal, and Willawaw Journal, among others, as well as in the anthologies Breathing

Fiction by Richard Alley

Fiction by Richard Alley

Richard J. Alley is the author of novels Five Night Stand (2015) and Amelia Thorn (2020), and a contributing author of the anthology Memphis Noir (2015). His work has appeared in Oxford American, Memphis magazine, and a number of other periodicals. A speechwriter and editor, he lives in Memphis. Freight

Poetry by Josey Wallace

Poetry by Josey Wallace

Josey Wallace is a student, stagehand, writer, and musician who lives in Winterville, Georgia and attends the University of Georgia. Her poetry uses form to explore the world of things and the process of thought in an effort to make "the report that only the poets can make"

Fiction by Jack Wills

Fiction by Jack Wills

Jack Wills is a physician living in LA. He’s a lifelong fan of the literature of the American South and is currently working on completion of a collection of short stories. “Blind Willie” is his debut literary publication. His free time is spent reading, exercising, enjoying jazz of the

Prose by Sheema Holmes

Prose by Sheema Holmes

Sheema Holmes tells speculative stories, always questioning whether the present truly exists and to what extent it can be trusted. She often draws inspiration from Black Americana and her ties to the Chesapeake Bay region. Sheema is currently pursuing an MFA in creative writing from American University. Sway Sweetbay House

Poetry by Ian Hall

Poetry by Ian Hall

Porchlight congratulates Ian Hall on the publication of his first book, Creekwater Mansions, just released by EastOver Press, and is proud to publish here three poems from that collection. Ron Rash, author of Serena and The Risen, and a Porchlight contributor, said, "The poems in Creekwater Mansions are big-hearted

Poetry by Dana Wildsmith

Poetry by Dana Wildsmith

Dana Wildsmith is the author of six books of poetry, with a new collection, Good Ghosts, forthcoming in 2026. Wildsmith’s novel, Jumping, examines border issues through the lives of characters based on her interviews with immigrants who entered the U.S. without documentation. Her environmental memoir, Back to Abnormal,

Fiction by Eldridge Thomas & Chester Needham

Fiction by Eldridge Thomas & Chester Needham

Eldridge Thomas III lives and writes in Knoxville, Tennessee, but he’s from a swamp in Deep South Georgia. He can be reached at eldridgethomas3@gmail.com. A Minnesota native, Chester Needham fiddles strings and carves words in East Tennessee when he’s not chasing waterfalls or music. Peacock Street

Poetry by Steve Lambert

Poetry by Steve Lambert

Steve Lambert was born in Louisiana and grew up in Florida. His writing has appeared in Saw Palm, Tampa Review, Trampoline Poetry, Louisiana Literature, New World Writing, The Pinch, Broad River Review, Cortland Review, and many other places. In 2018 he won Emrys Journal’s Nancy Dew Taylor Poetry Prize

Poetry by Sara Shea

Poetry by Sara Shea

Sara Shea received her BA from Kenyon College, where she served as Student Associate Editor for The Kenyon Review. She's pursued graduate studies through the Great Smokies Writing Program at UNC Asheville and at Western Carolina University, where she studied with Ron Rash. Her work has appeared in

Fiction by Michael Loyd Gray

Fiction by Michael Loyd Gray

Michael Loyd Gray is the author of eight published books of fiction and more than sixty published short stories. His novella, Busted Flat, winner of a Literary Titan Gold Award and finalist for an Eric Hoffer Award, was released in October 2024. Gray's novella, Donovan’s Revolution, winner

Poetry by Kyle McNally

Poetry by Kyle McNally

Kyle McNally is a writer of historical fiction and poetry. His work explores folklore, tribalism, and violence in post–Civil War America. I: The Gum Patch The gum patch was where they worked. Turpentine was their trade, The gum that’s boiled down for ships. That was Escambia’s tribute

Poetry by KB Ballentine

Poetry by KB Ballentine

KB Ballentine, winner of Poetry Society of Tennessee’s 2025 Best of the Fest and Writer’s Digest November 2024 PAD Chapbook Challenge, has nine collections of poetry, the most recent All the Way Through (Shelia-Na-Gig 2024). Her work also appears in numerous anthologies including: Women Speak: Volume Ten, Writing

Poetry by H.M. Cotton

Poetry by H.M. Cotton

H.M. COTTON is the managing editor of Birmingham Poetry Review, contributing editor for NELLE, and production manager for both journals. Her writing appears in places such as Greensboro Review, storySouth, and Terrain.org. She teaches at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and is a student at Warren Wilson’

Essay by David Wesley Williams

Essay by David Wesley Williams

David Wesley Williams is the author of the novels The Coldwater Girl (forthcoming 2027, Regal House Publishing), Come Again No More (2025) and Everybody Knows (2023), both from JackLeg Press, and Long Gone Daddies (John F. Blair, 2013). His short fiction has appeared in Oxford American, The Common, and elsewhere.

Poetry by Daniel Thompson

Poetry by Daniel Thompson

Daniel Thompson is a poet born in the Black Forest of southern Germany who has lived in New Orleans since childhood. His work has appeared or will be appearing in Chiron Review, Sojourners Magazine, New Square, Metachrosis Literary Magazine, and the Catholic Poetry Room, among others. Gulf Shores Genie from

Fiction by Porter Yelton

Fiction by Porter Yelton

Porter Yelton calls Chicago, Shanghai, and North Carolina home. He is a graduate of New York University and an MFA Candidate at The Ohio State University. He writes about fractured familial relationships, LGBTQ+ communities in the rural American South, and addiction. His fiction can be found in Driftwood and Apricity.

An Essay by Korina Roberts

An Essay by Korina Roberts

Korina Cole Roberts is a writer, mother, and community advocate. She earned an MA in Creative Nonfiction Writing from the University of Nebraska, Omaha, where she was awarded the John J. McKenna Graduate Fellowship in 2024. Holding deep Southern roots and now enjoying life in the Midwest, she explores themes

Fiction by Cary Holladay

Fiction by Cary Holladay

Cary Holladay lives on a farm in Virginia and teaches in Converse University's MFA program. Her awards include an O. Henry Prize and an NEA fellowship. Mrs. LeFever Two weeks into my first year of college, I became obsessed with pulses. I would swoop into a room and

Fiction by Adam Coulter

Fiction by Adam Coulter

Adam Coulter works in agriculture and is an avid reader of Southern literature. He lives in North Carolina where he enjoys traveling the mountains, photographing the disappearing Americana of back country roads. His fiction has appeared in New Plains Review, Black Fox Literary Journal, The Main Street Rag and County

Poetry by Holly Hunt

Poetry by Holly Hunt

Holly Hunt, essayist and poet, is from the Ouachita Mountains in Arkansas. Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Southern Review, Ploughshares, Shenandoah, Prairie Schooner, The Kansas City Star and Arkansas Democrat newspapers, and other journals. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Arkansas. She lives