Tag Archives: civil rights

Writing For A Generation by Joel F. Johnson

Photo of drinking fountain that says Whites Only
 

We write for a target audience. Readers differ in their demographics as well as their literary tastes. When my novel, Never, was published, I began meeting with book groups, and they were all baby boomers like me. I realized I’d written a book for my own generation. Never is a coming-of-age story that takes place in the segregated south. Folks my age (I’m turning seventy) can remember Martin Luther King and the turbulent sixties. Southern readers have shared with me their memories of growing up with a Black maid, often articulating a version of the bewildered … Continue reading Writing For A Generation by Joel F. Johnson

Two Emmas by Nancy Taylor

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I didn’t know exactly where we were going as my brother took me for a ride in the countryside of my home county on a late February Saturday. He drove down a narrow paved road and stopped near an overgrowth of trees and bushes. “Do you know where we are?” Not until I heard, “This road used to be dirt” did it hit me—Emma’s. We made our way through tangles of vines and wintery twigs, only to find the four-room house completely collapsed with just an old chimney of “Pee Dee” imprinted bricks left standing. … Continue reading Two Emmas by Nancy Taylor