MarkChildress, My Latest Literary Crush

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I can’t help it, I get crushes.  Gender doesn’t matter. I swooned over Dorothy Allison just as I did Stephen Chbosky and Jane Smiley and David Brin and T. Jefferson Parker and Catherine Ryan Hyde and now it’s Mark Childress’s turn to be on the receiving end of my admiration; an author who writes stories about people that matter to me. Honor and fair play and figuring out how to even the odds when the play isn’t fair; these are the kinds of tales that linger long after I read The End.

Mark Childress is an American literary treasure and why very few writers should call their prose ‘humorous or funny’ until you read his. Mr. Childress writes ‘serious’ funny and does so seamlessly. At SBWC2014, I had the pleasure of chatting with him as he signed Crazy In Alabama and Georgia Bottoms. Of course, I asked him to guest on Literary Salon: Learning ProsefromPros and will keep my fingers crossed that when I remind him via p.m. about our chat, he’ll  remember me swooning. A truly lovely human being, that Mark Childress is.

Watch this video snippet from #SBWC2014 and tell me you’re not swooning, too.