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FALL 2026

VOL 4 / ISSUE 4

A GEORGIA WRITERS MUSEUM

ATLANTA WRITERS CLUB MAGAZINE

JoAllen JoAllen Bradham Bradham 1996 1996 TOWNSEND TOWNSEND PRIZE PRIZEWINNER WINNER

YOUR YOURSECRET SECRET POWER POWER

WHY WHYIIWRITE WRITE

Frances Frances Mayes Mayes PROFILE PROFILE OF OF AA GEORGIA GEORGIA WRITER WRITER

Erskine Erskine Caldwell Caldwell

SOUL MATES

THE THE PARTNERS PARTNERS BEHIND BEHIND GEORGIA’S GEORGIA’S MOST MOST FAMOUS FAMOUS WRITERS WRITERS

EDITOR’S NOTE

Page Turner is a magazine for Georgia’s readers and writers and any Georgiaphiles who enjoy learning about our state’s literary offerings, heritage, and events.

Editor’s Note Each quarter, a team of experienced, award-winning writers will bring you suggested readings from the Reader’s Corner, tips and helpful advice from the Writer’s Corner and Writer’s Toolbox, and a feature on notable Georgia writers. For children, their educators and guardians, and anyone working on children’s books, we will feature four Children’s Books each quarter with suggested activities in Children’s Corner. Spotlight on Book Clubs will share book club stories from across our state, and maybe inspire you to start one! These articles will be staples of each issue, but others will pop up from time to time, so don’t miss out each quarter.

Georgia Writers Museum celebrates the state’s rich literary history, promotes its contemporary writers, educates readers and writers of all ages, and connects people to the literary arts of Georgia. Atlanta Writers Club teaches the craft and business of writing, supports the local literary community, and encourages more reading by the public.

Melissa Swindell Executive Director

Georgia Writers Museum georgiawritersmuseum.org info@georgiawritersmuseum.org 706.991.5119

Page Turner Magazine

FALL 2026 | ISSUE 4

Brought to you by:

EDITOR’S NOTE

Meet the Team! Chip Bell Managing Editor, Page Turner Author & Keynote Speaker

Chip is a renowned keynote speaker and author of several bestselling, awardwinning books. He has appeared live on CNBC, Fox Business, and CNN, and his work has been featured in Fortune, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, USA Today, Entrepreneur, Inc. Magazine, and Harvard Business Review.

George Weinstein Writer, Page Turner Executive Director, Atlanta Writers Club George is an award-winning author, two-time President of Atlanta Writers Club, and since 2008, he has directed the twice-yearly Atlanta Writers Conference, bringing in acquisitions editors and literary agents to help AWC members understand the business of writing and achieve their dreams of publication.

Kim Conrey Writer, Page Turner Kim is the author of the sci-fi romance series, Ares Ascending, and the urban fantasy, Nicholas Eternal. She was the 2023 Georgia Author of the Year for Romance.

Betty Liedtke Writer and Copy Editor, Page Turner Former Columnist, Chanhassen (MN) Villager Award-winning columnist Betty Liedtke currently serves as Secretary of Georgia Writers Museum, and is a 20-year veteran of Toastmasters International and an active member of Pathways to Hope—Africa and the Greensboro Writers Guild.

Jim Auchmutey Writer, Page Turner Former Reporter, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Jim spent almost 30 years as a writer and editor for the AJC, specializing in stories about the South and its history and culture. He was twice named the Cox Newspapers chain’s Writer of the Year, and was honored by the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards and the Associated Press.

Roger Johns Writer, Page Turner Roger is a former corporate lawyer, retired college professor, the author of the Wallace Hartman Mysteries, and the 2018 Georgia Author of the Year for Mystery/Detective.

EDITOR’S NOTE

Page Turner is a magazine for Georgia’s readers and writers and any Georgiaphiles who enjoy learning about our state’s literary offerings, heritage, and events.

Join the Fun! Chip and I invite you to: Share your feedback. Do you love Page Turner? Let us know! Tell us what you want to see in upcoming issues. Sponsor a low-cost ad for your book talk, writing workshop, festival, or bookstore. Write with us! Submit an application to join our all-volunteer writing team. Spotlight a Book Club. Are you in a book club, or do you know one

Melissa Swindell

Editor-in-Chief

Chip Bell

Managing Editor

Page Turner Magazine

SPRING 2026 | ISSUE 2

that should be featured? Send it in!

“There was no museum like this one, dedicated to Georgia writers, in which to feel at home. Now there is one!” Alice Walker and Valerie Boyd at AW 75 Birthday Celebration Hosted by Georgia Writers Museum

109 S. Jefferson Ave. Eatonton, GA 31024 706.991.5119 georgiawritersmuseum.org Wednesday - Saturday 10am - 3pm Donations Appreciated

Page Turner

CONTENTS 25 Profile of a Georgia Writer Erskine Caldwell

31 1996 Townsend Prize Winner JoAllen Bradham

50 AWC & GWM Fall Events

8 Writer’s Corner Your Secret Power 10 Writer’s Toolbox “Why I Write” by Frances Mayes Distinguished Georgia Writers’ Birthdays Igniting Imagination by Sanjena Sathian 16 If You Only Have an Hour A Good Partnership 17 Business of Authoring With a Little Help from Your Friends 22 Words Into Wealth Book Editing by Barbie Halaby 24 SPOTLIGHT: Georgia Book Club Pints & Pages Book Club 35 Reader’s Corner The Undercover Bookshop Enjoying Couples’ Dynamics in Fiction What Fictional Couples Teach Us about Real Relationships

SOUL MATES:

The Partners Behind Georgia’s Most Famous Writers

40 Profile of a New Georgia Writer Ron Balthazor 42 SPOTLIGHT: The Underground Bookshop The Place for a Charming Escape 43 Children’s Corner 48 From the Margins

WRITER’S CORNER

TIPS FOR BUILDING A DREAM TEAM

START YOUR DREAM TEAM LIST BY PUTTING YOUR GOAL IN WRITING: Do you want to complete a manuscript or publish your first novel? Enter and win a writing contest or award? Find a “day job” where you can use your writing skills?

MAKE A LIST OF PEOPLE AND RESOURCES THAT COULD HELP YOU ACHIEVE YOUR GOAL. Don’t limit yourself! If you could ask anyone in the world for help in any area, who would you choose, and why? Who else may be able to offer that same skill or support? Add them to your list, and be sure to include people who may provide nothing more than moral support and encouragement.

ASK FOR HELP Be specific in what you’re asking, and be considerate and appreciative of other people’s time and capabilities.

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YOUR SECRET POWER by Betty Liedtke

I just finished reading The Secret Life of Sunflowers, a historical novel about Vincent van Gogh’s sister-in-law, who championed his work when everyone in the art world considered him to be a no-talent artist, and his paintings to be worthless. Time and again, gallery owners, agents, other artists, friends, and family members told her to stop wasting her time, and to just burn the Van Gogh paintings she had inherited. But she never gave up, and when one gallery owner finally took a chance on exhibiting van Gogh’s work, critics and art patrons began to see and acknowledge his brilliance. Can you imagine not having van Gogh’s paintings in the world? Or never having heard of him because his name, along with his art, simply disappeared into history?

WRITER’S CORNER

In art and in life, success comes not only from a person’s own talent and efforts, but from the behind-the-scenes work and encouragement of others. This is certainly true in writing. Look in the “Acknowledgments” of any book, including bestselling novels, and you’ll see a long list of people who contributed to the success of the book, from publishers and editors who provided expertise, to beta readers and family members who gave suggestions and support. Whenever I’m coaching someone, especially writers, I always encourage them to put together a “Dream Team”—a list of people who can help them achieve their dreams and goals. Depending on their specific needs, this may include experts in a certain profession, teachers, mentors, peers, and co-workers, as well as research resources.

But your Dream Team should always include people who simply believe in you, and will encourage you to keep going when you feel overwhelmed, out of your league, or that you’re wasting your time. These are the people— perhaps more than any others—who will continue cheering you on until—and when—you succeed in whatever it was you set out to do.

★

Betty Liedtke is a writer, proofreader, copy editor, and the author of Find Your Buried Treasure—Nuggets Mined from Everyday Life.

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WRITER’S TOOLBOX

“Why I Write” by

Frances Mayes

If you ask yourself, why do I write, you must travel way back to find an answer. Or at least a stab at an answer, for the vocation of writer has many roots. Is there a tap root? I hid the key to my diary under my bedside lamp. I was seven when I was given a red leather blank book with my name stamped in gold and the tiny key. At night, before turning out the light, I recorded the activities of the day, the numblingly repetitive litany of school, play, family comings and goings. Not a word of feelings, nothing perceptive, painful, or thrilling. I loved the writing ritual of the secret diary. I acquired the notion that what happens should be noted—a life accounted for, even if I wouldn’t have been able to articulate that at the time. Although the diary might have been first cause, my origin as a writer is equally connected with reading. I went to the library every Saturday. What else was there to do in such a small town? With my bicycle basket filled with books, I couldn’t wait to get home and close the door of my room. The tiny librarian, who seemed to be held upright by her tight bun, was soon calling my parents to say I was reading unsuitable books. She must have been horrified that they didn’t care.

Before I was old enough to dive into the southern writers—Agee, O’Connor, Wolfe, Welty, Mitchell, Lockridge (not himself southern but author of a great Civil War novel), Yerby, Faulkner—I picked out on one of those hot Saturdays, the poems of Sidney Lanier and Steven Vincent Benét’s John Brown’s Body. I memorized long passages of “The Marshes of Glen,” and still can recite them. I didn’t know the word syntax, but I was grabbed by the odd way Lanier chose to arrange words and the odd comparison:

WRITER’S TOOLBOX

As the marsh hen secretly builds on the watery sod, Behold I will build me a nest of the greatness of God: I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies In the freedom that fills all the space ‘twixt the marsh and the skies. Exhilarating. I checked out a recording of John Brown’s Body. I P A G E T nights U R N E R with MAGAZINE vividly remember lying in bed on summer the windows open, listening to the mesmerizing cadences and imagining not the riveting scenes of people in the Civil War, but the places described.

And at little new year, the weakling one Can lie outdoors in the noonday sun Blowing the fluff from a turkey wing At skies already haunted with spring. I particularly liked “For wherever the winds of Georgia run, / It smells of peaches long in the sun.” I thrilled to the evocation of the place I knew—my first connection with the naming of that southern sense of place, which was to become a major influence on my writing, as well as the impetus to travel the world as if I were on permanent pilgrimage. It wasn’t that I learned about place from the southern writers, but they named what I already felt about the intense, violent, sweet landscape that shaped me. Poetry! I copied poems in notebooks, filled pages with words I liked and my own awkward poems for family occasions. I became a voracious reader of poetry, which led to my devotion to that austere art for many decades. In a blue spiraled Reading Log, I recorded all the novels I read and what I thought of them. Through books, I formed the idea that the best thing to do in life would be to write. (I might have thought at the time that writers were mostly dead.) There, origin story.

But why do I write? Now, and for many years, and across several genres? If, hardly out of the gate, you know that you want to write—that you are already a writer when you’ve written nothing, you have that vocation. You don’t know the source or reason. You have it as you have green eyes and square nails. A birthmark. Otherwise, who knows how someone develops a passion for the written word, when nothing in their lives predicates such inclinations. And no one ever says, Oh, go be a writer. PAGE TURNER MAGAZINE

WRITER’S TOOLBOX

My mother read fashion magazines, Book of the Month Club selections, and Reader’s Digest condensations. Deep in his armchair, my father read The Atlanta Journal, holding it outspread in front of him. How mad he got when I ran by and thumped the pages. No one ever read to me at bedtime or handed me a book and said, “Read this, you’ll like it.”

No one ever read to me at bedtime or handed me a book and said, “Read this, you’ll like it.” When I was six and my older sister came home from college, she brought news of the outside world. She was majoring in journalism. I could look at her textbooks. She told me I was “clever” and later gave me books for birthdays. Clever was a better word than “hard-headed,” which my mother called me, or “Miss Priss,” from my uncle. At eleven, I found on the shelves of a small bookcase at my grandparents’ house a volume of Thomas Wolfe. I took it home and I have it still. Gladys, a friend of Mother’s, was known to be a reader. She began to hand me books to borrow. That’s it. I liked the tactile joys—the book’s spine, the paper, the print, the ink bottle, the pink eraser, the organizing Dewey decimals, even the rubber date stamp on the check-out flap. Loving the poem that has hovered on the page and suddenly lifts off at the end. Loving the story, the news of those mysterious others and what they’re up to. Wanting to know the why, why, why the cold spring bubbles out of the ground, the universe bends, the biscuits rise, the plane stays in the air. PAGE TURNER MAGAZINE

Each week when I was nine or so, I chose one of the Twin series—The Mexican Twins, The Swedish Twins, The Spanish Twins—the first news of other worlds out there beyond the confines of the one-mile-square town that I knew every inch of. The worn orange books brought the news to the Carnegie Library in Fitzgerald. Mysteries unwrapped on papers printed with the hieroglyphics of my own language. The desire to write? Maybe it’s simple: Devour the world. Imagine and shape. Recreate in words. Share what you write.

Frances Mayes is best known for her 1996 memoir, Under the Tuscan Sun, which was on the New York Times Best Seller list for over two years and was the basis for the film by the same name. Inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame in 2023, her books have been published in over fifty languages, and many have been international bestsellers. She is currently writing a book about the pilgrimage of writing and pilgrimages across real borders. A dual citizen, she lives in Cortona, Tuscany, and in North Carolina.

WRITER’S TOOLBOX

DISTINGUISHED GEORGIA WRITERS’ BIRTHDAYS Valerie Boyd Dec 11, 1963 Author of... Wrapped in Rainbows

THE LIFE OF ZORA NEALE HURSTON

Gathering Blossoms Under Fire THE JOURNALS OF ALICE WALKER

Atlanta native Valerie Boyd (1963–2022) was a writer, teacher, editor, and acclaimed biographer of Zora Neale Hurston. A valedictorian of C.L. Harper High School, she earned a journalism degree from Northwestern University in 1985 and began her career at the Atlanta JournalConstitution, where she became Arts Editor. Boyd founded EightRock, a journal of Black arts and culture, and HealthQuest, the first nationally distributed magazine focused on Black health. She earned an MFA in creative nonfiction from Goucher College in 1999 and later created and directed the MFA Narrative Nonfiction program at the University of Georgia. Her 2003 biography, Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston, won the Southern Book Award for best nonfiction and the Georgia Author of the Year Award. Boyd also served as senior editor for the Bitter Southerner, on the board of the Southern Foodways Alliance, and as editor-at-large for the University of Georgia Press. She received the Governor’s Award for the Arts and Humanities in 2017 and continued to champion Hurston’s legacy throughout her career. Boyd died in 2022 at age 58; her final books, Gathering Blossoms Under Fire: The Journals of Alice Walker and Bigger Than Bravery: Black Writers on the Pandemic, Shutdown, and Uprising of 2020, were published posthumously. PAGE TURNER MAGAZINE

ALSO BORN ON THIS DAY... Oct 1 Daniel Boorstin (1914) The Americans; The Creators; The Discoveries Oct 5 Vereen Bell (1911) Swamp Water; The Renegade Queen Oct 26 Pat Conroy (1945) The Great Santini; The Lords of Discipline; The Water is Wide Nov 8 Margaret Mitchell (1900) Gone with the Wind Nov 13 Frank Manley (1930) The Cockfighter; Among Prisoners Nov 18 Johnny Mercer (1909) Lyrics for “Moon River” and “Autumn Leaves” Dec 7 Pearl Cleage (1948) What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day Dec 31 Clarence Major (1936) Configurations; My Mother and Mitch; My Amputations

WRITER’S TOOLBOX

IGNITING IMAGINATION: PEP TALKS FOR WRITERS Last spring, as I prepared to teach a creative writing class, I had a major concern on my mind: general artificial intelligence, and how it would affect my students’ imaginations. All of us today—young and old; Gen Alpha and baby boomer alike—have incredible, tempting power in our pockets at all times. We can ask a highly “intelligent” machine for help with everything from summarizing meeting notes to undertaking research for a crime novel. We can even ask a machine to write for us. It can produce competent prose, good enough to trick many humans.

SANJENA SATHIAN

Uncle Remus Museum 214 Oak St. Eatonton, GA 31024 Monday - Saturday 10am - 4pm Closed on Sunday (706) 485-6856

But an AI cannot imagine. Large language models are predictive; they generate sentences that are definitionally the average of what the world at large has already produced. They are unoriginal. This is why you—with your human imagination—are so crucial in our age of diminished humanity. So, as you write, think often about your own humanity, and about others’. Write by hand, staying close to the physical experience of creation. Take a notebook into the world and stare at a stranger and wonder what it feels like to be them. Hold a physical photograph and think about a relative or a childhood friend with whom you’ve lost touch, and wonder what it would be like to encounter them once more. As Kazuo Ishiguro tells us, “Stories are about one person saying to another: This is the way it feels to me. Can you understand what I’m saying? Does it also feel this way to you?” Ask these questions as you write. They are more important now than ever before. Sanjena Sathian is the author of the novels Goddess Complex and Gold Diggers, the latter of which won the 2023 Townsend Prize for Fiction. She is the founder of the Banyan Writers’ Workshop, which offers online MFA-style prose writing courses to creative writers of all levels.

IF YOU ONLY HAVE AN HOUR

A Good Partnership by Kim Conrey & Roger Johns

In the spirit of the fall issue theme of partnerships, Roger and I would like to share with you some ways you can partner with other authors to further your mutual goal of reaching more readers and selling more books. One great way to do this is through newsletter swaps. This is when you partner with another author in the same or similar genre and recommend each other’s books in your newsletter. You’ll need the book cover, a link where potential customers can find the book, and a short blurb telling them about this wonderful new read! There are other things you can do for each other as well, like writing forewords, blurbs, or anthologies together to help introduce your fans to other authors in your genre. These partnerships can take us much further than we’d get on our own.

Greeting potential buyers with something like: “Welcome to

(bookstore).

I write (type of book), and my fellow author(s) write(s) (type of book) and we would love to tell you about our books.” This lets customers decide and preserves valuable camaraderie. Have fun and work together to ensure lasting and profitable partnerships for all. PAGE TURNER MAGAZINE

An in-store multi-author signing is another excellent partnering strategy. Some bookstores favor these because they get the benefit of multiple authors while having to do only one promo and one set-up. Bookstores sometimes propose these events on their own initiative, but some are receptive to author proposals. If you approach them with a proposal, be prepared with the information they’ll need about you and the other authors you want to include. Also, because few customers will buy from every author, a sense of sales competitiveness can develop between authors. So, sales tactics that undercut the possibilities for fellow authors can be off-putting to customers, staff, and other authors. Kim Conrey is the author of the sci-fi romance series, Ares Ascending, and the urban fantasy, Nicholas Eternal. She was the 2023 Georgia Author of the Year for Romance. Roger Johns is a former corporate lawyer, retired college professor, the author of the Wallace Hartman Mysteries, and the 2018 Georgia Author of the Year for Mystery / Detective.

BUSINESS OF AUTHORING

With a Little Help from Your Friends Writing is a solo experience—just you and the pen or keyboard. But book promotion is a collaborative effort. You can write it alone; you cannot sell it alone—at least, not very well. And an important set of writing friends includes editors, agents, and endorsers. In our next issue, we will examine publicists and reviewers. EDITORS Editors are generally involved after the first draft of your book has been completed. While it is not helpful to bias an editor as he or she prepares to focus on your book, it is helpful to be crystal clear on your expectations. Communicate your goals for the book and your hopes regarding how it will impact or influence your target audience. Let your editor know the unique writing style you want the book to reflect. The more detail you can provide about the spirit and tone of your book, the better the editor will be at retaining “your voice.” AGENTS Book or literary agents are essentially book brokers. They are to a book what a realtor is to a house. Find a book you like in your genre, call the author, and interview them about their agent. There are many book agents listed on QueryTracker, AgentQuery and Publishers Marketplace. Book agents have three basic roles—to find you a publisher, to get you as large an advance as possible, and to negotiate the best terms for your publishing contract. Chip R. Bell is an awardwinning, bestselling author and serves on the board of Georgia Writers Museum.

by Chip Bell

ENDORSERS Getting influential endorsers starts with having a great book. When you send a potential endorser a draft of your manuscript, it needs to look its best; but more importantly, it needs to be your best work. Suggest their endorsement be short (1 or 2 sentences), since brief remarks are more likely to be read by a prospective buyer. It is not necessary that you personally know the endorser, but rather that you have a way to network to that person. The romantic view of a solitary writer pounding the keys and only communicating with some editor in New York is just that—romantic and unrealistic. Success in the book world today comes with connection. And, being linked to social friends who can cheer you on and specialist friends who can enhance the quality and reach of your work is vital to helping your book maximize its potential.

Interested in advertising in Page Turner? Contact Chip Bell at chip@chipbell.com

SOUL MATES

PARTNERS BEHIND GEORGIA’S MOST FAMOUS WRITERS

When mathematician John Nash (A Beautiful Mind) closed his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in 1994, he looked straight at his wife, Alicia Larde, and said these words: “I have made the most important discovery of my life. It is only in the mysterious equations of love that any logic or reason can be found. I am only here tonight because of you. You are the only reason I am. You are all my reasons. Thank you.” We dedicate this issue of Page Turner to the soul mates behind some of Georgia’s greatest authors.

Mary Day Lanier (Wife of Sidney Lanier) Sidney Lanier, the renowned poet and musician, battled tuberculosis for much of his adult life. His wife, Mary Day Lanier, was his caretaker, primary emotional supporter, and intellectual partner through years of financial and physical hardship. Mary Day’s influence extended far beyond his life. Following Sidney’s death in 1881, she dedicated herself to securing his literary legacy. She meticulously collected, edited, and arranged for the posthumous publication of Poems of Sidney Lanier in 1884. Without her editorial dedication, much of his work might have been lost to history.

Marjorie Content Toomer (Wife of Jean Toomer)

While Jean Toomer is best known for his masterpiece, Cane, his later work was heavily influenced by world-renowned photographer Marjorie Content, whom he married in 1934.

After the couple moved to a farm in Pennsylvania, she set aside her own rising photography career to support his writing and spiritual pursuits. She became the bedrock of the community that gathered around Toomer’s Quaker involvement. Later, she played a vital role in preserving his archives. PAGE TURNER MAGAZINE | 19

COVER STORY

Cassandra King Conroy (Wife of Pat Conroy) Pat Conroy’s third marriage was to bestselling novelist, Cassandra King, from 1998 until his death in 2016. The two authors wrote under the same roof and deeply trusted each other’s literary instincts. Conroy credited King as his “lead editor” on sprawling novels like South of Broad, relying on her to catch repetitions and structural flaws before he submitted drafts to his publisher. Conroy, in turn, pushed King to bravely use her own life experiences in her work, which directly led to her massive success with The Sunday Wife. Today she honors his legacy as the co-founder of the Pat Conroy Literary Center.

Bruce Gentry (Husband of Alice Friman) Bruce Gentry has been an ardent champion of poet Alice Friman since they married in 1989. Before their marriage, Friman had published only one book (and a couple of chapbooks); after their marriage, she wrote seven more books, many of which won major literary awards. Her “sweet young thing,” as she refers to Gentry, a few years her junior, provided her feedback, encouragement, and tireless support, often at the expense of his own writing. While married to her first husband, Friman kept her poems hidden in a drawer, only to “come out of the closet” after their divorce in 1975. Friman was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame in 2026.

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COVER STORY

Paula Snelling (Wife of Lillian Smith) For over thirty years, the partnership between Georgia author Lillian Smith and Paula Snelling served as both a personal sanctuary and an intellectual powerhouse in the segregated South. Meeting in the late 1920s, their relationship transcended a deep romantic bond; it was a collaborative crusade against racial injustice. Together, they co-edited the influential literary magazine South Today, fearlessly amplifying Black and progressive white voices that challenged the Jim Crow establishment. Snelling provided crucial editorial insight and unwavering emotional support for Smith’s groundbreaking works like Strange Fruit. Their enduring union was the quiet, structural foundation of Smith’s courageous legacy.

Margaret Bourke-White (Wife of Erskine Caldwell) Erskine Caldwell shocked the nation with his gritty, controversial novels like Tobacco Road and God’s Little Acre. His marriage to photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White resulted in one of the most powerful literaryvisual collaborations of the 20th century. Together, they traveled the South to produce the 1937 documentary book, You Have Seen Their Faces, which examined the desperate conditions of Depression-era tenant farmers. Bourke-White’s stark, empathetic photographs provided an unflinching visual reality to Caldwell’s prose, forever changing how the public understood his writing and the plight of the rural Southern sharecropper. Historians can speculate about the drive and motivation of partners behind a powerful force. The biographies profiled here reveal

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

one driving purpose best described by First Lady Edith Wilson, who, after Woodrow Wilson suffered a debilitating stroke in 1919, effectively ran the Executive Branch for the remainder of his term. “I will stand by you—not for duty, not for pity, not for honor— but for love—trusting, protecting, comprehending love.” PAGE TURNER MAGAZINE

WORDS INTO WEALTH

Book Editing by Barbie Halaby

Picture this idyllic image: You’re a book editor, curled up on the couch with a mug of tea, reading the newest manuscript by a bestselling author. You add a comma, note that 80% of people don’t have green eyes, and—oops! You chuckle and fix that typo, for surely the author meant “public.” For a sliver of book editors, this might ring true. But the truth, like the plot of a good thriller, is far more complex.

What kind of editing? A developmental editor explores big-picture issues, such as plot holes and character arcs (here’s where you’re told to “kill your darlings”). Line editors fine-tune sentence by sentence and ensure good pacing, realistic dialogue, and consistent voice. Copyeditors improve structure and suggest more conscious language, essentially providing writers with clean text that speaks to your readers—and yes, we move commas around. Once a book is typeset, a proofreader ensures that no typos remain, that design elements are consistent, and that the final product looks just as you want it.

“You chuckle and fix that typo, for surely the author meant “public.”

Modern-day book editors are generally freelancing—and wearing many hats. Some contract with the Big Five publishers (Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Hachette, Simon & Schuster, and Macmillan) and likely have a hand in the novels you devour for book club or on vacation. More often, though, they guide manuscripts through smaller presses or a self-publishing journey. An editor selfpromotes on social media, networks at author events or writing conventions, and scours job lists for opportunities to do the work they love. That landscape is quite broad. What kind of books? Maybe a cozy romance about a second chance at love, a business book for innovators, a thoughtful memoir exploring a widow’s grief, or a researched study of political radicalization? Spoiler: It might be all of them, as each of these descriptions is a book I have edited.

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Especially in the face of generative AI, which claims to do some of these tasks, a human book editor is an invaluable partner on a writer’s journey. We care about your work and support your goals. When it comes to your book, you don’t have to go it alone.

Barbie Halaby launched Monocle Editing in 2008 after six years at a traditional publishing house. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of ACES: The Society for Editing.

SPOTLIGHT: GEORGIA BOOK CLUB

PINTS & PAGES BOOK CLUB BOOK CLUB

The Pints & Pages Book Club started at the Awkward Brewing in Fayetteville, Georgia, in December 2025. Appropriately, their first book was The Lager Queen of Minnesota. Awkward Brewing is owned by Amanda Poliak. We caught up with loyal patron, D.J. Shea, to learn more about the book club.

What do your book club meetings have in common?

How are books selected?

We have a wide interest spectrum. Each meeting we ask each member for each story, “What character would you most want to have a beer with?” That has been a fun and specific question that leads to interesting reflection and laughs as it is not always the most obvious characters!

We have been choosing books two months in advance so everyone can pace and plan. At the end of a discussion, we all write down a book we want to read on a piece of paper and draw them all out loud from a bowl. The last paper left is the winner.

What are some of the books you have discussed?

Are there unique features or surprises that have happened to the book club?

We’ve done Misery by Stephen King, A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar, A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers, and Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. My favorite would probably be Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang. It was interesting for the fantasy aspects, its unique take on magic, and the characters were great.

Soon we’ll be joined by a local author as we read her first novel. I think we have a good and thoughtful group, but she knows some may not like the book, so I’m looking forward to an honest discussion, and hopefully we all really enjoy it. It’s exciting to have her join and we hope others will do the same one day. We’re happy to be supportive of the community.

PROFILE OF A GEORGIA WRITER

ERSKINE CALDWELL by Jim Auchmutey

Few writers have literally seen their work banned in Boston, not to mention New York, Chicago, Atlanta, and dozens of other localities. Erskine Caldwell provoked that kind of reaction. One of the most controversial writers ever to come from Georgia, he became the bad boy of Southern literature, and bore the censorship scars to prove it. Caldwell burst upon the scene during the depths of the Great Depression with two successive novels—Tobacco Road (1932) and God’s Little Acre (1933)—that depicted dirt-poor Southerners in unsparing, tragicomic detail. The main character of Tobacco Road is Jeeter Lester, a shiftless farmer living as a squatter on land his clan had once owned. He was the head of a large family teeming with “deprivation and depravity,” as The New York Times put it, their greed, pettiness, and erotic cravings practically leaping from the pages.

Reviewers praised Caldwell for his gritty realism. But he appalled many others, especially Southerners who thought he had defamed their region. One of his early critics, the Virginia novelist Ellen Glasgow, coined a phrase for his work (and that of William Faulkner, who was plowing the same fields): Southern Gothic. The label stuck. Caldwell’s notoriety lingered for decades. In 1967, after Georgia Governor Lester Maddox blasted his work, the author sent him a letter denying that he ever intended to po’talk his native state. “I like to think that I am as much a Georgian as Brer Rabbit,” he wrote. Caldwell certainly saw a lot of Briar Patch when he was growing up.

Readers lapped it up. Over the decades, the two novels sold more than 10 million copies apiece, making them two of the best-selling books of the 20th century. Many of those copies were paperback editions released years after publication with cover illustrations that often featured scantily clad women. PAGE TURNER MAGAZINE

PROFILE OF A GEORGIA WRITER

Born in 1903 in the rural community of White Oak, outside Newnan, Caldwell was the only child of a schoolteacher and a Presbyterian minister. They moved often and lived in several states before settling in Wrens, south of Augusta. The Rev. Caldwell was a passionate social reformer and took his son on his rounds as he ministered to tenant farmers. The young man witnessed backwoods poverty in the raw and developed a lifelong sympathy for the downtrodden. Caldwell began his writing life as a reporter at The Atlanta Journal in the mid-1920s. He soon left that job to attend college at the University of Virginia, where he met his first wife. He left before graduating, and they moved to a farm in Maine, where he set about trying to succeed as a writer. He sent some of his short stories to Maxwell Perkins, the Scribner’s editor renowned for nurturing F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, and soon had a contract with the publishing house. After Tobacco Road became a hit, a theatrical adaptation played Broadway for a thenrecord seven years and toured the country. That’s when the censors targeted Caldwell and his work. He fought the bans in court, overturning most of them, and became a public symbol of artistic freedom and the First Amendment. Two movies were made based on Caldwell’s biggest books. In 1941, John Ford, fresh off one of his masterpieces, The Grapes of Wrath, tried his hand at Tobacco Road as a follow-up. The studio slapped on a bogus happy ending, and Caldwell disowned the project.

In 1958, Hollywood tackled God’s Little Acre with Robert Ryan in the lead and a who’s who of TV stars-to-be in support (Jack Lord, Buddy Hackett, Vic Morrow, Michael Landon, Tina Louise). The movie is considered the best representation of the author’s work on the big screen.

PROFILE OF A GEORGIA WRITER

Caldwell continued to publish successful fiction during the 1930s, but he found himself increasingly drawn to nonfiction. In 1936, he took an assignment from Life magazine to travel the South with the photographer Margaret Bourke-White. Their collaboration produced one of the finest books documenting the Depression, You Have Seen Their Faces (1937), with his text accompanying her images. Along the way, they fell in love and married— Caldwell’s second of four. When World War II broke out, Caldwell was able to get a visa from the Soviet Union and travel there to report on the fighting. His time overseas only fed suspicions among his critics that he had communist leanings. Caldwell was a prolific author. Over six decades, he published 25 novels, 12 works of nonfiction, and 10 collections of short stories. He wrote about politically charged topics—lynchings, labor strife, race relations—but claimed not to have a political agenda. “I was not trying to prove anything,” he said in a 1982 interview. “I was writing about the people I knew. I lived in the same neighborhood as the Tobacco Road fraternity and I went to school in the area. I knew very little about life outside the South. I was only trying to tell a story.” Caldwell was living in Arizona when he died of lung cancer in 1987 at 83. He had not resided in Georgia since the late 1920s, yet he remained deeply imbedded in the state’s literary heritage. When the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame inducted its inaugural class of 12 in 2000, he was of course among their number.

Jim Auchmutey is a former writer and editor for The Atlanta JournalConstitution, specializing in stories about the South and its history and culture.

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TOWNSEND

TOWNSEND PRIZE

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Every other year a panel of judges awards the Townsend Prize for Fiction to an outstanding novel or short story collection published by a Georgia writer during the past two years. The award is named for Jim Townsend, the founding editor of Atlanta magazine, the associate editor of Atlanta Weekly Magazine (of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution), and an early mentor to such Atlanta writers as Pat Conroy, Terry Kay, William Diehl, and Anne Rivers Siddons. It is co-owned by the Atlanta Writers Club and Georgia Writers Museum.

PAST TOWNSEND WINNERS

TOWNSEND PRIZE

1982

1984

1986

1988 Celestine Sibley, Children, My Children Alice Walker, The Color Purple Philip Lee Williams, The Heart of a Distant Forest Mary Hood, And Venus Is Blue

1989

1990

1991

1994 Sara Flanigan, Alice Charlie Smith, The Lives of the Dead Ferrol Sams, When All the World Was Young Pam Durban, The Laughing Place

1996

1998

2000

2002 JoAllen Bradham, Some Personal Papers Judson Mitcham, The Sweet Everlasting James Kilgo, Daughter of My People Ha Jin, The Bridegroom

2004

2006

2008

2010 Terry Kay, The Valley of Light Judson Mitcham, Sabbath Creek Renee Dodd, A Cabinet of Wonders Kathryn Stockett, The Help

2012

2014

2016

2018 Thomas Mullen, The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers Anthony Winkler, God Carlos Mary Hood, A Clear View of the Southern Sky Julia Franks, Over the Plain Houses

2020

2023

2025 Xhenet Aliu, Brass Sanjena Sathian, Gold Diggers Denene Millner, One Blood

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NOW ACCEPTING NOMINATIONS 2027

TOWNSEND PRIZE FOR FICTION

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TOWNSEND PRIZE

JoAllen Bradham

Townsend Prize Winner, 1996 JoAllen Bradham was a celebrated American author, poet, and esteemed educator whose contributions left an indelible mark on Georgia’s literary and academic communities. Balancing a rigorous career in academia with a profound dedication to the craft of writing, Bradham emerged as a distinctive voice in Southern literature.

She spent many years teaching at Kennesaw State University, where she instructed undergraduate and graduate students in English literature, eighteenth-century drama, and poetry. Bradham also taught at Agnes Scott College, earning a formidable reputation as an exacting but deeply inspiring mentor who demanded the best from her students.

An only child, JoAllen Bradham was born in 1937, and raised in Columbia, South Carolina. The Methodist Church impressed upon Bradham the power of words, which she explored by working for the high school newspaper, the Columbia Hi-Life. When she realized that “whole generations of English poets sounded a lot like the King James Bible,” she gravitated away from the church and toward the theater, where she could “see and feel words in action.” Beneath her senior photograph in her 1955 Columbia High School annual appears the revealing line,

Bradham viewed teaching not merely as a profession, but as a calling. She famously described her teaching philosophy as being akin to the “timeless task of the gardener” who tends to and cultivates talent. In her own words, effective teaching required an educator to keep “the faith, the fury, the flair, the flame, the facts, and the friendship.” She believed that maintaining a fierce, enthusiastic “flair” for literature was essential to engaging students. In 1992, she received Kennesaw State University’s Distinguished Teaching Award.

“…and when she speaks her words do gather thunder as they run.” As a student at the University of South Carolina, Bradham briefly considered majoring in biology, then realized that being an English professor would better allow her to combine her two greatest loves, writing and the stage. After graduating from USC, she entered Vanderbilt University, where she received an M.A. degree as well as a Ph.D. degree in 1964. She also received a Master of Librarianship from Emory University.

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TOWNSEND PRIZE

Beyond her academic achievements, Bradham achieved widespread acclaim for her fiction. She is best known for her novel, Some Personal Papers (1994). The novel is a chilling and complex exploration of the human psyche. It centers on “Miss Genie,” a respected director of children’s services in a large Georgia city. Through tight, provocative prose, Bradham challenges the reader to determine whether her protagonist is a clear-minded benefactor or a madwoman driven by the dark circumstances of her profession. Some Personal Papers propelled Bradham to literary prominence and earned her a series of prestigious awards. Her exceptional contributions to the state’s literary arts earned her the title of Georgia Writer of the Year. She won the 1994 Texas Breakthrough Award, and in 1996, she won the Townsend Prize for Fiction. Throughout her life, Bradham published short fiction, poetry, and scholarly articles, remaining deeply engaged with the mechanics of storytelling. Whether dissecting eighteenthcentury epistles or weaving eerie tales of modern social workers, JoAllen Bradham demonstrated a mastery of narrative art. Until her passing in 2019, she remained a fierce advocate for literature, leaving behind a legacy defined by her brilliant fiction and the generations of students she taught to love the written word.

city, Miss Genie dedicates her life to vulnerable youth. However, the novel peels back her professional veneer to reveal a profoundly troubled psyche.

Some Personal Papers

The brief but complex narrative challenges readers to decipher Miss Genie’s true nature. Is she a clear-minded, selfless benefactor protecting children from a broken system, or is she a madwoman driven to extremes by the dark, tragic circumstances she encounters daily? Bradham explores this moral ambiguity with tight, provocative prose, presenting a protagonist who might ultimately be deemed “guilty by reason of charity.”

In Some Personal Papers, JoAllen Bradham crafts a psychological and eerie Southern literary tale centered on Eugenia Putman, known as “Miss Genie.” As the highly respected director of children’s services in a large Georgia

Through Miss Genie’s disturbing descent, Bradham delivers an unsettling character study. Winning the 1996 Townsend Prize, the book remains a celebrated Georgia achievement.

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Your Story Starts Here...

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GREENSBORO WRITERS GUILD! Positive and productive feedback for all genres and levels of writing. IN-PERSON 1st & 3rd Tuesdays @ 1pm

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MORE INFORMATION? Kathy Wright (706) 817-0345

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Betty Liedtke (612) 743-1488

Georgia Writer Quotes “I come from down south, where vegetation does not know its place. Honeysuckle can work through cracks in your walls and strangle you while you sleep. Kudzu can completely shroud a house and a car parked in the yard in one growing season.”

L B A R B A R A TAY

ILE

Y W HITE

“I think we’d like life to be like a train… but it turns out to be a sailboat.”

“I've been telling my students, ‘Imitate, imitate.’ And they say, ‘Well, what if I plagiarize, or what if I’m not original? I want to be myself.’ And I always tell them, ‘Your self will shine through’... If you allow yourself to feel deeply and honestly, what you say won’t be like anyone else.” NA TA S H

A TRETHEW

“A good heavy book holds you down. It’s an anchor that keeps you from getting up and having another gin and tonic.” R OY B L O

, JR T N U

READER’S CORNER

THE UNDERCOVER BOOKSHOP “Brace yourself for adventure, intrigue, and espionage!” When given an advance copy of Katherine Reay’s The Undercover Bookshop, I wrote the above with great enthusiasm, yet a blurb never captures the true essence of one’s relationship with a story. In this novel, Reay (author of A Shadow in Moscow and The Berlin Letters) returns to the Cold War and the spies who worked in the shadows. This time, Reay shifts her focus from the spy as her central figure to a young woman looking for anything but intrigue. After a tumultuous childhood during World War II, Reay’s heroine, Gemma Brown, yearns for a new start and the security of consistency and home. Viewing events through Gemma’s lens, Reay balances a riveting spy story with a coming-of-age story, a love story, and an homage to the classic British mystery novels Gemma adores.

“Inspired by the true stor story y of the world’s most notorious and storied Soviet female spy” Answering a newspaper advertisement, Gemma moves to the village of Great Rollright in the English Cotswolds to work as a shopkeeper and establish the village’s first bookshop. Fitting in proves difficult as Gemma finds she is more adept at solving mysteries than baking cakes or grasping social niceties. Nevertheless, she finds a friend in Peggy, another recent transplant, and Ursula Beurton, who is not only the village’s best

baker, but an enigmatic figure who sparks controversy and small-town gossip. Soon Gemma’s observant eye catches inconsistencies and oddities within Ursula’s behavior. Is her imagination running away with her? Or could Ursula be a spy? With Peggy as her trusty sidekick, and one with secrets of her own, Gemma and the story are off and running… PAGE TURNER MAGAZINE

READER’S CORNER

Reay picks up the pace, and the reader finds this cozy tale—full of village life, new friendships, and budding romance—pivoting into an international game of cat-andmouse involving MI5 and the KGB. As in her previous spy novels, Reay pens fiction grounded in extensive research and the real-life details regarding the Soviet Union’s most famous female spy, Ursula Kuczynski Beurton—which means one should venture into the Author’s Note only after turning the last page. The Undercover Bookshop is a delightful pageturner and, as Kate Quinn, author of The Alice Network, stated, “feels like a warm, possibly arsenic-laced hug straight from Agatha Christie.”

THE WRITER Katherine Reay is a national bestselling and award-winning author of twelve novels and one non-fiction work. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Northwestern University, her writing has appeared in numerous publications, including Redbook, USA TODAY, The Daily Beast, and many more. She also holds a master’s in marketing from Northwestern University.

REVIEWED BY Marie Bostwick is a New York Times and USA TODAY author of more than twenty books, Including The Book Club for Troublesome Women. When not writing books, she enjoys quilting, hiking, cooking, and creating posts on her lifestyle blog.

“feels like a warm, possibly arseniclaced hug straight from Agatha Christie.” PAGE TURNER MAGAZINE

READER’S CORNER

Enjoying Couples’ Dynamics in Fiction

by George Weinstein

The ways couples act in novels are much more varied and nuanced than the polar opposites of incendiary romance versus devastating heartbreak. A common dynamic in fiction is the battle of wits that takes the place of physical intimacy. In Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy famously communicate through clever banter that masks their vulnerabilities. Their intellectual dances become less highbrowed and more personal as they learn to trust each other and shed their vanity and internal biases. Alternatively, authors can explore unspoken longing, destructive obsession, and toxic codependency in place of supportive romantic relationships. Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights vividly shows us all three of these behaviors at various points. Sometimes, couples’ non-romantic daily lives take center stage. In Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, Nick and Amy Dunne deal with financial stress, career stagnation, and the growing resentments of moving to a dull suburban town. Tayari Jones’ An American Marriage details the logistical, legal, and emotional maintenance of Celestial and Roy’s relationship as they try to keep their marriage intact through prison letters and visitation rooms.

In Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, flashbacks of the protagonist and his wife show a couple debating utilitydriven survival strategies in a dying world. Romance is the last thing on their minds as they focus on resources, security, and the grim reality of their child’s future. By focusing on a meeting—or corruption—of two people’s minds long before their bodies intertwine or the mundane details of couples navigating domestic life or the utilitarian partnership they try to maintain in the face of trauma or danger, novelists across the centuries show us the reality of relationships. Managing a shared life is so much more than riding the highs of all-consuming passion and the lows of utter despair. Most of the time, “couplehood” exists between those extremes, aiming to nurture or at least preserve a union between two who choose each other, every day, to be their person.

George Weinstein is the twiceformer President and current Executive Director of the historic Atlanta Writers Club (AWC), which was founded in 1914.

PAGE TURNER MAGAZINE

READER’S CORNER

What Fictional Couples Teach Us about Real Relationships Building on my Reader’s Corner column, “Enjoying Couples’ Dynamics in Fiction,” here are some tips for reading deeply about the truth of relationships that are revealed in fiction: Look beyond traditional romance: Fictional couples can be interesting even when their relationship isn’t centered on passion or heartbreak. Pay attention to intellectual chemistry: Clever arguments, banter, and battles of wit can reveal attraction, vulnerability, and changing trust. Notice what goes unsaid: Unspoken longing, obsession, resentment, or dependence can communicate as much about a relationship as dialogue does.

by George Weinstein

Examine couples’ everyday lives: Financial problems, careers, household responsibilities, and other mundane pressures can shape a relationship just as strongly as romantic feelings. Consider how couples respond to hardship: Trauma, imprisonment, danger, or uncertainty can reveal whether partners support, challenge, or abandon one another. Think of relationships as ongoing choices: “Couplehood” usually exists between extreme passion and despair, involving the daily effort to nurture or preserve a shared life. George Weinstein is the twiceformer President and current Executive Director of the historic Atlanta Writers Club (AWC), which was founded in 1914.

PAGE TURNER MAGAZINE

PROFILE OF A NEW GEORGIA WRITER

Meet Ron Balthazor: Nature Writer

What most attracts you to writing about the natural world?

Ron Balthazor and his book, A Book of Seasons, published by Mercer University Press, has been chosen as the “New Georgia Writer” for this issue. Dr. Balthazor retired from the University of Georgia, where he was an award-winning teacher of Composition and Environmental Literature. Here is part of our interview.

What most inspired you to become a published author? I blame the figs. When we all were in Covid lockdown, I had glorious leisure to linger with the more-than-human world on our little farm. The fig trees were having a marvelous season. Figs come in in riotous abundance, and everyone on the farm loves them. I began writing about the moment, which became the “Figs” chapter.

The natural world is constantly intriguing and illuminating. Watching a honeybee gather pollen on the face of a sunflower, a remarkable collaboration now millions of years old, offers an aesthetic elegance as well as an essential function. Such glorious interactions are happening at every turn in every moment if we are awake to them. Was there a particular person helpful to you in finishing your book? No one was more instrumental in the progress and completion of the book than my writing partner, Lee Ann Pingel. We have met every week now for over six years (we started meeting shortly before the initial chapters of the book were penned). What advice would you give an aspiring author? I love the writing process, love the magic of putting words on a page, of discovering what I think in words. I love the remarkable insights that come over conversations about a draft, and love the hard work of revising. In sum, my advice is simple. Read good writing. Find a good writing partner who knows good writing and who will be completely honest with you. Love your work. Revise, revise, revise. What do you have in mind for your next book? Thoreau ends Walden writing, “Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.” I am not yet fully awake to the next dawn, but tomorrow I will sit on the porch as the sun comes up and will pray to be as wise as the honeybees gathering the perfectly ripe pollen from the sunflowers.

SPOTLIGHT: GEORGIA INDIE BOOKSTORE

The Underground Bookshop: The Place for a Charming Escape

Tucked in the heart of downtown Carrollton, Georgia, The Underground Bookshop is a haven of wonder, a sanctuary for stories, and a place where magic lingers in the air. We got a few minutes with new store owner, Anna Clark.

What ways do you try to pleasantly surprise customers? We bring a unique and personalized shopping experience for our customers. It helps that we are quite literally underground, so upon walking in it’s like you are escaping reality for a while. We like to keep customers on their toes with weird staff picks we curate, quirky decor around the shop, and being able to find just the right book for anyone. What are features of your bookstore experience almost no other area bookstore offers? I think what makes The Underground Bookshop stand out is its charm. From the famous book arch, Reggie our resident dragon, our branch chandelier, all the quirky weird used books we have, and of course our amazing team!

Many years from now, how would you most want your bookstore to be remembered? I want The Underground Bookshop to be remembered as a place of love and acceptance. We are a shop for everyone and strive to be a safe place for our local community. I want someone to think back and remember even on their lowest day they could come in and find some peace (and a cozy read) in our little shop. What phrases do/would you most like to hear customers say about your bookstore? I think what is most important is to hear how unique our shop is, how welcoming the store feels to everyone, and finding a book that was recommended that they wouldn’t have picked up otherwise. A couple of my favorites that I have heard are “Wow! It really is underground!” and “I love your personalized staff recommendations!”

102 Alabama Street, Carrollton, GA 678-951-4689 undergroundbookshop.com

Children’s Corner Pre-K - YA books by Georgia Writers

Thank You! Little Shop of Stories and Brave & Kind Bookshop for your role in identifying the featured children’s books. You can find all these books for sale at Georgia Writers Museum!

CHILDREN’S CORNER

Millie Fleur’s Worst Day Ever Garden Glen was buzzing with excitement. It was time for the town’s annual Butterbloom Fest! Everyone was ready for the most perfect day of the year. Everyone except Millie Fleur La Fae. Instead of waking up bright-eyed and ready to take in everything the fair has to offer, Millie Fleur wakes up with a bad case of the morgenmuffels. Even worse, there’s a humbug tangled in her hair! Millie Fleur’s day goes downhill from there. Even as she tries to make the best of things, her problems grow bigger and bigger. Will a little help from her friends be enough to turn this bad day around? Millie Fleur’s Worst Day Ever reminds us all about the importance of relying on our friends when we’re feeling blue. A gorgeous companion to the New York Times bestseller, Millie Fleur’s Poison Garden. Orchard Books 40 Pages Grades: Pre K - 3rd

Author Christy Mandin is a New York Times bestselling author and illustrator of picture books. She grew up in rural Georgia and credits her country life of solitude as an only child for much of her love of books and nature. PAGE TURNER MAGAZINE

CHILDREN’S CORNER

Dasia (Forever)

After nineteen days of “induction chemotherapy,” Dasia Monae Riley knows no one else should be in her hospital room . . . But there she is: Jameson “Jimmy” Jeffs. Another cancer patient who’s seemingly everything Dasia is not: rich, well cared for, and a smidge childish (in Dasia’s opinion). However, Dasia soon discovers that their commonalities go beyond a random, incurable disease . . . like older brothers who are gone, baby brothers who need them, and struggles with friends at school. As Dasia and Jimmy chat, Dasia’s memories unfold in the unsent “letters” (read: poems) Dasia wrote to her incarcerated older brother. And over the course of one life-changing night, two girls who are at their lowest fight to keep each other uplifted. When you hit rock bottom, what does it take to survive and allow yourself to hope again? Crown Books for Young Readers 192 Pages Grades: 3rd - 7th

Author Nic Stone was born and raised in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, and the only thing she loves more than an adventure is a good story about one. After graduating from Spelman College, she worked extensively in teen mentoring and lived in Israel for a few years before returning to the US to write fulltime. Growing up with a wide range of cultures, religions, and backgrounds, Stone strives to bring these diverse voices and stories to her work.

In a spin-off to the Dear Martin series, New York Times bestselling author Nic Stone delivers a heart-wrenching story of resilience, connection, and the fight to stay alive when battling illness and bearing the weight of difficult circumstances.

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CHILDREN’S CORNER

THE CASE OF THE SCARLET SNAKEBITE When the wealthy Willoughby family checks into her mother’s bed-andbreakfast for the weekend, Amber Adler is certain a crime is going to be committed right under their roof. And she should know—she’s read every Agatha Christie novel in the library, and her father is a world-famous detective. Sure, Amber has made a few false accusations (and once got the SWAT team sent to her math teacher’s house), but this time, she’s positive that one of their guests is up to no good. So it comes as no surprise to Amber when someone steals a priceless ruby belonging to the crotchety Willoughby patriarch. But what she didn’t expect was for her mother to be framed for it. Now, Amber must call on everything she knows about solving mysteries to find the stone and catch the real culprit before the family checks out—and learn that sometimes, people are the greatest mystery of all.

Author Christyne Morrell writes middlegrade novels across a number of genres. She believes that middle-grade books should challenge, intrigue, and inspire young readers—but above all, never underestimate them. When Morrell isn’t writing for kids, she works as an attorney and loves reading, baking, drawing, and playing board games. She lives with her family in Decatur, Georgia.

Delacorte Press 272 Pages Grades: 5th - 6th

CHILDREN’S CORNER

NEEDY LITTLE THINGS Sariyah Lee Bryant can hear what people need―tangible things, like a pencil, a hair tie, a phone charger―an ability only her family and her best friend, Malcolm, know the truth about. But when she fulfills a need for her friend Deja who vanishes shortly after, Sariyah is left wondering if her ability is more curse than gift. This isn’t the first time one of her friends has landed on the missing persons list, and she’s determined not to let her become yet another forgotten Black girl. Not trusting the police and media to do enough on their own, Sariyah and her friends work together to figure out what led to Deja’s disappearance. When Sariyah’s mother loses her job and her little brother faces complications with his sickle cell disease, managing her time, money, and emotions seems impossible. Desperate, Sariyah decides to hustle her needsensing ability for cash―a choice that may not only lead her to Deja, but put her in the same danger Deja found herself in. Wednesday Books 320 Pages For Ages: YA

Author Channelle Desamours is a high school science teacher from Atlanta, Georgia, who loves writing tales about magical Black girls, who, strong and gifted as they may be, still require love, protection, and softness. PAGE TURNER MAGAZINE

FROM THE MARGINS

From the Margins Now that you’ve met all of our Page Turner team members, let’s learn a little bit more about them! In each issue we’ll ask a new question to a few folks on the team—questions about writing, reading, or their creativity in general. Stay tuned for their answers!

What is advice you wish you had gotten (or valued) while working on your first book?

I wish my mentors and teachers had told me to not seek critiques or feedback before finishing the first draft of my first novel. It’s much more important to complete that initial manuscript—even if you’re doing it all wrong—than to risk paralyzing yourself with doubts and hypercriticality that will either greatly delay getting to the end or prevent you from ever finishing. You can always rewrite to make something better, but you can’t fix what you don’t write.

W ein stein

I’ve and valued the advice I’ve always listened to was my writing. My problem gotten from others on vice. en not to listen to their ad more about knowing wh of took to heart every bit I g, itin wr my in on Early d d those more credentiale advice from “experts” an they knew more than I did, so than I was, figuring they from though I still value input must be right. Wrong! Al of to evaluate the quality w ho ed rn lea e I’v rs, othe and I need, so I can determine advice in terms of what ’t. ul, and disregard what isn implement what is helpf PAGE TURNER MAGAZINE

B e tty Lie dtk

FROM THE MARGINS

The key to book promotion today is to grow a superfan club. Why? When the marketplace is crowded, trying to fit in will end in failure. Who are the readers who would absolutely fall in love with your book? That is your target for promotion and your job is to grow that group to be as large as possible as fast as possible. You can only do that by starting long before your book is finished.

Kim

C onrey

C h i p B e ll

When I was working on my first book, I wish someone had let me know the journey to publication was likely to be so much longer than I realized, and that it would have nothing to do with talent or how hard I was working. It would have saved me so much heartache and self-doubt.

First-time authors are often reluctant to engage an outside publicist, for fear of alienating their publisher, but many publishers are willing to work with an outside publicist. Always ask beforehand. And publishers will be more receptive to outside publicists who know how to work cooperatively with a publisher.

Rog

er Johns

PAGE TURNER MAGAZINE

LITERARY EVENTS

FALL EVENTS

October, November, December 2026 Atlanta Writers Club Georgia Writers Museum Meeting locations vary, please check the website.

109 S. Jefferson Ave. Eatonton, GA 31024

October 17 In-person at GSU-Dunwoody

October 6 Meet the Author: Michael Lucker Rule One

Speaker #1 - Alan Grostephan: Finding a Form in Creative Nonfiction Speaker #2 - Jill Tew: Writing Kidlit: From Middle Grade to YA and the Nebulous in Between

November 6-7 Atlanta Writers Conference at Westin Atlanta Airport Hotel November 12-14

AWC/GWM/SSI Writers Society

Writing Retreat on St. Simons Island November 21 In-person AWC Meeting at GSU-Dunwoody Speaker #1 - Mark Warren: Nature for Writers Speaker #2 - AWC Member Moment Speakers

December 19

In-person at GSU-Dunwoody Speaker #1 - Melinda Lee: Authenticity as a Superpower Speaker #2 - Ken Valentine: Leadership/Authorpreneurship Holiday Potluck Party

October 15 Distinguished Writers Book Club A Childhood: The Biography of a Place by Harry Crews October 20 Meet the Author: Felicia Feaster The Goth Garden October 22 Flannery O’Connor Book Club Flannery and Regina: The Andalusia Chronicles by Carol Loeb Shloss October 22, 23, 24 and 28, 29 Haunted Eatonton October 30 Crime & Wine: Killers in Costume November 3 Meet the Author: Katherine Reay The Undercover Bookshop November 19 Flannery O’Connor Book Club Flannery and Regina: The Andalusia Chronicles by Carol Loeb Shloss

Interested in advertising in Page Turner? Contact Chip Bell at chip@chipbell.com PAGE TURNER MAGAZINE

FRIENDS

Friends of Page Turner

BookLogix 1264 Old Alpharetta Rd. Alpharetta, GA 30005 (470) 239-8547 booklogix.com Brave + Kind Bookshop 722 W. College Ave. Decatur, GA 30030 (470) 440-5714 braveandkindbooks.com Cold Case Investigative Research Institute coldcasefoundation.org Greensboro Writers Guild Lake Oconee Church of Christ 4700 Carey Station Rd. Greensboro, GA 30642 Little Shop of Stories 133 E. Court Square #A Decatur, GA 30030 (404) 373-6300 littleshopofstories.com Magic Time Literary Publicity magictimeliterary.com The Atlanta Writers Club atlantawritersclub.org

The Artisans Village 110 W. Marion St. Eatonton, GA 31024 (706) 623-7757 theartisansvillage.org The Plaza Arts Center 305 N. Madison Ave. Eatonton, GA 31024 (706) 923-1655 plazacenter.org The Writer’s High thewritershigh.com Print & Sign Solutions 612 Old Phoenix Rd. NE Suite B Eatonton, GA 31024 (762) 220-1110 printsignsolutions.com Smith Communications 100 N. Jefferson Ave. Eatonton, GA 31024 (706) 485-3501 Sylvia's Coffee 111 S. Jefferson Ave. Eatonton, GA 31024 Visit Eatonton 108 W. Marion St. Eatonton, GA 31024 (706) 485-7701 visiteatonton.com

SPRING 2026 | ISSUE 2

Andalusia 2628 N. Columbia St. Milledgeville, GA 31061 (478) 445-8722

Page Turner Magazine PAGE TURNER MAGAZINE

Sylvias’

SPOOKY GOOD COFFEE

Wednesday-Saturday 7:30AM - 3:00PM

Inside Georgia Writers Museum 111 S Jefferson Ave Eatonton, GA 31024