Today is a holiday us word nerds celebrate all year round: it’s National Book Lovers Day. 📖 We’re sharing a few books written by Greenville natives to add to your shelves. *Bookmark* these links…
📖 For fans of To Kill A Mockingbird… Greenville-born Dorothy Allison’s novel Bastard Out of Carolina (set in GVL) has been compared to Southern greats like Harper Lee + Flannery O’Connor (and was adapted into a 1996 TV movie starring Jennifer Jason Leigh).
📖 For the Nancy Drew collectors… pick up Jo Watson Hackl’s young adult adventure novel Smack Dab in the Middle of Maybe, or gift to a teen who loves the wilderness and a good mystery. See Hackl featured in TOWN Magazine here.
📖 For the true crime lovers… Paulette Alden, a Greenville native who moved away + ended up returning to her hometown, won The Kindle Book Review’s 2013 Best Indie Book Award in the suspense category for her book The Answer to Your Question.
📖 For the parent who’s read Green Eggs and Ham too many times… children’s book author + illustrator Matthew Cordell won the 2018 Caldecott Medal for Wolf in the Snow, a picture book about friendship.
📖 For the folks who don’t love reading… try a cookbook written by Greenvillian Tyler Florence – Tyler’s Ultimate for a bank of go-to recipes, or Start Fresh for kid-friendly dishes.
More local authors you recommended + we *checked out*:
📚 Brock Adams | Although he was born in Florida, Adams is a professor of English + Creative Writing at USC Upstate in Spartanburg, S.C. who’s had his work published in places like Sewanee Review + Best American Mystery Stories | Ember (2016 winner of the South Carolina First Novel Prize)
📚 Gilbert Allen | Born in Long Island, this author has long lived in Travelers Rest, S.C. and won the 2018 Nancy Dew Taylor Poetry Award from Emrys Journal + was inducted into the South Carolina Academy of Authors in 2014 | The Final Days of Great American Shopping, Catma
📚 Cat Bauer | The Greenville native is known for contemporary young adult novels + won the first Sue Alexander Most Promising New Work Award | Harley, Like A Person
📚 Ray Blackston | A Greenvillian who worked in real estate for more than a decade before deciding to write full time, publishing a series of novels set in GVL | Flabbergasted, A Delirious Summer
📚 John Boyanoski + Knox White | Boyanoski spent a decade writing for the Greenville News + Greenville Journal before starting his own public relations firm, and who better to work on a book about GVL with than our mayor? | Reimagining Greenville: Building the Best Downtown in America
📚 Susan M. Boyer | A Greenville-based writer whose mystery series takes place in the S.C. Lowcountry + whose first novel was a USA Today Bestseller and Agatha Award winner for Best First Novel | Lowcountry Boil, Lowcountry Bombshell, Lowcountry Boneyard
📚 Angela Campbell | A former Greenville News reporter and lover of romance novels plunged into the genre herself | On the Scent, Something Wicked + Cry Wolf
📚 Michael Cogdill | You might recognize him from the news on WYFF4, but he’s also the author of a novel set in rural North Carolina during the 1920s | She-Rain
📚 Scott Gould | A debut collection of short stories from the S.C. Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities creative writing instructor, winner of the Literature Fellowship from the S.C. Arts Commission and Fiction Fellowship from the S.C. Academy of Authors + Kingstree, S.C. native | Strangers to Temptation
📚 Tommy Hayes | The Ashevillian’s adult novel was picked for the Amazing Read in Greenville + his young adult novel was a Fall 2013 Okra Pick by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance | In the Family Way, The Pleasure Was Mine
📚 Jessica Holt | A Greenvillian whose novel depicts the life of an Upstate mill worker’s daughter during WWII as her life intersects with a British actress sent abroad to the U.S. | Behind My Eyes
📚 AV Huff | A Greenville historian whose books on our city + South Carolina can be found at independent bookstores locally | Greenville: The History of City and County in the South Carolina Piedmont
📚 Emily B. Martin | A Clemson grad and local author + freelance artist and illustrator whose passion for hiking inspires her nature-inspired fantasy | Woodwalker: Creatures of Light
📚 Matt Matthews | Winner of the 2010 South Carolina First Novel Prize and a current resident of Greenville | Mercy Creek
📚 Thomas McConnell | The Georgia native is is a professor of English + Creative Writing at USC Upstate in Spartanburg, S.C. and has won the South Carolina Academy of Authors Fiction Fellowship + the Hackney National Literary Award for the Short Story | The Wooden King
📚 Deb Richardson-Moore | A decades-long reporter for the Greenville News who then became pastor of Triune Mercy Center and wrote about her experiences there | The Weight of Mercy: A Novice Pastor on the City Streets, The Cantaloupe Thief, The Cover Story, Death of a Jester
📚 George Singleton | The Wofford professor + former S.C. Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities creative writing instructor was born in California and grew up in Greenwood, S.C., becoming a Guggenheim Fellow and Fellowship of Southern Writers inductee | Stray Decorum, Between Wrecks, Calloustown
📚 Nicholas Sparks | The famous tear-jerking author wrote The Notebook while living in Simpsonville | The Notebook, The Best of Me, The Last Song
📚 Montana Stayer | A resident of Greenville who self-published a novel this January, which is available on Amazon as an e-book + paperback, on Lulu as a special art edition hardcover, and locally at M. Judson Booksellers in downtown Greenville and My Sister’s Store in Travelers Rest | The Subject and the Scientist
📚 Bob Strother | The Greenville native is an award-winning author of historical fiction and two-time Pushcart Prize nominee | Burning Time + A Fire to Be Kindled
📚 Melissa Vogel | A Clemson Anthropology professor with non-fiction archaeology books: Frontier Life in Ancient Peru Frontier Life and The Casma Capital of El Purgatorio: Ancient Urbanism in the Andes Ancient Urbanism
And a specific book set in Greenville that a reader recommended: Brown Girl Dreaming (National Book Award and Newbery Honor winner) by Jacqueline Woodson, who’s from Ohio
This is by no means a complete list of local authors – just ones our readers let us know they love. If you don’t see your favorite listed here, comment below and let us know.
