NCLR Online Winter 2025

North Carolina LGBTQ+ Literature

cover art by Jane Cheek

NCLR Online Winter 2025 Press Release

Seeing Ourselves:
North Carolina LGBTQ+ Literature

section introduction by Dwight Tanner, Guest Feature Editor

“Exploring and learning more about the rich history of queer North Carolina voices, I’ve been repeatedly reminded of the diverse range of LGBTQ+ writing: powerful stories that can broaden perspectives, foster understanding, and provide invaluable representation, effectively allowing queer individuals the benefit of ‘seeing’ themselves in a world that often asks them to hide.”

Right

Afterlife
a poem by Amber Flora Thomas
art by Jane Cheek

Hurricane Season
creative nonfiction by Erick Daniel Aguilar
art by Clarissa Gernat

Have No Fear: David Sedaris is Still Here
a review by Jennifer McGaha
David Sedaris, Happy-Go-Lucky

Snake in the Grass
a review by Barbara Bennett
Minrose Gwin, Beautiful Dreamers

Finding a Way Out; Finding Yourself
a review by Olivia Cash
Marshall Moore, I Wouldn’t Normally Do This Kind of Thing

Flashbacks: Echoes of Past Issues

section introduction by Margaret D. Bauer, Editor

“All together, we count twenty-five separate books reviewed in this issue, most in this section, as they are by writers we’ve published previously or they reflect past issues’ subjects. Congratulations to all the authors.”

Celebrating the 2024 North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame Inductees
induction remarks by Jacob Bathanti, Jill McCorkle, Crystal Simone Smith, and Shirley Moody-Turner

“What the mountains and forests did for me”:
A Fine Collection of Kephart’s Words
a review by Rebecca Godwin
George Frizzell and Mae Miller Claxton, eds.
Horace Kephart: Writings

The Images that Made Us
a review by Terry Roberts
Brent Martin, George Masa’s Wild Vision

Becoming the Lost Colony
a review by Donald Paul Haspel
Charles R. Ewen and E. Thomson Shields, Jr., eds.
Becoming the Lost Colony

North Carolina’s Own Otto Wood:
Notorious Criminal and Treasured Folk Hero
a review by Douglas C. MacLeod, Jr.
Trevor McKenzie, Otto Wood: The Bandit

The Lands that Shape Us
a review by Evan Peter Smith
Georgann Eubanks, Saving the Wild South
Bland Simpson, North Carolina: Land of Water, Land of Sky

An Argument for Authenticity
a review by Elaine Thomas
Daniel Wallace, This Isn’t Going to End Well

All Things Must Pass
creative nonfiction by Alex McWalters

Trifecta of Honors for David Joy’s New Novel
by Margaret D. Bauer
acceptance remarks by David Joy

A Search for Truth
a review by Lisa Wenger Bro
Ariel Dorfman, The Suicide Museum

Bringing the Hidden into the Light
a review by Moira Crone
Elaine Neil Orr, Dancing Woman
art by Moira Crone

Between Life Before and Life After
a review by Kristi Southern
Heather Frese, The Saddest Girl on the Beach

Howard Craft Receives 2024 Hardee-Rives Award for the Dramatic Arts
award presentation remarks by Devra Thomas

The Baroque Power of Nathan Ballingrud’s New Novel
a review by Dale Bailey
Nathan Ballingrud, Crypt of the Moon Spider

What Blooms in the Wildwood?
a review by Amber Knox
Marly Youmans, Seren of the Wildwood

YA Novel in Verse Receives NC AAUW
Young People’s Literature Award

Searching for Meaning “in a beautiful but fallen world”
a review by James Kirkland
J.S. Absher, Skating Rough Ground

2024 Roanoke-Chowan Award for Poetry Goes to a Collection for Readers for All Ages

A Poetic Journey into the Appalachian Past
a review by Thomas Rain Crowe
Julia Nunnally Duncan, When Time Was Suspended

Black Is a Well II: Libation Reservoir
a poem by Regina YC Garcia

Seeking Salvation in the Sixties and Lost Mother
two poems by Janis Harrington
photography by Elizabeth Prioli

Writers Remembering Dannye Romine Powell (1941–2024)
a memoriam by Joseph Bathanti and Kim Church

North Carolina Miscellany

Welcome to Our Pages

section introduction by Margaret D. Bauer, Editor

“Thank you to all of the book reviewers – I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: reviewing is such an important service for writers. They are grateful, and so are we, to those who help us to fulfill our goal of releasing a new review every week.”