Literature and Authors

Entry Category: Literature and Authors

Living in Little Rock with Miss Little Rock

Living in Little Rock With Miss Little Rock is a contemporary novel written by Mississippi native and former Arkansas resident Jack Butler. First published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1993, the novel is set in Little Rock (Pulaski County) of the early 1980s. Loosely based on the Mary Lee Orsini murder cases in central Arkansas in 1981–1983 and written in a conversational style using multiple points of view, the novel depicts local culture and parodies well-known political figures and issues of the era, including the highly publicized legal contest between the teaching of creationism and evolutionary theory which rocked the state in the early 1980s. Within this context, the author creates a psychological saga of wealth, aspirations to power, and …

Long Line Rider [Book]

Long Line Rider: The Story of Cummins Prison Farm is a 1971 novel by former prison inmate K. Wymand Keith, the pen name of Leonard Claude Bowen. Based on the author’s experiences at Cummins, the novel appeared at the height of prison reform efforts in Arkansas in the early 1970s. As is true of other writings by former Arkansas inmates, the book, while fiction, corroborates the reported abuses of the pre-Rockefeller period. Long Line Rider takes its name from the riders who supervised lines of other inmates working in the cotton and soybean fields. The riders were trusties (so called because they were trusted by authorities) who lived at the top of the prison hierarchy. At the time, Arkansas prison …

Looking Back to See [Book]

Looking Back to See is the autobiography of country music artist Maxine Brown. The book, published by the University of Arkansas Press in 2005, provides a detailed look at Brown’s upbringing in Arkansas, her family life during the Great Depression, and the musical career of the Browns—the group that made her famous. Taking her title from one of the Browns’ biggest hits, her memoir provides an unflinching look at her experiences in the music industry and the group’s eventual disbandment in the late 1960s. Brown died in 2019. Maxine Brown was born in Louisiana in 1931, but she grew up in Arkansas in the Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) area. The family moved often when she was young. As a girl, …

Looking for Shiloh

Looking for Shiloh (1968) was the last collection of poetry published by Edsel Ford before his death at the age of forty-one in 1970. Ford spent much of his childhood in northwestern Arkansas and majored in journalism at the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County). This collection was selected from more than 450 submitted manuscripts to receive the Devins Memorial Award and to be published by the University of Missouri Press. A second printing of the collection was made in 1970. By the late 1960s, Ford was a leading regional poet who was receiving significant national recognition. Ford had served as editor of the “Golden Country” poetry column in the Ozark Mountaineer since February 1958, served as media …

Loughborough, Mary

Mary Loughborough was a bestselling author and the publisher of the Southern Ladies’ Journal in Little Rock (Pulaski County). Mary Ann Webster was born in Phelps, New York, on August 28, 1837, to Ashburn W. Webster and Julia Strong Webster. In 1842, when she was five years old, she was temporarily in the care of a New York City almshouse, possibly because of the death of her mother. By 1850, her father had moved his family to Carondelet, Missouri (now part of St. Louis). She attended Monticello Seminary in Godfrey, Illinois, graduating in 1853. On October 11, 1857, in Carondelet, she married prominent St. Louis attorney James Moore Loughborough, a native of Shelbyville, Kentucky. The couple would have six children. …

Love Finds You in Snowball, Arkansas [Book]

Love Finds You in Snowball, Arkansas is a 2008 romance novel by Sandra D. Bricker, an inaugural book in the “Love Finds You” series published by Summerside Press, a Christian fiction line acquired by Guideposts in 2010 but shuttered in 2013. The goal of the series was “to give readers a taste of local life across America.” The book centers upon Lucy Binoche, who lives in Little Rock (Pulaski County), where she works in the guest services department of the luxury Conroy Hotel (likely a stand-in for the Capital Hotel). Addressing her thoughts to God, Lucy writes regularly in a prayer journal, the latest entry of which concludes most chapters (some end with recipes). At the beginning of the novel, …

Lyons, Gene

Gene Lyons is an award-winning author, columnist, and political commentator who lives in Arkansas and wrote a nationally syndicated column for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, among other publications. He is author of several books and co-author of The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton (2000), which was made into a documentary film in 2004. Eugene Aloysius (Gene) Lyons  was born on September 20, 1943, in Elizabeth, New Jersey, to Eugene Aloysius Lyons Jr., an insurance clerk, and Helen Sheedy Lyons, a typist. For a time, Lyons’s father also ran a Dairy Queen. Lyons attended Chatham High School in New Jersey and graduated from Rutgers University, also in New Jersey, in 1965 with a degree …

Madden, Ed

Ed Madden is a poet, activist, and educator who has written, co-written, and edited numerous books and anthologies. His poem “Sacrifice” was selected for the Best New Poets 2007 anthology. In 2015, he was named the first poet laureate of Columbia, South Carolina. Ed Madden was born on September 13, 1963. Originally from Newport (Jackson County), Madden grew up on a rice farm. His family was devoutly Christian. Madden studied English and French at Harding University in Searcy (White County) and graduated with a BA in 1985. He received a BS in biblical studies from the Institute for Christian Studies in Austin, Texas, in 1992; an MA from the University of Texas (UT) at Austin in 1989, and a PhD …

Madhubuti, Haki R.

aka: Donald Luther Lee
Haki R. Madhubuti is a renowned African-American writer, poet, and educator. The author of twenty-four books, he became a major contributor to the black literary tradition beginning in the mid-1960s. He has received the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships, as well as an American Book Award, and his books have sold over three million copies. A proponent of independent black institutions, Madhubuti is the founder, publisher, and chairman of the board of Third World Press, the oldest continually operating independent black publisher in the United States. Haki Madhubuti was born Donald Luther Lee on February 23, 1942, in Little Rock (Pulaski County) and raised in Detroit, Michigan; he has one sister. His father, …

Mailer, Norris Church

aka: Barbara Jean Davis
Norris Church Mailer, born Barbara Jean Davis, became an artist, actress, and author after moving to New York City to be with renowned writer Norman Mailer following their brief chance meeting in Arkansas at an event in Russellville (Pope County). She published two semi-autobiographical novels, Windchill Summer and Cheap Diamonds, as well as a memoir, A Ticket to the Circus, which centers on her three-decade marriage to Mailer. Born on January 31, 1949, in Moses Lake, Washington, Norris Church Mailer began life as Barbara Jean Davis, being named for a little girl who lived next door. Her parents were homemaker Gaynell Phillips Davis and construction worker James Davis. They had briefly relocated from Arkansas to Washington state for her father’s …

Man in Black [Book]

Man in Black is the first autobiography by Johnny Cash. The bestselling book includes extensive discussion of Cash’s days in Arkansas and focuses on Cash’s recovery from addiction and his closer embrace of Christianity. Published in 1975, it was one of two autobiographies Cash wrote in his lifetime. By 1975, Johnny Cash was an institution. For twenty years, he had enjoyed immense success as a country star. He had seemingly done it all—made hit records, appeared in movies, and had a nationally televised variety show on ABC. By the mid-1970s, though, Cash’s life and career had settled down, and Cash saw it as time to write his life story. Toward the end of 1967, Cash had begun to sober up, …

Marinoni, Rosa Zagnoni

Rosa Zagnoni Marinoni was poet laureate of Arkansas from 1953 to 1970. A prolific poet herself, she worked to promote a greater appreciation of poetry, to establish an annual Poetry Day in Arkansas, and to encourage poets in her own time and place. Rosa Zagnoni was born in Bologna, Italy, on January 5, 1888, and came to the United States with her parents in 1898. They lived in Brooklyn, New York. Her father, Antero Zagnoni, was a journalist and drama critic. Her mother, Maria Marzocchi, was a poet and artist, and her uncle, Federico Marzocchi, was also a poet. She married Antonio Marinoni in Brooklyn on July 30, 1908, and moved to Fayetteville (Washington County), where her husband was on …

Massey, Mary Elizabeth

Mary Elizabeth Massey was a history professor noted for her early studies of women in the Civil War, years before women’s history courses became common in university history departments. Her books have continued to be important decades after their publication. Mary Elizabeth Massey (she used her full name throughout her life) was born on December 25, 1915, in Morrilton (Conway County) to Mary McClung Massey and Charles Leonidas Massey. After graduation from Morrilton High School, she attended Hendrix College in Conway (Faulkner County). For multiple years, Massey was president of her sorority (in an era when Hendrix had fraternities and sororities), and she served on the Interfraternity Council, the dormitory council, and the Student Senate, in addition to serving one-year …

Mathis, Deborah Myers

Deborah Mathis is an acclaimed journalist and author who has been a reporter and columnist for newspapers and a television reporter and anchor. She was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame in 2003. Deborah Myers was born in Little Rock (Pulaski County) on August 24, 1953. Her father, Lloyd H. Myers, was a businessman and Baptist minister, while her mother, Rachel A. Helms Myers, was an educator. She has several brothers and sisters. Myers attended Gibbs Elementary, Rightsell Elementary, and Westside Junior High, graduating from Little Rock Central High in 1971. She got her start in journalism at the Central school newspaper as the first female and first African-American editor. Rather than leave home to go to college, …

Maudelle: A Novel Founded on Facts Gathered From Living Witnesses

Maudelle: A Novel Founded on Facts Gathered from Living Witnesses, written by James Henery Smith and published by Mayhew Publishing Company of Boston in 1906, is reputed to be the first novel written by an African American residing in Arkansas. Smith was a prominent Little Rock (Pulaski County) dentist, a leader in the black community who spoke in opposition of the proposed Separate Coach Act of 1891, and the father of Arkansas composer Florence Smith Price. Maudelle is a novel about miscegenation, focusing on the “illicit commingling” between a U.S. Senator from Kentucky, George Morroe, and his slave Mary. Their child, Maudelle, becomes orphaned after a series of melodramatic events: the stabbing of Morroe; his deathbed request to be married …

Mayer, Mercer

Mercer Mayer is the author and illustrator of more than 300 children’s books, as well as a contributor to a variety of other media, including video, audio, and workbooks. Mercer Mayer was born in Little Rock (Pulaski County) on December 30, 1943. He attended elementary school in Camden (Ouachita County). A military family, the Mayers moved frequently until settling in Honolulu, Hawaii, when he was a teenager. The young Mayer enjoyed reading and drawing. After high school, he attended the Honolulu Academy of Arts and the Art Students League in New York City. In 1966, he began a career as a book illustrator in New York City. In 1967, Mayer’s first book, A Boy, a Dog, and a Frog, was …

McDougall, Jo Garot

Jo Garot McDougall is a poet of the Arkansas Delta. Her work is noted for its sparseness and evocation of small-town life. Her poems are subtle portraits of the lives of rural families, farmers, housewives, and the struggles and tragedies they face. She has won many prizes for her work, which has been published in books, literary journals, and anthologies. In 2018, she was named Poet Laureate of Arkansas, serving in that role until 2022. Jo Garot was born on December 15, 1935, and raised near DeWitt (Arkansas County). Her father, Leon Joseph Garot, was a rice farmer. Her mother, Ruth Maurine Merritt Garot, was a secondary education teacher. She has one sister, Nancy. Garot grew up on a rice …

McGehee, Peter Gregory

Gay Arkansas-born novelist Peter Gregory McGehee was praised by reviewers for his outrageous comedies of Southern manners, in particular the sly humor with which he explores what he saw as a hypocritical society that easily rationalizes its own moral lapses even as it enforces a narrow, judgmental morality upon others. Peter McGehee was born in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) on October 6, 1955, to Frank T. and Julia Ann May McGehee. The middle of three children, he was six years old when the family moved to Little Rock (Pulaski County), where he attended Forest Park Elementary School and, in 1973, graduated from Parkview High School. Shortly before he would have completed a BFA degree at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, …

McGraw, Patricia Washington

Patricia Washington McGraw, a scholar, professor, and author, has made a significant impact throughout the country and the world as an educator and African-American cultural preservationist. Patricia Washington was born in Little Rock (Pulaski County) to William and Ruth Washington, natives of Danville (Yell County), on May 6, 1935. While she was growing up in a time of school segregation and Jim Crow laws, her parents instilled in her the value of education and the importance of embracing her African-American heritage. In 1953, she graduated from all-black Dunbar High School in Little Rock. McGraw graduated from San Francisco State College in California in 1957 and earned a master’s degree in American literature from the college in 1967. She was the …

McLarey, Myra Dell

Howard County native Myra Dell McLarey is a teacher and an author of a wide variety of works, many influenced by her childhood in southwest Arkansas. She is best known for her 1995 debut novel Water from the Well, a semi-autobiographical work of fiction set in the fictional town of Sugar Springs, Arkansas. Myra Dell McLarey, the youngest of five children, was born on September 5, 1942, in Okay (Howard County), the company town of the Okay Cement Plant, to Charles Drowns McLarey Jr. and Josie Earline Fincher McLarey. Her father was a supervisor at the cement plant as well as a deputy sheriff and the elected constable of the Saratoga-Okay township; her mother was a homemaker and later a …

McMath, Phillip Hal

Phillip Hal McMath is a Little Rock (Pulaski County) trial attorney, an award-winning writer, a Marine Corps Vietnam War veteran, and an ardent advocate for preserving and promoting Arkansas literature and history. McMath has published four novels and numerous short stories and articles, along with producing two plays. His book Lost Kingdoms was the winner of the Arkansiana Fiction Award in 2009, while The Broken Vase received the Booker Worthen Prize in 2011 . McMath established the Porter Prize in 1984, which has made a significant contribution to literature in Arkansas. Phillip McMath was born in Memphis, Tennessee, to Sidney Sanders McMath and Anne Phillips McMath on December 25, 1945; he has two brothers and two sisters. In 1948, McMath’s father was elected …

Medearis, Mary Myrtle

Though she always considered herself a musician, Mary Myrtle Medearis was best known as the author of Big Doc’s Girl (1942), a novel that grew out of an assigned autobiographical short story in a creative writing class. It has the distinction of having stayed in print longer than any other work of fiction by an Arkansan. Ever tenacious, Medearis had great success as a writer and historian in spite of her humble beginnings—and partly because of them. Mary Medearis was born in North Little Rock (Pulaski County) on May 31, 1915. Her mother, Myrtle Hendricks, taught piano. Her father, Dr. Robert Medearis, practiced medicine. Mary, whose maternal grandparents had been vaudeville performers, inherited her family’s love for music. By the …

Mikel, Elmer Wayne

Elmer Wayne Mikel was a bootlegger during Prohibition and later became a self-published author who wrote books and essays about his criminal life and his experiences at the notorious Tucker State Prison Farm (now the Tucker Unit of the Arkansas Department of Correction) in Jefferson County in the 1930s. Mikel was also a songwriter who wrote about Arkansas subjects, including the deadly Greenwood (Sebastian County) tornado of 1968. Elmer Mikel was born on October 8, 1905, in Jenny Lind (Sebastian County), one of ten children of George Elmer Mikel and Amanda Featherston Mikel. George Mikel, a Missouri native, was active in the United Mine Workers of America and ran as a socialist candidate for governor of Arkansas in 1912. Elmer Mikel attended high school but …

Mock, Lucy Byrd

Lucy Byrd Mock, a native of Prairie Grove (Washington County), set numerous records as a golfer, established two national World War I–era women’s organizations, and was a noted author, journalist, poet, and publisher. Lucy Byrd Mock was born in Prairie Grove on February 23, 1876, the second of James Mock and Amanda Patton Mock’s six children. She was a student at the Methodist Academy in Prairie Grove until 1890, when she was admitted to the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County) as a fourteen-year-old sophomore. After completing the spring semester in 1893, she spent part of her summer break on a trip overseas to Great Britain, where she learned to play golf. Mock enjoyed the game so much …

Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry

First published in 1871, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry is an abstruse philosophical tract written by Arkansas historical figure Albert Pike. The lengthy text explores the strengths and weaknesses of human character, the morals and meanings behind mythological symbols, major world religions, and ancient mystery teachings. It advocates for self-improvement through study and reflection, and it proclaims upright character to be a necessary support for democracy. Written as a spiritual instruction manual for the Masonic order, Morals and Dogma represents the philosophy of Scottish Rite Freemasonry as understood by Pike, who is known as the leading figure of the American Masonic revival movement of the mid-nineteenth century. Given Pike’s presence in Arkansas in …

Morgan, Speer

The author of novels and short-story collections, Speer Morgan is a professor and the editor of The Missouri Review. Many of Morgan’s novels are set in Arkansas, including The Freshour Cylinders (1998), which won Foreword Magazine’s Silver Award for the best book of the year and an American Book Award in 1999. Speer Morgan was born in Fort Smith (Sebastian County) on January 25, 1946, to Charles Donald and Betty (Speer) Morgan. Morgan attended the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, from 1964 to 1966, as well as the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County), where he received a BA in 1968. He married that same year. He received a PhD in 1972 from Stanford University. Morgan was …

Morris, Gilbert Leslie

A Christy award–winning Christian author, Gilbert Leslie Morris wrote more than 200 books for young adults spanning several genres, including historical novels, westerns, science fiction, and fantasy. His most well-known series of novels, the “House of Winslow” series, has collectively sold more than a million copies. Gilbert Morris was born on May 24, 1929, in Forrest City (St. Francis County) to Osceola M. and Jewell Irene (Gilbert) Morris. Morris attended Arkansas State College (now Arkansas State University) and received a BA in English in 1948 and an MSE in 1962. He received a PhD from the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County) in 1968 and also attended the University of Washington–Seattle. Morris married Johnnie Yvonne Fegert on May …

My Life

My Life is the autobiography of William Jefferson Clinton, a former governor of Arkansas and the forty-second president of the United States, and was written during the three years after he left the office of president in 2001. The 957-page book, published in hardcover in 2004 by Alfred A. Knopf of New York, was the most thorough memoir of a presidency ever published and the most financially successful. Knopf ordered a first printing of one and a half million copies, but two million orders were received before its release; the company ordered a second printing of 1,075,000. On the day of its release, booksellers sold more than 400,000 copies. Clinton had received a ten-million-dollar advance to write the book, which …

My Own, My Native Land

My Own, My Native Land, published in 1935, is an anthology of short stories by Thyra Samter Winslow, a native of Fort Smith (Sebastian County). In writing these stories, Winslow contributed significantly to the new wave of popular American magazines in the early twentieth century. These stories and sketches depict the mores of a small Southwestern town, likely modeled on Fort Smith, showing people preoccupied with social status and family pride. The anthology contains forty pieces. Some appeared in The New Yorker under a heading that became the title of the collection. Others were first published in other magazines, especially Smart Set, a widely read publication subtitled, “A Magazine of Cleverness,” edited by H. L. Mencken and George-Jean Nathan. Winslow …

Newberry, Farrar Claudius

Farrar Claudius Newberry—historian, businessman, philanthropist, and writer—was nationally known for his association with the Woodmen of the World (WOW). He authored several books and dozens of articles on Arkansas history topics. Newberry is also responsible for many markers placed at historical sites throughout Clark County. Farrar Newberry was born on July 30, 1887, in Gurdon (Clark County) to Lawrence Clinton and Mattie Harris Newberry. The family moved to Arkadelphia (Clark County) in 1894. In 1906, Newberry graduated from Arkadelphia Methodist College (which later became Henderson-Brown College) and, in 1908, received a master’s degree from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Newberry married Lillie Lee Thomasson on June 22, 1911, in Little Rock (Pulaski County), and the couple had two sons. Newberry …

Newth, Rebecca

aka: Rebecca Newth Harrison
Rebecca Newth Harrison is a writer working in Fayetteville (Washington County). Her literary corpus includes six books of poetry, a memoir, and a collection of children’s books. Newth is also the founder of Will Hall Books and an advocate for the arts in northwest Arkansas. Rebecca Newth was born on September 21, 1940, in Lansing, Michigan, to William Arthur Newth and Catherine Messenger Newth. She is the eldest of four children. Newth’s parents both worked at Michigan State University (MSU), her father as an accountant and her mother as a medical technician. Newth attended MSU, graduating with a BA in English literature in 1962. At MSU, Newth met and married John Harrison, who was pursuing a career in library science. …

Noland, Fent

aka: Charles Fenton Mercer (Fent) Noland
One of Arkansas’s most famous citizens during the antebellum period was Charles Fenton Mercer (Fent) Noland, a Batesville (Independence County) lawyer. He became a national figure as one of the leading “Southwestern humorists” with the regular publication of his letters in the New York Spirit of the Times, the leading national sports and humor newspaper. Noland was Arkansas’s representative in the literary movement named for the “old Southwest” (Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas), which delighted the nation with an array of bucolic frontier/agrarian writings. Fent Noland was named for Charles Fenton Mercer, the family friend who founded Aldie, Virginia, where he was born on August 23, 1810, the fourth of the five children of William and Catherine (Callender) Noland. His father …