As I continue the effort to downsize my book collection, I keep running across interesting tomes that I simply must examine in further detail. This title is one of those.
The book published the winners of a contest sponsored by the Huntsville branch of the American Association of University Women. Nearly 200 entries were received. Judges Elise Sanguinetti, Thomas C. Turner and Oxford Stroud chose the 29 winners, who were all Alabama natives or residents of the state for at least six months. The three judges were published authors of novels and short fiction in addition to their other activities.
The foreword is signed by "The Publishers", meaning Strode, and expresses the hope that other contests and collections will appear in the future. Apparently none did. Based in Huntsville, Strode was a very active publisher for several decades beginning in the late 1950's. David Strode Akens [1921-2012], also head of the Historical Department at the Marshall Space Flight Center in the 1960's and 1970's, steered the company as it published books on a wide range of topics.
The collection was edited by O.B. Emerson [1921-1990]. Although born in Tennessee, he settled in Tuscaloosa, where he taught at the University from 1946 until 1986. Much of his own scholarly writing concentrated on William Faulkner and other southern writers.
Near the beginning of his lengthy introduction Emerson notes the diversity of the collection. "In this volume there are stories of academic life, stories about the Civil War, stories that involve significant relations of Negroes and whites, stories about death, a story concerning the time of Christ. In fact there seems to be no limit to the imagination of Alabama writers. This volume is a tribute to their originality and versatility. The stories vary in tone and style as much as they do in subject matter." In the remainder of his 14-page introduction Emerson discusses each story in some detail.
I used the "Alabama Authors" database as a measure of achievement and searched for information about all the writers in this collection. I found nine of the 29 individuals. Since Lee Smith, Jesse Hill Ford and H.E. Francis developed significant literary careers, I won't cover them further. The other six are less well known, and I'll discuss them briefly here. The remaining 20 authors would require more extensive research. However, each story in the collection has a biographical note with information about the authors' lives and writings up to 1970.
State native Helen Morgan Akens [1918-2012] taught at Huntingdon, Montevallo and Athens Colleges and served as Dean of Women at Athens. She founded Strode Publishers with her husband David. The story in this collection, "Call Me Ma", is apparently her only published fiction. She also wrote two popular histories with Virginia Pounds Brown, Alabama, Mounds to Missiles (1962) and Alabama Heritage (1968).
Joseph Roberts, who wrote "Ever Been to Braden?" served in the U.S. military 1942-1943 and again 1951-1968. In that year he began teaching at Troy State, a post he held until 1981. In addition to writing at least two books on fish as pets, he published a novel, Web of Life in 1957 and a book of poems in 1980. I've found no indication he published any other short fiction.
Carolynne Scott was born in Birmingham in 1937. She worked at two of that city's newspapers and other publications. In 1979 her book Country Roads: A Journey Through Rustic Alabama appeared. Her collection of 15 short stories, The Green and the Burning Alike, was published in 1992. Her story in this collection, "Far Bella Figura" later appeared in the February 1982 issue of Short Story International. Auburn University has a small collection of her papers. You can read more about her at her author page on Amazon.
John Craig Stewart [1915-2003] was a Selma native. After service in World War II, he taught at the University of Alabama (1950-1964) and the University of South Alabama (1964-1983). In addition to "The Last Day" in this collection, he had previously published the story "Outlaw Dog" in the Saturday Evening Post issue of September 24, 1955. His introduction here notes more than ten published stories. He published three novels, The First Gate (1960), Muscogee Twilight (1965) and The Last to Know (1981). I've done a blog post on him here.
"The Pink Puppy" is Nell Brasher's story in the anthology. Brasher [1912-1992] wrote a column "Page from a Diary" for the Birmingham Post-Herald 1966-1974. A collection of short stories, The Weaning and Other Stories appeared the year after her death. Some of her columns were collected in Angel Tracks in the Cabbage Patch (1972) and other books.
Most of the published work by Marjorie Lees Linn [1930-1979] beyond the story "Please Listen, Aunt Viney" seems to have been poetry. A collection of poems, Threads from Silence, was published the year after her death. Linn had no formal schooling after eighth grade, and she married at sixteen. Her introduction here does note publication of short stories, poetry and articles in various publication. She wrote a 1964 essay about the September 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham that killed four young girls and injured 22 others.
An acknowledgement page in the back notes that several stories in the anthology were previously published, such as Jesse Hill Ford's and John Craig Stewart's in the Atlantic Monthly and one by H.E. Francis in Transatlantic Review. See below for the entire listing.
