One Year Old

One year ago, Southern Gothic went online with some of the best Southern Gothic fiction and poetry on the web. During our first year, two stories we published ("Space is Kindness" by first-time author Jason Sanford, and "An Aesthetic Education" by Catharine Savage Brosman) were recognized by the storySouth Million Writers Award as Notable Stories.

For the first anniversary, the tradition of excellence continues with two fantastic new stories - "Enucleation Means to Remove an Eye" by storySouth editor Jason Sanford, and "Vertically Divided, Blue-Red-White" by journalist Mark MacNamara.

Jason's work is already well-represented on the web, but I am grateful to him for letting us publish one of the best stories I've read in a while. His story is as Southern Gothic as it gets.

Mark MacNamara is an American journalist writing from Morocco, where parts of "Vertically Divided, Blue-Red-White" are set. The story grew out of a piece Mark wrote for Salon.com a few months ago. Although it's connections to the Southern Gothic tradition are thin, the story was just too good to pass up, especially as this is Mark's first piece of published fiction, and what a way to start!

We've also got a brand new look for the first anniversary, with photos and art by Michael Dare, and photos by Jon and Jackie Sparks. So please stop by and check out the new stories. And while you're there, please click on a links and help us grow the Pay the Damn Authors Fund so that we can start paying authors for their work next year!